ABSTRACT: There is a recent trend in a number of federal courts in the United States to offer assistance, which was previously unavailable under a federal statute, to litigants in private international arbitration proceedings seeking to gather evidence from non-parties located in the U.S. Thus, if a non-party from whom documents is sought is located in a jurisdiction friendly to such efforts, it opens up a whole new avenue of information gathering in international arbitration that could put one party at a distinct advantage. This article charts these recent developments and provides the historical underpinning of the shift in judicial attitudes of some U.S. courts toward efforts of litigants in private international arbitration proceedings to obtain documents for use in those proceedings.
Revista Brasileira de Arbitragem