In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 19-1847

SERVOTRONICS, INC.,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

ROLLS-ROYCE PLC and

THE BOEING COMPANY,

Intervenors-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 18-cv-7187 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 — DECIDED SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

____________________

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and HAMILTON and BRENNAN,

Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Chief Judge. Section 1782(a) of Title 28 authorizes

the district court to order a person within the district to give

testimony or produce documents “for use in a proceeding in 

a foreign or international tribunal.” This case asks whether a 

private foreign arbitration is “a proceeding in a foreign or 

international tribunal” within the meaning of the statute. 
2 No. 19-1847

Two decades ago, the Second and Fifth Circuits answered 

this question “no,” holding that § 1782(a) authorizes the 

district court to provide discovery assistance only to statesponsored foreign tribunals, not private foreign arbitrations. 

Nat’l Broad. Co. v. Bear Stearns & Co., 165 F.3d 184, 191 (2d 

Cir. 1999); Republic of Kazakhstan v. Biedermann Int’l, 168 F.3d 

880, 883 (5th Cir. 1999).

More recently, the Sixth Circuit reached the opposite 

conclusion, Abdul Latif Jameel Transp. Co. v. FedEx Corp. (In re 

Application to Obtain Discovery for Use in Foreign Proceedings), 

939 F.3d 710, 714 (6th Cir. 2019), and the Fourth Circuit 

agreed, Servotronics, Inc. v. Boeing Co., 954 F.3d 209, 214 (4th 

Cir. 2020). We join the Second and Fifth Circuits and hold 

that § 1782(a) does not authorize the district court to compel

discovery for use in a private foreign arbitration.

I. Background

The backdrop for this case is an indemnification dispute 

over losses incurred when an aircraft engine caught fire 

during testing in South Carolina. Rolls-Royce PLC manufactured and sold a Trent 1000 engine to the Boeing Company 

for incorporation into a 787 Dreamliner aircraft. In January 

2016 Boeing tested the new aircraft at its facility near the 

Charleston International Airport. A piece of metal became 

lodged in an engine valve, restricting the flow of fuel to the 

engine. As Boeing employees attempted to fix the problem,

the engine caught fire, damaging the aircraft. Boeing demanded compensation from Rolls-Royce, and in 2017 the

companies settled for $12 million. Rolls-Royce then sought 

indemnification from Servotronics, Inc., the manufacturer of 

the valve.
No. 19-1847 3

Under a long-term agreement between Rolls-Royce and 

Servotronics, any dispute not resolved through negotiation 

or mediation must be submitted to binding arbitration in 

Birmingham, England, under the rules of the Chartered 

Institute of Arbiters (“CIArb”). Negotiations did not bear 

fruit, so Rolls-Royce initiated arbitration with the CIArb. For

convenience, the parties agreed to conduct the arbitration in 

London.

Servotronics thereafter filed an ex parte application in the 

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois asking 

the court to issue a subpoena compelling Boeing to produce 

documents for use in the London arbitration. The application invoked 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a), and the judge initially 

granted it and issued the requested subpoena. Rolls-Royce 

intervened and moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that 

§ 1782(a) does not permit a district court to order discovery 

for use in a private foreign commercial arbitration. Boeing

intervened and joined the motion to quash. The judge reversed course and quashed the subpoena. She agreed with 

Rolls-Royce and Boeing that § 1782(a) does not authorize the 

court to provide discovery assistance in private foreign 

arbitrations. Servotronics appealed. Rolls-Royce and Boeing 

jointly defend the judge’s ruling.

II. Discussion 

A. Statutory Framework

Sections 1781 and 1782 of Title 28 govern the district 

court’s authority to provide discovery assistance in litigation 

in foreign and international tribunals. Section 1781 describes

a formal judicial instrument known as a “letter rogatory”—a 

letter of request “issued by one court to a foreign court,
4 No. 19-1847

requesting that the foreign court (1) take evidence from a 

specific person within the foreign jurisdiction ... and 

(2) return [it] ... for use in a pending case.” Letter of Request,

BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019).

Letters rogatory are transmitted through diplomatic 

agencies; the statute provides that the State Department may,

either “directly, or through suitable channels, ... receive a 

letter rogatory issued, or request made, by a foreign or 

international tribunal, to transmit it to the tribunal, officer, or 

agency in the United States to whom it is addressed,” and 

“receive and return it after execution.” 28 U.S.C. § 1781(a)(1). 

The assistance is reciprocal; tribunals in the United States 

may issue letters rogatory through the State Department to a 

“foreign or international tribunal, officer, or agency.”1 Id.

§ 1781(a)(2). 

Section 1782 works in tandem with and supplements

§ 1781, empowering the district court to order a person 

within the district to give testimony or provide evidence for 

1 A State Department regulation elaborates: 

In its broader sense in international practice, the term 

letters rogatory denotes a formal request from a court in 

which an action is pending, to a foreign court to perform 

some judicial act. Examples are requests for the taking of 

evidence, the serving of a summons, subpoena, or other 

legal notice, or the execution of a civil judgment. In 

United States usage, letters rogatory have been commonly utilized only for the purpose of obtaining evidence. 

Requests rest entirely upon the comity of courts toward 

each other, and customarily embody a promise of reciprocity.

22 C.F.R. § 92.54.
No. 19-1847 5

use in foreign litigation, either in response to a letter rogatory or on application of a person with an interest in the 

litigation. The key portion of the statute reads as follows:

The district court of the district in which a person resides or is found may order him to give 

his testimony or statement or to produce a 

document or other thing for use in a proceeding 

in a foreign or international tribunal, including 

criminal investigations conducted before formal accusation.

Id. § 1782(a) (emphasis added). The link to § 1781 comes in 

the next sentence:

The order may be made pursuant to a letter 

rogatory issued, or request made, by a foreign 

or international tribunal or upon the application of any interested person and may direct 

that the testimony or statement be given, or the 

document or other thing be produced, before a 

person appointed by the court.

Id.

The statute also gives the judge the discretion to prescribe procedures for the collection of evidence, including 

the option to require adherence to the practice and procedure of the foreign country or international tribunal in 

question:

The order may prescribe the practice and procedure, which may be in whole or part the practice 

and procedure of the foreign country or the international tribunal, for taking the testimony or 

statement or producing the document or other 
6 No. 19-1847

thing. To the extent that the order does not prescribe otherwise, the testimony or statement 

shall be taken, and the document or other thing 

produced, in accordance with the Federal 

Rules of Civil Procedure.

Id. (emphasis added).

This case involves a § 1782(a) application filed by a party

to a private commercial arbitration in the United Kingdom; 

there is no letter rogatory or request from a foreign or international tribunal. Rather, Servotronics invoked the statute by 

virtue of its status as an “interested person” in the London 

arbitration. The judge issued the subpoena ex parte but later 

quashed it after concluding that § 1782(a) does not authorize

federal courts to provide discovery assistance to private 

foreign arbitrations. Servotronics takes issue with that 

interpretation of the statute, so we’re asked to resolve a

purely legal question and our review is de novo. United 

States v. Titan Int’l, Inc., 811 F.3d 950, 952 (7th Cir. 2016).

B. Applicability to Private Foreign Arbitrations

This is a question of first impression for our circuit, but 

several other circuits have addressed it and a split has 

recently emerged. The disagreement centers on the meaning 

of the statutory phrase “foreign or international tribunal”—

or more particularly, the word “tribunal.”

The Second Circuit was the first to confront the question

more than 20 years ago. The court began by observing that

although the phrase “foreign or international tribunal” does 

not unambiguously exclude private arbitral panels, neither 

does it unambiguously include them. Nat’l Broad. Co., 

165 F.3d at 188. After reviewing the statutory and legislative 
No. 19-1847 7

history, the court concluded that the phrase, considered in 

context, is limited to state-sponsored foreign and international tribunals. Id. at 188–91. The court added that a contrary interpretation would create an inexplicable conflict with 

the Federal Arbitration Act. More specifically, a broad grant 

of federal-court authority to compel discovery in private 

foreign arbitrations “would stand in stark contrast to” the 

extremely limited judicial role in domestic arbitrations. Id. at 

191. Accordingly, the court held that the statute does not 

authorize district courts to order discovery for use in private 

foreign arbitrations. Id.

The Fifth Circuit quickly agreed with that interpretation,

Biedermann Int’l, 168 F.3d at 883, and that’s where things 

stood for many years. No other appellate court weighed in 

until last year when the Sixth Circuit read the word “tribunal” broadly and held that the district court’s authority to 

compel discovery for use in foreign litigation extends to 

private foreign arbitrations. In re Application to Obtain Discovery, 939 F.3d at 714.

A few months later, the Fourth Circuit aligned itself with 

the Sixth Circuit in a case involving a § 1782(a) application 

by Servotronics in a district court in South Carolina seeking 

discovery for use in this same London arbitration. Servotronics, 954 F.3d at 212–13. The Fourth Circuit’s decision

differs in one respect from the Sixth Circuit’s; it rests in part 

on the court’s view that contractual arbitration is the “product of government-conferred authority” both in the United 

Kingdom and the United States.2 Id. at 214.

2 That view strikes us as mistaken. Contractual arbitration is private

dispute resolution. The source of a private arbitral panel’s adjudicative 
8 No. 19-1847

Finally, and more recently still, the Second Circuit reaffirmed its interpretation of § 1782 notwithstanding the

contrary views of the Sixth and Fourth Circuits. In re Guo, 

965 F.3d 96, 104 (2d Cir. 2020). The court also held that 

nothing in the Supreme Court’s decision in Intel Corp. v. 

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241 (2004), required a 

course correction. In re Guo, 965 F.3d at 105–06. We’ll return 

to Intel in a moment; for now, it’s enough to say that the 

Court’s decision does not tip the scales in favor of either side 

of the circuit split. 

For several reasons, we side with the Second and Fifth 

Circuits in this interpretive debate. First, the word “tribunal” 

is not defined in the statute, and dictionary definitions do 

not unambiguously resolve whether private arbitral panels 

are included in the specific sense in which the term is used 

here. All definitions agree that the word “tribunal” means “a 

court,” but some are more expansive, leaving room for both 

competing interpretations.

For example, in 1964 when the present-day version of the 

statute was adopted, Black’s Law Dictionary defined “tribunal” as: “The seat of a judge; the place where he administers 

justice. The whole body of judges who compose a jurisdiction; a judicial court; the jurisdiction which the judges 

exercise.” Tribunal, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (4th ed. 1951).

That definition appears to exclude private arbitral panels. 

Today the legal definition of “tribunal” is broader: “A court 

authority is found in the parties’ contract, not a governmental grant of 

power. A private arbitral body does not exercise governmental or quasigovernmental authority. But we need not explore this point further. No 

one here argues that arbitration in the United Kingdom (or the United 

States) is the product of government-conferred authority. 
No. 19-1847 9

of justice or other adjudicatory body.” Tribunal, BLACK’S LAW 

DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019).

Nonlegal definitions are similar. See, e.g., Tribunal, THE 

CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH (5th ed. 

1964) (defining “tribunal” as “[j]udgement-seat ... ; court of 

justice”); Tribunal, WEBSTER’S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY 

DICTIONARY (2d ed. 1964) (defining “tribunal” as “the seat of 

a judge; ... a court of justice”); Tribunal, AMERICAN HERITAGE 

DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (5th ed 2018) (defining “tribunal” as “[a] law court[;] ... [a] committee or board 

appointed to adjudicate in a particular matter”); Tribunal,

MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS (2020) 

(defining “tribunal” as “the seat of a judge[;] a court of 

justice[;] something that decides or determines, [as in] the ~

of public opinion ...”).

In short, canvassing dictionary definitions is inconclusive. In both common and legal parlance, the phrase “foreign 

or international tribunal” can be understood to mean only 

state-sponsored tribunals, but it also can be understood to 

include private arbitration panels. Both interpretations are 

plausible.

C. Statutory Context

As always, context is key to unlocking meaning. After all, 

statutory words and phrases “cannot be construed in a 

vacuum. ... It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context 

and with a view to their place in the overall statutory 

scheme.” Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Jackson, 139 S. Ct. 1743, 

1748 (2019) (quoting Davis v. Mich. Dep’t of Treasury, 489 U.S. 

803, 809 (1989)). Once we situate the word “tribunal” in its 
10 No. 19-1847

proper statutory context, the more expansive reading of the 

term—the one that includes private arbitrations—becomes 

far less plausible.

As we’ve noted, the language of present-day § 1782 dates 

to 1964. See Intel, 542 U.S. at 247–49 (describing the statutory 

history of § 1782). The text was proposed by the Commission 

on International Rules of Judicial Procedure, a study group

created by Congress in 1958 with the following statutory 

charge:

The Commission shall investigate and study 

existing practices of judicial assistance and cooperation between the United States and foreign countries with a view to achieving 

improvements. To the end that procedures 

necessary or incidental to the conduct and settlement of litigation in State and Federal courts 

and quasi-judicial agencies which involve the 

performance of acts in foreign territory, such as 

the service of judicial documents, the obtaining 

of evidence, and the proof of foreign law, may 

be more readily ascertainable, efficient, economical, and expeditious, and that the procedures of our State and Federal tribunals for the 

rendering of assistance to foreign courts and 

quasi-judicial agencies be similarly improved, 

the Commission shall—

(a) draft for the assistance of the Secretary of State international agreements to be 

negotiated by him;
No. 19-1847 11

(b) draft and recommend to the President any necessary legislation;

(c) recommend to the President such 

other action as may appear advisable to 

improve and codify international practice 

in civil, criminal, and administrative proceedings; and

(d) perform such other related duties as 

the President may assign.

Act of Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. No. 85-906, § 2, 72 Stat. 1743, 

1743. Noticeably absent from this statutory charge is any

instruction to study and recommend improvements in 

judicial assistance to private foreign arbitration.

“Six years later, in 1964, Congress unanimously adopted 

legislation recommended by the Rules Commission,” which

“included a complete revision of § 1782.” Intel, 542 U.S. at 

248; Act of Oct. 3, 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-619, § 9, 78 Stat. 995, 

997. The legislation also revised 28 U.S.C. § 1696, pertaining 

to service of process in foreign litigation, and § 1781, regarding letters rogatory. Act of Oct. 3, § 4, 78 Stat. 995; id. § 8, 78 

Stat. 996. All three statutes use the identical phrase “foreign 

or international tribunal” to describe the object of the district 

court’s litigation assistance.

Identical words or phrases used in different parts of the 

same statute (or related statutes) are presumed to have the 

same meaning. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. 

Dabit, 547 U.S. 71, 86 (2006). Service-of-process assistance 

and letters rogatory—governed by §§ 1696 and 1781—are 

matters of comity between governments, which suggests

that the phrase “foreign or international tribunal” as used in 
12 No. 19-1847

this statutory scheme means state-sponsored tribunals and 

does not include private arbitration panels.

Within § 1782(a) itself, the word “tribunal” appears three 

times—first in the operative sentence authorizing the district 

court to order discovery “for use in a proceeding in a foreign 

or international tribunal,” and again in the next sentence, 

which authorizes the court to act on a letter rogatory issued 

by “a foreign or international tribunal.” Two sentences later 

the word “tribunal” appears again where the statute provides that the court’s discovery order “may prescribe the 

practice and procedure, which may be in whole or part the

practice and procedure of the foreign country or the international 

tribunal.” (Emphasis added.)

The highlighted phrase parallels the earlier phrase “foreign or international tribunal.” Harmonizing this statutory 

language and reading it as a coherent whole suggests that a

more limited reading of § 1782(a) is probably the correct one: 

a “foreign tribunal” in this context means a governmental, 

administrative, or quasi-governmental tribunal operating 

pursuant to the foreign country’s “practice and procedure.”

Private foreign arbitrations, in other words, are not included.

D. Conflict with the Federal Arbitration Act

This narrower understanding of the word “tribunal” 

avoids a serious conflict with the Federal Arbitration Act

(“FAA”), 9 U.S.C. §§ 1–15 (amended 1988). We “interpret 

Congress’s statutes as a harmonious whole rather than at 

war with one another.” Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S. Ct. 

1612, 1619 (2018). When a statute is susceptible of two interpretations, one that creates a conflict with another statute 

and another that avoids it, we have an obligation to avoid 
No. 19-1847 13

the conflict “if such a construction is possible and reasonable.” Precision Indus., Inc. v. Qualitech Steel SBQ, LLC, 327 F.3d 

537, 544 (7th Cir. 2003). Applying this principle to the relationship between the FAA and § 1782 confirms that the latter

does not apply to private foreign arbitrations.

The discovery assistance authorized by § 1782(a) is notably broader than that authorized by the FAA. Most significantly, the FAA permits the arbitration panel—but not the 

parties—to summon witnesses before the panel to testify and 

produce documents and to petition the district court to 

enforce the summons. 9 U.S.C. § 7. Section 1782(a), in contrast, permits both foreign tribunals and litigants (as well as 

other “interested persons”) to obtain discovery orders from 

district courts. If § 1782(a) were construed to permit federal 

courts to provide discovery assistance in private foreign 

arbitrations, then litigants in foreign arbitrations would have

access to much more expansive discovery than litigants in

domestic arbitrations. It’s hard to conjure a rationale for 

giving parties to private foreign arbitrations such broad 

access to federal-court discovery assistance in the United 

States while precluding such discovery assistance for litigants in domestic arbitrations.

Moreover, the FAA applies to some foreign arbitrations 

under implementing legislation for the Convention on the 

Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 

and the Inter-American Convention on International Commercial Arbitration. See 9 U.S.C. §§ 201–208, 301–307; Nat’l 

Broad. Co., 165 F.3d at 187. Reading § 1782(a) broadly to 

apply to all private foreign arbitrations creates a direct 

conflict with the Act for this subset of foreign arbitrations. 
14 No. 19-1847

In sum, what the text and context of § 1782(a) strongly 

suggest is confirmed by the principle of avoiding a collision

with another statute: a “foreign or international tribunal” 

within the meaning of § 1782(a) is a state-sponsored, public,

or quasi-governmental tribunal.

E. Intel and Legislative History 

Intel was the Supreme Court’s first—and to date only—

occasion to address § 1782(a). The Court held that the statute

may be invoked by a nonlitigant “interested person,” Intel, 

542 U.S. at 256–57, and also that a foreign proceeding need 

not be pending or imminent but only “within reasonable 

contemplation,” id. at 259. And the Court clarified that 

§ 1782(a) does not contain an implicit foreign-discoverability 

requirement. Id. at 260–63. Finally, and most pertinent here, 

the Court considered whether the proceeding at issue in the 

case—before the Directorate General for Competition of the 

Commission of the European Communities—was a “proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.” The Court 

had no difficulty concluding that the Directorate, as a public 

agency with quasi-judicial authority, qualified as a “foreign 

tribunal” within the meaning of § 1782(a).

Along the way to this last holding, the Court sketched 

the legislative history of § 1782 and as a part of its discussion 

quoted from a footnote in a law-review article written by the 

law professor who served as the reporter for the commission 

that proposed what eventually became § 1782. This passage 

in Intel has taken on outsized significance here, so we quote 

it in full: “The term ‘tribunal’ [in § 1782(a)] ... includes 

investigating magistrates, administrative and arbitral tribunals, and quasi-judicial agencies, as well as conventional 

civil, commercial, criminal, and administrative courts.” Id. at 
No. 19-1847 15

258 (emphasis added) (quoting Hans Smit, International 

Litigation Under the United States Code, 65 COLUM. L. REV.

1015, 1026 n.71 (1965)).

Servotronics relies heavily on the professor’s inclusion of 

“arbitral tribunals” in this footnoted list, but this reliance is 

misplaced. The quotation from the professor’s article appears in the Court’s opinion as part of an explanatory parenthetical. There is no indication that the phrase “arbitral 

tribunals” includes private arbitral tribunals. Even if there 

were such an indication, we see no reason to believe that the 

Court, by quoting a law-review article in a passing parenthetical, was signaling its view that § 1782(a) authorizes district 

courts to provide discovery assistance in private foreign 

arbitrations.

In short, this passage cannot bear the weight Servotronics 

places on it. For the foregoing reasons, we join the Second 

and Fifth Circuits in concluding that § 1782(a) does not

authorize the district courts to compel discovery for use in 

private foreign arbitrations.

AFFIRMED