Originally from World Arbitration And Mediation Review (WAMR)

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RECENT INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

PRIVATE, INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION
PANEL QUALIFIES AS § 1782 TRIBUNAL,
U.S. COURT HELD
Provided by Jane Wessel∗ & Peter J. Eyre**

On December 19, 2006, the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Georgia handed down a judgment that expands the
reach of 28 U.S.C. § 1782, a U.S. statute that permits persons who are (or
are likely to be) involved in non-U.S. dispute resolution proceedings to seek
discovery in the U.S. in aid of those proceedings.
The court held that a private commercial arbitration tribunal at the
International Arbitration Centre for the Austrian Federal Economic
Chamber in Vienna qualifies as a “tribunal” for purposes of section 1782.
In In re Application of Roz Trading Ltd., Case No. 1:06-cv-02305-WSD
(N.D. Ga. Dec 19, 2006), the court held that it had authority under section
1782 to enter an order requiring the respondent to disclose relevant
documents.
The parties’ dispute arose from an alleged breach of contract between
Roz Trading and its joint venture partners, which were doing business in
Uzbekistan. After initiating the international arbitration, Roz petitioned the
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to order the
respondent (The Coca-Cola Company) to produce documents for use in the
arbitration proceedings. Respondent argued that the court should follow the
Second Circuit’s reasoning in National Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. Bear
Stearns & Co., Inc., 165 F.3d 184 (2d Cir. 1999), which held that section
1782 applies only to governmental-sponsored bodies, including courts.
Acknowledging that the issue was one of first impression in the Circuit,
the court in the Northern District of Georgia relied upon a recent U.S.
Supreme Court case, Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S.
214 (2004). In that case, the Court ruled that the Directorate General for