Antitrust Discovery And International Comity: Limitations To Document Production

Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, there are no geographical limitations on discovery requests.

Overview Of International Comity In The Antitrust Discovery Context

A U.S. court could theoretically order the production of documents held anywhere in the world, so long as those documents pertain to a "nonprivileged matter that is relevant."¹ These broad discovery procedures create tension between the various foreign antitrust enforcement agencies and the U.S. federal courts, particularly with respect to documents submitted to foreign enforcement authorities as part of their confidential investigations.² In order to incentivize parties to self-disclose information through amnesty programs and more generally to cooperate with investigations, most, if not all, enforcement authorities take the position that confidential submissions made during their antitrust investigations cannot be used for any other purpose other than the investigation itself. U.S. regulators