Court Opens Third Party's Files To Aid Private International Arbitration

Crowell & Moring won a precedent setting victory on December 19, when the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia held in In re Roz Trading Ltd., No. 1:06-cv-02305-WSD, that a private arbitral panel qualified as a "tribunal" under 28 U.S.C. § 1782 thus permitting Roz to obtain documents from Coca-Cola in an international arbitration pending before the Vienna International Arbitral Centre against Uzbekistan and others. The court relied heavily on the Supreme Court's rationale in Intel Corp v. Advanced Micro Devices, 542 U.S. 241 (2004) to reject application of two prior Court of Appeals (2nd and 5th Circuits) decisions that had held Section 1782 did not apply to private arbitration, thus opening the door for government contractors who find themselves in arbitrated disputes with their foreign government customers and in need of discovery from entities located in the United States.