Up until now, Ward and Bly have balked at testifying about their work for Condea, both citing a Maryland statute that protects private investigators from disclosing their clients and operations.

At the hearing, Tom Filo, a Lake Charles attorney targeted by BBI, testified that in 2006 he got a call from John Dodd, a onetime investor in the security firm, who said he had discovered documents from Filo’s law firm among BBI's files. These confidential documents included medical information about plaintiffs, correspondence related to fees among attorneys, and unfiled legal documents. Filo has contended that these documents were stolen from his offices.

In February 2007, Peter M. Markey, a former Condea Vista superintendent at Condea's Lake Charles plant, acknowledged that from 1997 to 2000 the company employed "a detective agency to monitor and get information of environmental groups in Lake Charles." At the time, Markey said in a deposition that this was part of a PR effort "to understand environmental groups and what was going on here."

On Monday, lawyers for Condea Vista argued that BBI's work for the company had no bearing on the case at hand—brought by a plaintiff charging he was harmed during the cleanup of Condea's 1994 spill—but Savoie's ruling could pave the way for further disclosures about what BBI called its "Lake Charles Project."