Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-02504/USCOURTS-ca7-16-02504-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 16-2504

SHLOMO LEIBOVITCH, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, et al.,

Defendants,

and

BANK OF TOKYO-MITSUBISHI UFJ, LTD. and BNP PARIBAS,

Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 08 C 1939 — Ruben Castillo, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 23, 2017 — DECIDED MARCH 29, 2017

____________________

Before POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and MANION, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. In 2003, a 7-year-old Israeli girl was 

killed, her 3-year-old sister (an American citizen) permaCase: 16-2504 Document: 36 Filed: 03/29/2017 Pages: 5
2 No. 16-2504

nently disabled, and six Israeli members of the children’s 

family (two other siblings of the Israeli girl plus her parents 

and grandparents) were injured emotionally, when the 

minivan they all were riding in on a highway in Jerusalem 

was shot up by members of Palestine Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group supported by the government of Iran.

The surviving family members, plus the estate of the 

child who was killed, filed a damages suit against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Ministry of Information and Security (we’ll simplify by pretending that the only defendant is 

Iran) in the federal district court in Chicago, under both the 

Antiterrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2333, and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1605A. After protracted 

proceedings that included an appeal to this court, see Leibovitch v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 697 F.3d 561 (7th Cir. 2012), 

the district court entered a default judgment of $67 million 

against the Iranian defendants. 

But how to collect? The plaintiffs began their search with 

two large foreign banks that had held Iranian assets in the 

past. Although both the Japanese bank, Bank of TokyoMitsubishi UFJ, Limited, and the French bank, BNP Paribas,

have branches in Chicago, neither branch holds any Iranian 

government assets or has any information regarding such

assets held by other branches of their parent banks, or by the 

parent banks themselves in their home offices (Tokyo and 

Paris, respectively). In an effort to obtain that information, 

the plaintiffs issued both federal subpoenas and Illinois citations (the equivalent of subpoenas) in the federal district 

court in Chicago, seeking an order directing the parent 

banks to reveal Iranian assets held in any of the far-flung, 

worldwide branches of the two banks. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 45. 

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No. 16-2504 3

The Japanese bank has branches in more than 40 countries 

and the French bank has branches in 75 countries, and it is 

possible that branches in some of those countries, or perhaps 

the home offices of the two parent banks, hold Iranian assets 

that the plaintiffs might be able to seize by means of their

default judgment.

The banks agreed to provide the information sought by 

the plaintiffs’ citations and subpoenas, but only with respect 

to their 17 branches in the United States—and it turns out 

that there are no Iranian assets in any of those branches. The

total number of branches of the two banks worldwide exceeds 7,500, and plaintiffs insist that they are entitled, by virtue of their subpoenas and citations, to compel the parent 

banks to search all their branches for Iranian government assets—assets that once located the plaintiffs might be able to 

execute their default judgment against. The banks asked the 

district court to quash the subpoenas, arguing that the federal court does not have personal jurisdiction over them to 

force them to comply.

At the oral argument of the appeal, the plaintiff’s counsel 

argued that personal jurisdiction is irrelevant for enforcing 

subpoenas under Rule 45. That can’t be right, for a court that 

issues subpoenas is enforcing something rather than begging,

and so far as we know no court has bought the argument.

See, e.g., Gucci America, Inc. v. Weixing Li, 768 F.3d 122, 134, 

136–37 (2d Cir. 2014); 9A Charles A. Wright et al., Federal 

Practice & Procedure § 2454, pp. 398–99 (3d ed. 2008). So to be 

entitled to use the federal district court in Chicago to obtain 

from the parent banks the worldwide information that the 

plaintiffs seek, they had to be able to prove that the court has

personal jurisdiction over the banks, that is, jurisdiction over

Case: 16-2504 Document: 36 Filed: 03/29/2017 Pages: 5
4 No. 16-2504

the “persons” (the two banks) against which relief is 

sought—hence jurisdiction to subpoena them.

It’s not as if the foreign banks are incorporated or headquartered in the United States. If they were, they would be 

within the court’s personal jurisdiction, and the district court 

could force them to comply with any discovery request that 

didn’t present an undue burden. But “a court may assert jurisdiction over a foreign corporation ‘to hear any and all 

claims against [it]’ only when the corporation’s affiliations 

with the State in which suit is brought are so constant and 

pervasive ‘as to render [it] essentially at home in the forum 

State.’” Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746, 751 (2014). That 

is hardly the situation with regard to the two foreign banks.

It is true that a district court can have what is called 

“specific” jurisdiction over a corporation if the corporation’s

activities within the jurisdiction of the court are closely related to the lawsuit or, as in this case, to subpoenas (or statecourt citations, which needn’t be discussed separately) issued within that jurisdiction. See, e.g., Walden v. Fiore, 134 S. 

Ct. 1115, 1121–23 (2014); World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. 

Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 291–92 (1980); Application to Enforce 

Administrative Subpoenas of S.E.C. v. Knowles, 87 F.3d 413, 417 

(10th Cir. 1996). But the subpoenas issued in this case are not 

tailored to the banks’ presence or activities in the United 

States. If the subpoenas sought only to discover whether,

and if so what, Iranian government assets were in either or 

both of the two Chicago branch banks, the district court 

would have jurisdiction to enforce the subpoenas (and citations) because the branches are in the court’s district. But we

now know that the Chicago branches neither are holding 

Iranian government assets nor know which if any of their 

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No. 16-2504 5

sister branches elsewhere (either in or outside the United 

States), or the parent banks’ home offices, are holding any 

such assets. That being so, there can be no personal jurisdiction over the parents. As there’s no indication that any U.S. 

branch of either bank is holding Iranian assets, if the plaintiffs are determined to execute their default judgment 

against Iranian government assets they’ll have to look 

abroad.

We’re puzzled that none of the plaintiffs who brought

the suit against Iran that resulted in the default judgment are 

residents of Illinois. Why they are suing here rather than in 

the districts in which they live or work is unexplained. What 

is worse than merely unexplained is that they’ve presented 

no evidence to suggest that the two Chicago branch banks 

are either holding Iranian government assets or have any 

knowledge of where those assets might be held. In short, 

what are they doing here?

The briefs filed in this case sum to 140 pages and include 

numerous issues that we haven’t touched on—having no 

need to do so. It should be apparent from what we’ve said so 

far that the plaintiffs have no legal right to the information 

that they have demanded from the respondent Tokyo and 

Paris banks.

AFFIRMED

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