US Supreme Court Holds That US Courts Cannot Assist Discovery in Private Foreign or International Arbitrations

Litigants in foreign arbitrations have long looked to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 as a potential avenue for obtaining something close to US-style discovery. But, the US Supreme Court unanimously held this week that this federal statute allowing US courts to assist “foreign or international tribunal[s]” in gathering evidence does not apply to private adjudicative bodies, such as private international commercial arbitral tribunals. The Court’s opinion in ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 596 U.S. ___ (2022), thus forecloses parties’ utilization of 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a) to obtain discovery in the United States for use in purely private international arbitrations and has the following implications...