EXHIBIT A

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA 

Case No.: 

In re Application of 

NOVOSHIP (UK) LIMITED, 

 

 Applicant, 

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 for Judicial 

Assistance in Obtaining Evidence for Use in 

Foreign and International Proceedings. 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––/ 

DECLARATION OF STEPHEN KIRKPATRICK IN SUPPORT OF EX PARTE

PETITION OF NOVOSHIP (UK) LIMITED FOR JUDICIAL ASSISTANCE 

IN AID OF A FOREIGN PROCEEDING PURSUANT TO 28 U.S.C. § 1782 

I, Stephen Kirkpatrick, under penalty of perjury and pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746 and 

the laws of the United States of America, declare the following: 

1. I am over the age of 18 and, except as otherwise noted, provide this Declaration 

based on my own personal knowledge. 

2. I am a partner of the law firm of Reed Smith LLP, based in its London office 

located at Broadgate Tower, 20 Primrose Street, London, England EC2A 2RS. 

3. I currently represent Novoship (UK) Limited (“Novoship”) in its defense of a 

legal action taking place before the English High Court (Maroil Trading Inc & Others v. Cally 

Shipholdings Inc & Others, Claim No. CL-2018-000824) (the “Foreign Proceeding”). 

4. The Foreign Proceeding involves two sets of claims. The first set of claims are 

those brought by Maroil Trading, Inc. (“Maroil”) and Sea Pioneer Shipping Corporation (“Sea 

Pioneer”) (collectively, the “Foreign Claimants”)—entities beneficially owned and controlled 

by Venezuelan businessman Wilmer Ruperti (“Mr. Ruperti”)—against Novoship and five other 

defendants for breach of a settlement agreement due to the disclosure of allegedly confidential 

documents to third parties. The five other defendants in the Foreign Proceeding are Cally 

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Shipholdings Inc., Vital Shipping Corporation, Dainford Navigation Inc., Tamara Shipholdings 

S.A., and Tuscany Maritime S.A. (together with Novoship, the “Foreign Defendants”). In 

addition to Novoship, Reed Smith represents all of the Foreign Defendants in the Foreign 

Proceeding. 

5. The second set of claims in the Foreign Proceeding are those brought by the 

Foreign Defendants against two of their former agents who actually caused the disclosure of 

the allegedly confidential documents at issue: Burford Capital (UK) Limited (“Burford”) and 

Daniel James Hall (“Mr. Hall”) (collectively, the “Foreign Third-Party Defendants”). 

6. One of the Foreign Defendants’ defenses in the Foreign Proceeding is that the 

disclosure of the allegedly confidential documents was made in the public interest because it 

helped uncover fraudulent and unlawful activity perpetuated by Mr. Ruperti, and it thus was 

justified under the circumstances. If the English Court finds the Foreign Defendants liable to 

the Foreign Claimants for breach of the settlement agreement, then the Foreign Defendants will 

contend that the disclosure was caused by the Foreign Third-Party Defendants acting in breach 

of confidence and for their sole interest, for which the Foreign Defendants should not be held 

liable. 

7. To prevail on the public policy defense, it will need to be proven that the 

disclosure of the allegedly confidential documents was justified in the public interest and that 

there was an actual fraud or other serious unlawful conduct which the disclosure revealed. 

Although the victims of Mr. Ruperti’s misconduct (including the Sargeant family via one of 

their investment entities) actually sued the Foreign Claimants in the English High Court (Latin 

American Investments Limited & Others v. Maroil Trading & Others, Claim No. CL-2017-

000130), they eventually settled and no judicial determination of fraud or other unlawful 

misconduct was reached. Therefore, Novoship seeks third-party discovery from the 

Sargeants—who are not parties to the Foreign Proceedings—to gather evidence on the 

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justifiability of the disclosure of the allegedly confidential documents and the merits of the 

allegations that the Sargeants made against Mr. Ruperti. 

8. To that end, I submit this Declaration in support of Novoship’s petition for the 

granting of an order by this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 for leave to serve discovery 

subpoenas on seven discovery targets residing in this District that are believed to have 

information relating to the fraudulent scheme by Mr. Ruperti against the Sargeants: 

a) Harry Sargeant Jr., an individual residing in this District; 

b) Harry Sargeant III, an individual residing in this District; 

c) Daniel Sargeant, an individual residing in this District; 

d) James Sargeant, an individual residing in this District; 

e) Sargeant Marine Inc., a Florida corporation; 

f) International Oil Trading Company LLC, a Florida limited liability company; 

and 

g) Berger Singerman LLP, a Florida law firm based in this District, to the extent it 

has non-privileged documents relating to Latin American Investments Limited 

(“LAIL”), which is the foreign investment entity owned by the Sargeants that 

the Sargeants claimed was the victim of Mr. Ruperti’s wrongdoing. 

(Collectively, the “Discovery Targets”). 

9. A detailed description of the long and complicated history of facts and 

circumstances that tie the Foreign Claimants, the Foreign Defendants, the Foreign Third-Party 

Defendants, and the Discovery Targets together, resulting in the claims and defenses raised in 

the Foreign Proceedings, is provided below. 

Factual Background Underlying the Foreign Proceeding 

The Novoship Proceedings Against Mr. Ruperti 

10. The saga culminating in the Foreign Proceeding began in 2012, when Novoship 

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obtained a judgment against Mr. Ruperti and some of his business entities (including the 

Foreign Claimants) in the English High Court for fraud (Novoship & Ors v. Mikhaylyuk & Ors,

[2012] EWHC 3586 (Comm)) (the “Novoship Proceedings”). The judgment entered in 

Novoship’s favor and against the Ruperti parties was for approximately USD $78 million. 

11. In 2013, Novoship and the Ruperti parties entered into a Settlement Agreement 

pursuant to which the Ruperti parties agreed to pay Novoship USD $40 million in an instalment 

payment plan. 

12. The Ruperti parties defaulted on the settlement payments, causing Novoship to 

seek enforcement of the judgment around the world. 

13. In 2014, Novoship hired Mr. Hall and his then-company, Focus Intelligence 

Limited, which was subsequently acquired by Burford, to assist in the identification and 

location of Mr. Ruperti’s worldwide assets to collect on the judgment obtained in the Novoship 

Proceedings. As part of said global enforcement efforts, Novoship commenced ancillary 

judgment enforcement proceedings in Florida seeking attachment and collection of Mr. 

Ruperti’s assets. At the same time, Novoship filed a criminal complaint in Switzerland, 

requesting that Mr Ruperti be prosecuted by the Republic and Canton of Geneva given that his 

actions toward Novoship amounted to crimes in that jurisdiction. The Attorney General’s 

Office of Geneva duly commenced the requested criminal proceedings and allowed Novoship 

to have access to information and documents obtained by the prosecutor. Such information and 

documents were made available to Mr. Hall and Burford for the purpose of assisting with 

Novoship’s global enforcement actions. 

14. In the course of the Swiss proceedings, Novoship acquired various documents 

reflecting Mr. Ruperti’s and his companies’ finances (the “Confidential Documents”), 

including bank statements and other documents reflecting the receipt of a multi-million dollar 

settlement of various claims he had against PDVSA Petroleo S.A. (“PDVSA”), the Venezuelan 

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national oil company with whom Mr. Ruperti had close ties. 

The 2016 Settlement Agreement 

15. In 2016, Novoship entered into another settlement with Mr. Ruperti, this time 

approved by the Swiss prosecutor, to resolve the judgment debt and global enforcement 

proceedings (the “2016 Settlement Agreement”). The 2016 Settlement Agreement was signed 

by Mr. Ruperti and the Foreign Claimants, on the one hand, and the Foreign Defendants as 

judgment creditors, on the other hand. 

16. The 2016 Settlement Agreement required that the Foreign Defendants, and their 

respective investigative agents, keep confidential certain information obtained during the 

course of the judgment enforcement proceedings. The Foreign Claimants argue that this 

confidentiality provision covered the Confidential Documents and that the Foreign Defendants 

had an obligation to ensure that Burford and Mr. Hall, as Novoship’s agents, maintained the 

confidentiality of the Confidential Documents. 

The Disclosure of the Confidential Documents by Burford and Mr. Hall 

17. Unbeknownst to the Foreign Defendants, Burford and Mr. Hall disclosed the 

Confidential Documents to a third party in exchange for information that would benefit Burford 

in a matter entirely unrelated to Novoship or the Foreign Defendants, thereby potentially (as 

alleged by the Foreign Claimants) breaching the confidentiality provision of the 2016 

Settlement Agreement. In doing so, neither Burford nor Mr. Hall were acting as agents for 

Novoship or for its benefit. 

18. Specifically, in or around October 2016, Burford and Mr. Hall provided the 

Confidential Documents to LAIL (through Daniel Sargeant) in exchange for documents that 

revealed personally sensitive information pertaining to Harry Sargeant III. 

19. LAIL, an entity incorporated in the Isle of Man, was established as the Sargeant 

family’s investment vehicle for its joint business ventures with Mr. Ruperti in the shipping 

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industry. At the time LAIL and Mr. Ruperti operated their joint ventures, LAIL was owned 

equally by Harry Sargeant Jr. and his three sons, Daniel Sargeant, James Sargeant, and Harry 

Sargeant III. Due to a family rift between Daniel Sargeant and Harry Sargeant III, in or around 

April 2015, Harry Sargeant III relinquished his ownership interest in LAIL. 

20. The Confidential Documents were of interest to LAIL because they revealed, in 

essence, that Mr. Ruperti had diverted monies away from LAIL by failing to inform them that 

he had settled claims with PDVSA that belonged to their joint ventures and, therefore, in part, 

to LAIL, and that Mr. Ruperti had pocketed the settlement sums for himself. This was entirely 

contrary to the dishonest representations Mr. Ruperti made to LAIL on several previous 

occasions, to the effect that no settlement with PDVSA had been reached. To understand this, 

it is necessary to understand the scope of the Ruperti-Sargeant business relationship. 

The Ruperti-Sargeant Business Relationship 

21. The Sargeants’ business relationship with Mr. Ruperti began in or around 2001. 

Between 2001 and 2006, the Sargeants, using LAIL, and Mr. Ruperti, using Maroil (one of the 

Foreign Claimants), entered into various joint ventures, along with a Saudi Arabian company 

named Oceanic Transport Shipping EST (“OTS”). Some of the joint ventures they formed 

include Oceanic Oil Venture Inc., Hero Maritime Corp, Bolivarian Petroleum Transport Ltd, 

Herculito Maritime Ltd, Oil Carriers Ltd, and Suramericana de Transporte Petrolero C.A. 

(collectively, the “JV Companies”). 

22. The JV Companies, in turn, owned various vessels that were chartered out to 

third parties (the “JV Vessels”), principally to PDVSA. For example, on or about May 11, 

2004, one of the JV Vessels (the Alloro, owned by the JV Company Oil Carriers Ltd) was 

chartered on a long-term charter contract to PDVSA. On or about June 2, 2005, another JV 

Vessel (the Polar, owned by the JV Company Herculito Maritime Ltd) was chartered to 

PDVSA for a period of five years. And, on or about March 22, 2006, Sea Pioneer concluded 

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a five-year contract of affreightment with PDVSA, which was performed by two more JV 

Vessels (the Leander and the Hero I, owned by the JV Companies Oceanic Oil Venture Inc. 

and Hero Maritime Corp, respectively). 

23. Upon information and belief, PDVSA breached each of these charter 

agreements, giving rise to multiple claims inuring to the benefit of LAIL and Mr. Ruperti—via 

the JV Companies—against PDVSA. 

The Secret PDVSA Settlements 

24. Some of the claims against PDVSA resulted in the filing of various arbitrations 

against PDVSA. LAIL agreed to have Mr. Ruperti take point with settling the claims against 

PDVSA on its behalf. 

25. Unbeknownst to LAIL (or apparently any of the Sargeants), in December 2014, 

Mr. Ruperti settled all the claims with PDVSA and arranged for the settlement payments to be 

made to Mr. Ruperti’s benefit, fraudulently concealing everything from LAIL and presumably 

the Sargeants for months, if not years. 

26. It was around this time that the Sargeant family feud embroiled, resulting in 

Harry Sargeant III’s eventual relinquishment of his ownership in LAIL. 

27. In or around January 2015, Mr. Hall met Daniel Sargeant and told him he was 

acting for a client who was trying to enforce a judgment against his brother, Harry Sargeant 

III, and seeking assets to trace, and that he also was acting for Novoship to enforce a judgment 

against Mr. Ruperti. Thereafter, in or around August 2016, Mr. Hall approached Daniel 

Sargeant and allegedly offered to give him the Confidential Documents that revealed Mr. 

Ruperti’s fraudulent concealment of the PDVSA settlements, in exchange for personally 

sensitive information pertaining to Harry Sargeant III, which Daniel Sargeant obtained without 

Harry Sargeant III’s permission. This exchange of information occurred in or around October 

2016. 

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The LAIL/Ruperti Proceedings

28. Armed with the Confidential Documents, in or around March 2017, LAIL 

initiated proceedings against Mr. Ruperti in the English High Court to recover its portion of 

the PDVSA settlements that had been fraudulently concealed (the “LAIL/Ruperti 

Proceedings”). LAIL alleged that Mr. Ruperti breached his contractual and fiduciary duties, 

fraudulently concealed these breaches, and wrongfully kept the substantial settlement sums 

from PVDSA entirely for himself instead of accounting to LAIL. 

29. In or around March 2017, LAIL also obtained a worldwide freezing order 

against the Foreign Claimants in the sum of USD $60.8 million. OTS obtained a similar 

injunction against the Foreign Claimants for USD $23 million in May 2017. 

30. By November 2017, LAIL and Mr. Ruperti reached a settlement in the 

LAIL/Ruperti Proceedings pursuant to which the Foreign Claimants were to pay LAIL, OTS, 

and entities related to them USD $30 million in three tranches. It is believed that the Foreign 

Claimants paid the first tranche, but then defaulted on the agreement. According to the Foreign 

Claimants’ amended statement of claim in the Foreign Proceeding, a revised agreement was 

then concluded by which the Foreign Claimants were to pay LAIL, OTS and their related 

entities further tranches amounting to USD $18 million, of which USD $15 million has been 

paid. It remains unknown to Novoship whether the Foreign Claimants have complied with the 

remaining payment obligation of USD $3 million. 

The Florida Action 

31. After the disclosure of the Confidential Documents, in September 2017, Harry 

Sargeant III filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against, 

amongst others, Mr. Ruperti, the Foreign Claimants, Daniel Sargeant, LAIL, and Mr. Hall. See 

Harry Sargeant III v. Maroil Trading Inc., et al., Case No. 17-cv-81070 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 25, 

2017) (the “Florida Action”). 

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32. Over the course of the Florida Action, Harry Sargeant III sued Mr. Ruperti and 

the Foreign Claimants for, inter alia, fraud relating to the secret PDVSA settlements, claiming 

that he would not have relinquished his ownership in LAIL had he known about the settlements. 

He also brought claims against Daniel Sargeant, LAIL and Mr. Hall for, inter alia, conspiracy 

to unlawfully acquire certain personally sensitive material for use in harassing and 

embarrassing him publicly, which material Daniel Sargeant ultimately exchanged with Mr. 

Hall in return for the Confidential Documents that revealed the Ruperti fraud. 

33. In or around early 2018, Harry Sargeant III settled the Florida Action as against 

Mr. Ruperti and the Foreign Claimants in exchange for a sum to be paid by the Ruperti parties 

over time. 

34. The Florida Action eventually was voluntarily dismissed as to all remaining 

parties in June 2018. 

The Foreign Proceeding and Novoship’s Asserted Defenses 

35. In 2018, the Foreign Claimants initiated the Foreign Proceeding against the 

Foreign Defendants for breach of the 2016 Settlement Agreement as a result of the disclosure 

of the Confidential Documents to LAIL, which sparked the LAIL/Ruperti Proceedings. The 

Foreign Claimants argue, in effect, that had the Confidential Documents not been disclosed to 

LAIL, they would not have been sued by LAIL and would not have had to pay LAIL any 

settlement sums: they would effectively have gotten away with their wrongdoing against LAIL. 

The damages claimed in the Foreign Proceeding are the amounts that the Foreign Claimants 

have to pay LAIL to settle the fraud claims in the LAIL/Ruperti Proceedings, that is, USD $30 

million, plus additional costs and lost profits allegedly caused by the imposition of the freezing 

orders which LAIL obtained. 

36. The Foreign Defendants have, in turn, sued Burford and Mr. Hall as third-party 

defendants in the Foreign Proceeding for having disclosed the Confidential Documents to 

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LAIL and the Sargeants. 

37. One of the Foreign Defendants’ arguments in defense of the claims against them 

is that the disclosure of the Confidential Documents cannot be deemed a breach of the 2016 

Settlement Agreement because the documents uncovered wrongdoing perpetuated by Mr. 

Ruperti against LAIL as described above, and thus public policy justifies the disclosure and 

protects them against any liability. 

38. To prevail on that defense, however, it must be proven that Mr. Ruperti and the 

Foreign Claimants were, in fact, liable to LAIL, i.e. that Mr. Ruperti did actually divert monies 

from LAIL and deceive LAIL as to this fact. The Foreign Claimants have also alleged in the 

Foreign Proceeding that they were in fact under no liability to LAIL, on a number of grounds. 

The Foreign Defendants are therefore effectively in the position of having to litigate LAIL’s 

claim in full as part of their own defense. The practical challenges which this presents are 

obvious. 

39. Accordingly, Novoship needs discovery of information in the Discovery 

Targets’ possession, custody and control to help evidence the actual wrongdoing by Mr. 

Ruperti, to overcome the Foreign Claimants’ defenses, and also to show that the circumstances 

justified the disclosure of the Confidential Documents. 

40. The Foreign Defendants also have an additional defense to the effect that the 

contents of one of the settlement agreements concluded in secret by Mr. Ruperti with PDVSA 

had entered the public domain and lost its confidential character prior to its disclosure by Mr. 

Hall to Daniel Sargeant. This is said to have occurred in connection with a hearing in the 

English High Court in April 2015, at which the relevant settlement was in evidence. The 

judgment following that hearing made reference to the settlement and was reported in the trade 

press, and evidence served in the LAIL/Ruperti Proceedings indicated that these matters came 

to the attention of Daniel Sargeant and/or LAIL. Novoship accordingly needs discovery of 

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information in the Discovery Targets’ possession, custody and control to help sustain its public 

domain defense. 

Summary and Recap of the Factual Background 

41. To summarize this complicated history and the importance of the discovery 

sought by Novoship for its defense in the Foreign Proceeding, there are four sets of players that 

can be grouped as follows: 

a. the Ruperti-related parties, which include the Foreign Claimants currently 

suing Novoship for breach of the 2016 Settlement Agreement due to the 

disclosure by its purported agents, Burford and Mr. Hall, of the Confidential 

Documents to the Sargeants and LAIL; 

b. the Foreign Defendants (including Novoship), which are defending against 

claims of breach of the 2016 Settlement Agreement by arguing, among other 

things, that the disclosure of the Confidential Documents by its former agents 

should not be deemed an actionable breach of the 2016 Settlement Agreement 

because, inter alia, it revealed that Mr. Ruperti had secretly diverted monies 

from LAIL and fraudulently concealed the same, thus the disclosure was for the 

public good and, consequently, there can be no liability; 

c. the Foreign Third-Party Defendants, which are the former Novoship agents 

that actually disclosed the Confidential Documents to the Sargeants and LAIL, 

having done so for their own individual interest and without Novoship’s 

knowledge or involvement; and 

d. the Sargeant-related parties (including the Discovery Targets), who are 

believed to possess evidence of the circumstances surrounding the disclosure of 

the Confidential Documents and evidence that Mr. Ruperti actually diverted 

monies from LAIL and fraudulently concealed the same, which Novoship seeks 

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as part of its defense that the disclosure of the Confidential Documents is not 

actionable based on public policy. 

42. This grouping of parties is distilled in the following chart, with the shaded 

Sargeant-related entities denoting the Discovery Targets: 

Foreign Claimants 

(controlled by Mr. Ruperti)

 Foreign Defendants Foreign Third-Party 

Defendants 

Maroil Trading, Inc. Novoship Burford Capital (UK) 

Limited 

Sea Pioneer Shipping 

Corporation 

Cally Shipholdings, Inc. Daniel James Hall 

 Vital Shipping Corporation 

 Dainford Navigation Inc. 

 Tamara Shipholdings S.A. 

 Tuscany Maritime S.A. 

Sargeant-Related Entities 

Harry Sargeant Jr. 

James Sargeant

Harry Sargeant III 

Daniel Sargeant 

LAIL (non-Florida entity) 

Sargeant Marine Inc. 

International Oil Trading 

Company LLC 

Berger Singerman LLP 

(LAIL’s Florida counsel) 

Summary of the Requested Discovery and its Relevance to the Foreign Proceeding 

43. As described above, the Sargeants have information helpful to establishing 

Novoship’s defenses in the Foreign Proceeding that the disclosure of the Confidential 

Documents was justifiable under the circumstances and that it is not actionable conduct because 

it helped reveal wrongdoing by Mr. Ruperti, in addition to information that will assist Novoship 

in overcoming the Foreign Claimants’ defenses to the underlying allegations of such 

wrongdoing. 

44. Harry Sargeant Jr., Harry Sargeant III, Daniel Sargeant, and James Sargeant are 

individuals with knowledge of Mr. Ruperti’s dishonest scheme against LAIL regarding the 

secret PDVSA settlements; indeed, the Sargeants have sued Mr. Ruperti for this in both 

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England (the LAIL/Ruperti Proceedings) and the U.S. (the Florida Action) and thus are almost 

certainly in possession of documents and information that establish Mr. Ruperti’s wrongdoing. 

Furthermore, it is believed that they are in possession of documents evidencing that the 

disclosure of the Confidential Documents was made with a view to exposing that wrongdoing, 

including documents revealing the nature of any “deal” made with Burford or Mr. Hall in 

exchange for the information, the state of knowledge of the persons involved in the disclosure, 

and whether the Confidential Documents potentially existed in the public domain even prior to 

the disclosure. 

45. Sargeant Marine Inc. and International Oil Trading Company LLC are entities 

owned and controlled by members of the Sargeant family that also are believed to have 

information probative of Mr. Ruperti’s wrongdoing and the circumstances surrounding the 

disclosure of the Confidential Documents. Based on information and belief, the Sargeants used 

these entities’ servers for email correspondence and as document repositories for business 

conducted in relation to LAIL, which, in turn, relates to the dishonest scheme. 

46. Finally, while LAIL does not reside in the United States, to the extent LAIL’s 

Florida counsel in the Florida Action, Berger Singerman, has non-privileged documents in its 

possession, custody and control responsive to the discovery that Novoship seeks, those 

documents also should be discoverable for aiding Novoship in the Foreign Proceeding. 

47. The discovery sought from the Discovery Targets generally consists of (1) 

documents relating to the circumstances of the actual divulgation of the Confidential 

Documents by Mr. Hall and Burford, and (2) documents probative of Mr. Ruperti’s misconduct 

towards LAIL by concealing the PDVSA settlements and pocketing the sums for himself. 

48. To that end, the document requests are aimed at establishing the facts 

surrounding Mr. Hall and Daniel Sargeant’s agreement to exchange information; the 

circumstances of the disclosure of the Confidential Documents, which are highly probative and 

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relevant to the justifiability of the disclosure in the public interest; the relationship between 

LAIL and Mr. Ruperti, including their business operations and treatment of the JV Companies’ 

earnings; and the details of the PDVSA settlements, and LAIL’s claims against Mr. Ruperti for 

fraudulently keeping them from the Sargeants. 

49. Furthermore, Novoship believes that the negotiation and the terms of the 

settlement of the Florida Action between Harry Sargeant III and the Ruperti-related parties may 

shed light on facts critical to proving Mr. Ruperti’s misconduct. That such misconduct and 

dishonesty occurred would explain why the Ruperti-related parties paid to settle Harry Sargeant 

III’s fraud claims that arise from the same nucleus of fact. 

50. Finally, in addition to documentary discovery, Novoship also seeks leave to 

obtain testimony from the Discovery Targets in the event that the documents obtained pursuant 

to this Petition are insufficient or need explanation or context that the Sargeants can provide. 

Novoship would depose the individual Discovery Targets based on their personal knowledge, 

and would take record custodian depositions of the corporate Discovery Targets for purposes 

of determining where additional documents may be found. 

The Elements of 28 U.S.C. § 1782 Are Satisfied 

51. Novoship seeks assistance from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Florida, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782, to obtain relevant and probative 

documentary and testimony evidence from the Discovery Targets for use in its defense of the 

claims against it in the Foreign Proceeding. This request meets all necessary and discretionary 

elements. 

52. The Discovery Targets all reside in this District. 

53. In addition, the Discovery Targets are not parties to the Foreign Proceeding, nor 

are they expected to become parties to the Foreign Proceeding. Moreover, it is not otherwise 

possible to compel the Discovery Targets to provide the discovery sought as they are located 

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outside of the jurisdiction of the English High Court presiding over the Foreign Proceeding. 

54. There is no indication that the English High Court would not be receptive to the 

documentary evidence obtained through this Section 1782 petition. Indeed, such evidence will 

very likely be admissible before the English High Court, and the Section 1782 petition does 

not circumvent any proof-gathering restriction under English law or any specific orders issued 

in the Foreign Proceeding. 

55. The Foreign Proceeding is in its discovery stages. Novoship anticipates that the 

trial will be set for some time in 2021. 

56. The requested discovery is not intrusive or unduly burdensome. Novoship seeks 

documentary business information that is, or should be, readily available to the Discovery 

Targets. 

57. No previous application for this relief has been made in the United States. 

58. In light of the foregoing, Novoship respectfully submits that all of the 

requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 1782 are met: 

a. the Discovery Targets are found in this District; 

b. Novoship seeks to obtain documents and possibly testimony for use in its 

defense in a foreign proceeding currently before the English High Court; 

c. Novoship is an “interested person” in the Foreign Proceeding within the 

meaning of the statute; and 

d. the Discovery Targets have relevant and probative information relating to 

Novoship’s defense in the Foreign Proceeding. 

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that 

 

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