Supreme Court Limits U.S. Discovery In Foreign Arbitration Proceedings

Not all this summer's United States Supreme Court decisions were controversial. In a decision that is probably only meaningful to litigation lawyers, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that foreign, private arbitration disputes do not have access to United States federal courts to obtain orders for discovery from U.S. citizens.

Although the case, ZF Automotive US, Inc. et al. v. Luxshare, Ltd. did not receive the press of other, more controversial recent decisions, it was a clear indication from the Court that it was not willing to allow federal courts to become involved in enforcing discovery requests that clearly do not involve foreign governmental tribunals. This may strike some of us as contrary to the more open, freewheeling discovery that is the norm in the U.S. and seems somewhat at odds with the general U.S. policy favoring arbitration. But the dispute as to whether federal law allowed foreign, private arbitration panels to gather evidence from U.S.