Originally from:
The Practice of International Litigation - 2nd Edition - Looseleaf
The Practice of International Litigation - 2nd Edition - Electronic
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A Tale of Two Cities: Compulsory Testimony Abroad
Lawrence W. Newman and Michael Burrows
It is not unusual for testimony in United States cases to be taken
through depositions outside its borders. Frequently, witnesses whose
testimony is taken are those who are willing to present themselves
voluntarily; as a result, no elements of compulsion are needed. In rarer
cases, testimony must be taken pursuant to court order, including an order
of the court where the reluctant witness resides. This column discusses the
realities of the taking of such testimony based on experience in a recent
case.
The rules for taking such testimony are set forth in the Hague
Convention of March 18, 1970 on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil
or Commercial Matters, which entered into force for the United States on
October 7, 1972, TIAS 7444, 23 UST 2555, and is reproduced following 28
U.S.C. § 1781 in the West editions of the U.S. Judicial Code. It provides for
the obtaining of evidence in civil or commercial lawsuits pursuant to
“letters of request” from the judicial authority of one signatory nation to a
designated authority in another signatory country.
The principal practical importance of the Convention is that it provides
a method by which parties to civil proceedings in one signatory country
may obtain evidence, in the form of testimony or “by judicial acts” (Article
1), from non-parties to the litigation located in another country and to do
so under the authority of the other country’s judicial system. The evidence
that may be so obtained has been declared by a great many signatory
countries to exclude the “pretrial discovery of documents as known in
Common Law countries,” reflecting widespread suspicion of pretrial
evidence-gathering. Article 23.
The Convention provides that the requested authority in the foreign
country “apply the appropriate measures of compulsion in the instances
and to the same extent as is provided by its internal law. . . .” Article 10.
The importance of the Convention lies, to a great extent, on this authority
to compel the production of evidence in the foreign country, although the
receiving country’s judicial authority must apply its own law as to the
methods and procedures to be filed complying with the request. Article 9.
The Convention requires that the letter of request be translated into the
local language — or French or English if the requested state so permits.
Article 4. The letters of request are to be executed “expeditiously.” Article
9.
Lawrence W. Newman has been a partner in the New York office of Baker & McKenzie since 1971, when, together with the late Professor Henry deVries, he founded the litigation department in that office. He is the author/editor of 4 works on international litigation/arbitration.
Michael Burrows, Formerly, Of Counsel, Baker & McKenzie, New York.
