Vesuvius USA Corporation, et al. v. Royston Phillips

In Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale v. United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, 482 U.S. 522 (1987), this Court addressed how courts should apply comity principles to accommodate the broad discovery obligations imposed on parties in litigation in the United States with foreign laws that restrict production of information and documents located in foreign nations. When this Court decided Aérospatiale, the primary foreign-law obstacle to U.S. discovery was “blocking statutes,” which were laws with one purpose: prohibiting compliance with American discovery obligations. More recently, foreign countries have adopted laws— like the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation—aimed at protecting their citizens’ privacy. The GDPR restricts the ability of companies with operations in the EU to comply with American discovery obligations, and can impose massive penalties for violation. However, the procedures of the Hague Convention remain available to obtain needed discovery in compliance with the GDPR. Such foreign privacy laws, motivated by substantive policy considerations, raise significantly different questions than mere blocking statutes, as this Court recognized in Aérospatiale. The question presented is: When compliance with discovery obligations in an American court is prohibited by the General Data Privacy Regulation, whether principles of comity require the American court to direct the discovering party to seek the requested information and documents through the Hague Convention, rather than through court discovery procedures.