U.S. Extraterritorial Discovery Considerations For Foreign Banking Organizations

Foreign banks that have U.S. offices or U.S. correspondent accounts may, in certain cases, be compelled to produce documents located abroad by subpoenas from U.S. government agencies or civil litigants. In this article, the authors describe the various avenues for such discovery, focusing first on grand jury subpoenas to two Chinese banks and next on the government's recently expanded authority to issue Patriot Act subpoenas. They then turn to civil subpoenas under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in a case involving extraterritorial discovery from a U.S. bank subsidiary of a foreign banking organization. They close discussing another avenue for such discovery under 28 U.S.C. Section 1782.