### In the 

# United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

____________________

No. 16

- 2504
S HLOMO L EIBOVITCH , et al

. , Plaintiff s

- Appell ant s ,

v.
I SLAMIC R EPUBLIC OF I RAN , et al

. , Defendant s , and

B ANK OF T OKYO

- M ITSUBISHI UFJ, L TD

. and BNP P ARIBAS , Appe llees

.

____________________ Appeal from t he United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division

. No. 08 C 1939

— Ruben Castillo , Chief Judge

.

____________________
A RGUED F EBRUARY 23, 2017

— D ECIDED M ARCH 29, 2017

____________________

Before P OSNER , E ASTERBROOK , and M ANION , Circuit Judges

. P OSNER , Circuit Judge

. In 2003, a 7

- year

- old Israeli girl was killed, her 3

- year

- old sister (an American citizen) perm a-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

m i nivan they all were riding in on a highway in Jerus a lem

was shot up by members of Palestine Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group supported by the govern ment of Iran.
The surviving family members , plus the estate of the child who was killed, filed a damages suit against the I s lamic R e public of Iran and its Ministry of Information and Security (we’ll simplify by pretending that the only defe n dant is Iran) i n 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 pr o tracted proceedings that included an appeal to this court, see Leibovitch v. Islamic Repu b lic of Iran , 697 F.3d 561 (7th Cir. 2012), the district court e n tered a default judgment of $67 million against the Iranian defe n dants.
But how to collect? The plaintiffs began their search with two large foreign banks that had held Iranian assets in the pas t. Although both the Japanese bank, Bank of T o kyo

Mitsubishi 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

a s sets 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 inform a tion, the plaintiffs issued both federal subpoenas and Illinois cit ations (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.No

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T he Japanese bank has branches in more than 40 cou n tries and the French bank has branches in 75 countries , and it is poss i ble that branches in some of those countries , or perhaps the home offices of the two parent banks, hold Ir a nian assets that the plaintiffs might be able to seize by means of their d e fault judgmen t

. 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 o f branches of the two banks worldwide e xceeds 7 , 500, and plaintiffs insist that they are entitled, by vi rtue of their su b poenas and citations, to compel the parent banks to search all their branches for Iranian government a ssets

— assets that once located th e plaintiffs might be able to execute their default judgment against. The banks asked the district court to quash the subpoenas, arguing that the fe d eral court does not have personal jurisdiction over them to force them to comply.
At the oral argument of t he appeal, the plaintiff’s cou n sel argued that personal jurisdiction is irrel e vant 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 Ame r ica, Inc. v. Weixing Li , 768 F.3d 122, 134, 136

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

. , Federal Practice & Pr o cedure § 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 i n formation that the plaintiffs seek, they had to be able to prove that the court h a s personal jurisdiction over the banks , that is, jurisdiction over4 No. 16

- 2504

the “pe r sons” (the two banks) against which relief is sought

— hence jurisdiction to subpoena them

. It’s not as if the foreign banks are incorporated or hea dquartered 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 j urisdiction over a foreign corpor a tion ‘ to hear any and all claims against [it]’ only when the corpor a tion’s affiliations with the State in which suit is brought are s o constant and pervasive ‘as to render [it] essentially at home in the f o rum 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 cal led “specific” jurisdiction over a corporation if the corp o ration’s activities within the jurisdiction of the court are closely r e lated to the lawsuit or, as in this case , to subpoenas (or state

court citations, which needn’t be discussed separately) i ssue d within that jurisdiction . See , e.g., Wa l den 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 Su b poenas 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 acti v it ies in the United States. If the subpoenas sought only to discover whether , and if so what , Iranian government a s sets were in either or both of the two Chicago b ranch banks, the district court would have jurisdiction to enforce the subpoenas ( and cit ations ) b e cause the branches are in the court’s district . But we
now know that the Chicago branches neither are holding Iranian government assets n or know which if any of theirNo

. 16

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si s ter branches elsewhere (either in or outside the United States), or the parent banks’ home office s , are holding any such assets. T hat being so, there can be no personal jurisdi ction over the parents

. As there’s no indication that any U.S. bran ch of either bank is holding Iranian assets , if the plai ntiffs are dete r mined to execute their default judgment against Iranian government a s sets they’ll have to look abroad. We’re puzzled that n one of the plaintiffs who brought the suit against Iran that resulted in the default judgment are

res i dents of Illinois . Why they are suing here rather than in the districts in which they live or work is u n explained. 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 touc hed 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 info r mation that they have demanded from the respondent T o kyo and Paris banks.
A FFIRMED