The International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution has filed an amicus brief requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court grant certiorari to resolve a federal circuit court split on whether 28 U.S.C. § 1782 allows federal district courts to order discovery for private commercial arbitration abroad.

CPR did not take a position on the merits of the case.

Yesterday’s filing in Servotronics Inc. v. Rolls-Royce PLC, et al., No. 20-794, highlights the circuit split underlying the case.  Petitioner Servotronics presents the question,

Whether the discretion granted to district courts in 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a) to render assistance in gathering evidence for use in “a foreign or international tribunal” encompasses private commercial arbitral tribunals, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th and 6th Circuits have held, or excludes such tribunals without expressing an exclusionary intent, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 5th and, in the case below, the 7th Circuit, have held.

CPR urged the Court to resolve this circuit court split, noting in the brief that “the question of whether United States district courts may entertain applications for judicial assistance in obtaining evidence for presentation in arbitral proceedings before international tribunals is one of great relevance to CPR and its constituents.”

The friend-of-the-Court brief states that the “current existence of opposite rules on whether district courts have jurisdiction to render assistance under Section 1782 in gathering evidence for international arbitral tribunals creates both the opportunity for blatant forum shopping and the likelihood of protracted litigation on the threshold jurisdictional question in each of the seven remaining regional circuits that have not decided the question.”

CPR also argues that the court should set the case for argument this term to avoid the likelihood that it will become moot prior to decision.

Section 1782 authorizes “any interested person” in a proceeding before a “foreign or international tribunal” to ask for and receive discovery from a person in the United States.  But the conflicting federal circuit cases differ on whether the statute’s definition of tribunals would cover arbitration matters. The Servotronics parties have decisions going both ways, one in the Fourth Circuit, and the second, the subject of the cert petition, in the Seventh Circuit.

CPR has created a web page for the brief at http://bit.ly/3nklaYp.

CPR Speaks has addressed the issues in this case as they arose.  John Pinney, counsel to Graydon in Cincinnati who prepared the amicus filing on CPR’s behalf, discusses the case in a video post here.  Updates on the circuit split as it developed in 2020’s second half are available here and here.

You can find the CPR amicus filing, as well as other filings in the case, on the Supreme Docket page, here. Law360 covered the filing here, available with a subscription.

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