(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2021 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is 

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. 

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been 

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC., ET AL. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES 

COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

No. 21–401. Argued March 23, 2022—Decided June 13, 2022* 

These consolidated cases involve arbitration proceedings abroad for 

which a party sought discovery in the United States pursuant to 28 

U. S. C. §1782(a)—a provision authorizing a district court to order the

production of evidence “for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.” In the first case, Luxshare, Ltd., a Hong Kong-based 

company, alleges fraud in a sales transaction with ZF Automotive US,

Inc., a Michigan-based automotive parts manufacturer and subsidiary 

of a German corporation. The sales contract signed by the parties provided that all disputes would be resolved by three arbitrators under 

the Arbitration Rules of the German Institution of Arbitration e.V. 

(DIS), a private dispute-resolution organization based in Berlin. To 

prepare for a DIS arbitration against ZF, Luxshare filed an application

under §1782 in federal court, seeking information from ZF and its officers. The District Court granted the request, and ZF moved to quash,

arguing that the DIS panel was not a “foreign or international tribunal” under §1782. The District Court denied ZF’s motion. The Sixth 

Circuit denied a stay. 

The second case involves AB bankas SNORAS (Snoras), a failed 

Lithuanian bank declared insolvent and nationalized by Lithuanian 

authorities. The Fund for Protection of Investors’ Rights in Foreign

States—a Russian corporation assigned the rights of a Russian investor in Snoras—initiated a proceeding against Lithuania under a bilateral investment treaty between Lithuania and Russia, claiming that 

—————— 

*Together with No. 21–518, AlixPartners, LLP, et al. v. Fund for Protection of Investors’ Rights in Foreign States, on certiorari to the United 

States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

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Lithuania expropriated investments. Relevant here, the treaty establishes a procedure for resolving “any dispute between one Contracting 

Party and [an] investor of the other Contracting Party concerning” investments in the first Contracting Party’s territory, and offers parties 

four options for dispute resolution. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 21– 

518, pp. 64a–65a. The Fund chose an ad hoc arbitration in accordance 

with Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, with each party selecting one arbitrator and those 

two choosing a third. After initiating arbitration, the Fund filed a 

§1782 application in federal court, seeking information from Simon 

Freakley, who was appointed as a temporary administrator of Snoras, 

and AlixPartners, LLP, a New York-based consulting firm where 

Freakley serves as CEO. AlixPartners resisted discovery, arguing that

the ad hoc arbitration panel was not a “foreign or international tribunal” under §1782 but instead a private adjudicative body. The District 

Court rejected that argument and granted the Fund’s discovery request. The Second Circuit affirmed. 

Held: Only a governmental or intergovernmental adjudicative body constitutes a “foreign or international tribunal” under 28 U. S. C. §1782, 

and the bodies at issue in these cases do not qualify. Pp. 5–17.

(a) Section 1782(a) provides that a district court may order discovery 

“for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.” Standing alone, the word “tribunal” can be used either as a synonym for

“court,” in which case it carries a distinctively governmental flavor, or 

more broadly to refer to any adjudicatory body. While a prior version 

of §1782 covered “any judicial proceeding” in “any court in a foreign 

country,” §1782 (1958 ed.), Congress later expanded the provision to 

cover proceedings in a “foreign or international tribunal.” That shift 

created “ ‘the possibility of U. S. judicial assistance in connection with

administrative and quasi-judicial proceedings abroad.’ ” Intel Corp. v. 

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U. S. 241, 258 (alterations omitted).

But while a “tribunal” thus need not be a formal “court,” read in context—with “tribunal” attached to the modifiers “foreign or international”—§1782’s phrase is best understood to refer to an adjudicative

body that exercises governmental authority.

“Foreign tribunal” more naturally refers to a tribunal belonging to a 

foreign nation than to a tribunal that is simply located in a foreign 

nation. And for a tribunal to belong to a foreign nation, the tribunal 

must possess sovereign authority conferred by that nation. This reading of “foreign tribunal” is reinforced by the statutory defaults for discovery procedure under §1782, which permit district courts to prescribe the practice and procedure, “which may be in whole or part the 

practice and procedure of the foreign country or the international tribunal.” §1782(a) (emphasis added). The statute thus presumes that 
 

 

Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 3 

Syllabus 

a “foreign tribunal” follows “the practice and procedure of the foreign

country.” That the default discovery procedures for a “foreign tribunal” are governmental suggests that the body is governmental too. 

Similarly, an “international tribunal” is best understood as one that 

involves or is of two or more nations, meaning that those nations have 

imbued the tribunal with official power to adjudicate disputes. So understood, a “foreign tribunal” is a tribunal imbued with governmental

authority by one nation, and an “international tribunal” is a tribunal 

imbued with governmental authority by multiple nations. Pp. 5–9.

(b) Section 1782’s focus on governmental and intergovernmental tribunals is confirmed by both the statute’s history and a comparison to 

the Federal Arbitration Act. From 1855 until 1964, §1782 and its antecedents covered assistance only to foreign “courts.” Congress established the Commission on International Rules of Judicial Procedure, 

see §§1–2, 72 Stat. 1743, and charged the Commission with improving

the process of judicial assistance, specifying that the “assistance and 

cooperation” was “between the United States and foreign countries” and 

that “the rendering of assistance to foreign courts and quasi-judicial 

agencies” should be improved. Ibid. (emphasis added). In 1964, Congress adopted the Commission’s proposed legislation, which became 

the modern version of §1782. Interpreting §1782 to reach only bodies

exercising governmental authority is consistent with Congress’ charge 

to the Commission. The animating purpose of §1782 is comity: Permitting federal courts to assist foreign and international governmental 

bodies promotes respect for foreign governments and encourages reciprocal assistance. It is difficult to see how enlisting district courts to

help private bodies adjudicating purely private disputes abroad would

serve that end. 

Extending §1782 to include private bodies would also be in significant tension with the FAA, which governs domestic arbitration, because §1782 permits much broader discovery than the FAA allows. Interpreting §1782 to reach private arbitration would therefore create a

notable mismatch between foreign and domestic arbitration. Pp. 9– 

11. 

(c) The adjudicative bodies in these cases are not governmental or 

intergovernmental tribunals that fall within §1782. The dispute between Luxshare and ZF involves private parties that agreed in a private contract that DIS, a private dispute-resolution organization, 

would arbitrate any disputes between them. No government is involved in creating the DIS panel or prescribing its procedures. Contrary to Luxshare’s suggestion, a commercial arbitral panel like the 

DIS panel does not qualify as governmental simply because the law of

the country in which it would sit (here, Germany) governs some aspects of arbitration and courts play a role in enforcing arbitration 
 

 

 

4 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

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agreements.

The ad hoc arbitration panel at issue in the Fund’s dispute with 

Lithuania presents a harder question. A sovereign is on one side of 

the dispute, and the option to arbitrate is contained in an international 

treaty rather than a private contract. Yet neither Lithuania’s presence 

nor the treaty’s existence is dispositive, because Russia and Lithuania 

are free to structure investor-state dispute resolution as they see fit.

What matters is whether the two nations intended to confer governmental authority on an ad hoc panel formed pursuant to the treaty. 

See BG Group plc v. Republic of Argentina, 572 U. S. 25, 37. The treaty 

offers a choice of four forums to resolve disputes. The inclusion of 

courts as one option for dispute resolution reflects Russia and Lithuania’s intent to give investors the choice of bringing their disputes before a pre-existing governmental body. By contrast, the ad hoc arbitration panel is not a pre-existing body, but one formed for the purpose 

of adjudicating investor-state disputes. Nothing in the treaty reflects 

Russia and Lithuania’s intent that an ad hoc panel exercise governmental authority. The ad hoc panel has authority because Lithuania 

and the Fund consented to the arbitration, not because Russia and 

Lithuania clothed the panel with governmental authority. Any similarities between the ad hoc arbitration panel and other adjudicatory 

bodies from the past are not dispositive. For purposes of §1782, the 

inquiry is whether the features of the adjudicatory body and other evidence establish the intent of the relevant nations to imbue the body

in question with governmental authority. Pp. 11–16. 

No. 21–401, reversed; No. 21–518, 5 F. 4th 216, reversed. 

BARRETT, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. 
 

 

 

_________________ 

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Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to 

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that 

corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Nos. 21–401 and 21–518 

ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS 

21–401 v. 

LUXSHARE, LTD. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED 

STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

ALIXPARTNERS, LLP, ET AL., PETITIONERS 

21–518 v. 

THE FUND FOR PROTECTION OF INVESTORS’ 

RIGHTS IN FOREIGN STATES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

 [June 13, 2022]

 JUSTICE BARRETT delivered the opinion of the Court. 

Congress has long allowed federal courts to assist foreign

or international adjudicative bodies in evidence gathering. 

The current statute, 28 U. S. C. §1782, permits district 

courts to order testimony or the production of evidence “for

use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.” 

These consolidated cases require us to decide whether private adjudicatory bodies count as “foreign or international

tribunals.” They do not. The statute reaches only governmental or intergovernmental adjudicative bodies, and neither of the arbitral panels involved in these cases fits that

bill. 
 

 

2 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

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I 

Both cases before us involve a party seeking discovery in

the United States for use in arbitration proceedings abroad.

In both, the party seeking discovery invoked §1782, which 

permits a district court to order the production of certain 

evidence “for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.” And in both, the party resisting discovery 

argued that the arbitral panel at issue did not qualify as a

“foreign or international tribunal” under the statute.

But while these cases present the same threshold legal 

question, their factual contexts differ. We discuss each in 

turn. 

A 

The first case involves an allegation of fraud in a business

deal gone sour. ZF Automotive US, Inc., a Michigan-based

automotive parts manufacturer and subsidiary of a German 

corporation, sold two business units to Luxshare, Ltd., a 

Hong Kong-based company, for almost a billion dollars. 

Luxshare claims that after the deal was done, it discovered 

that ZF had concealed information about the business 

units. As a result, Luxshare says, it overpaid by hundreds 

of millions of dollars. 

In the contract governing the sale, the parties had agreed

that all disputes would be “exclusively and finally settled 

by three (3) arbitrators in accordance with the Arbitration

Rules of the German Institution of Arbitration e.V. (DIS).” 

App. in No. 21–401, p. 93. DIS is a private dispute-resolution organization based in Berlin. The agreement, which is

governed by German law, provides that arbitration take 

place in Munich and that the arbitration panel be formed 

by Luxshare and ZF each choosing one arbitrator and those 

two arbitrators choosing a third.

With an eye toward initiating a DIS arbitration against 

ZF, Luxshare filed an ex parte application under §1782 in 
Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, seeking information from ZF and two of its senior officers. (Section 1782 allows a party to obtain discovery even

in advance of a proceeding. See Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U. S. 241, 259 (2004).) The District 

Court granted the request, and Luxshare served subpoenas 

on ZF and the officers. 

ZF moved to quash the subpoenas, arguing (among other 

things) that the DIS panel was not a “foreign or international tribunal” under §1782. As ZF acknowledged, however, Circuit precedent foreclosed that argument. See Abdul Latif Jameel Transp. Co. v. FedEx Corp., 939 F. 3d 710 

(CA6 2019). The District Court ordered ZF to produce documents and an officer to sit for a deposition, and the Sixth 

Circuit denied ZF’s request for a stay.

We granted a stay and certiorari before judgment to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeals over whether the 

phrase “foreign or international tribunal” in §1782 includes

private arbitral panels. Compare Servotronics, Inc. v. Boeing Co., 954 F. 3d 209 (CA4 2020); Abdul Latif, 939 F. 3d 

710, with National Broadcasting Co. v. Bear Stearns & Co., 

165 F. 3d 184 (CA2 1999); Republic of Kazakhstan v. 

Biedermann Int’l, 168 F. 3d 880 (CA5 1999); Servotronics, 

Inc. v. Rolls-Royce PLC, 975 F. 3d 689 (CA7 2020). 

B 

The second case began with a dispute between Lithuania

and a disappointed Russian investor in AB bankas 

SNORAS (Snoras), a failed Lithuanian bank. After finding

Snoras unable to meet its obligations, Lithuania’s central 

bank nationalized it and appointed Simon Freakley, currently the CEO of a New York-based consulting firm called 

AlixPartners, LLP, as a temporary administrator. After 

Freakley issued a report on Snoras’ financial status, Lithuanian authorities commenced bankruptcy proceedings and 
 

4 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

Opinion of the Court 

declared Snoras insolvent. The Fund for Protection of Investors’ Rights in Foreign States—a Russian corporation

and the assignee of the Russian investor—claims that Lithuania expropriated certain investments from Snoras along 

the way.

The Fund initiated a proceeding against Lithuania under

a bilateral investment treaty between Lithuania and Russia (titled “Agreement Between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of 

Lithuania on the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of

the Investments”). App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 21–518, p. 

56a. The treaty seeks to promote “favourable conditions for 

investments made by investors of one Contracting Party in

the territory of the other Contracting Party.” Ibid. 

Relevant here, the treaty addresses the procedure for resolving “any dispute between one Contracting Party and

[an] investor of the other Contracting Party concerning” investments in the first Contracting Party’s territory. Id., at 

64a. It provides that if the parties cannot resolve their dispute within six months, “the dispute, at the request of either party and at the choice of an investor, shall be submitted to” one of four specified forums. Id., at 64a–65a. The 

Fund chose “an ad hoc arbitration in accordance with Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL),” with each party selecting one arbitrator and those two choosing a third. Id., at 

65a; App. in No. 21–518, p. 159a. Under the treaty, “[t]he

arbitral decision shall be final and binding on both parties

of the dispute.” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 21–518, at 65a. 

After initiating arbitration, but before the selection of arbitrators, the Fund filed a §1782 application in the U. S. 

District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking information from Freakley and AlixPartners about 

Freakley’s role as temporary administrator of Snoras. 

AlixPartners resisted discovery, arguing that the ad hoc arbitration panel was not a “foreign or international tribunal” 
 

Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

under §1782 but instead a private adjudicative body. The 

District Court rejected that argument and granted the

Fund’s discovery request.

The Second Circuit affirmed. Unlike the Sixth Circuit, 

the Second Circuit had previously held that a private arbitration panel does not constitute a “foreign or international

tribunal” under §1782. See National Broadcasting Co., 165 

F. 3d 184. But it still had to decide how to classify the

ad hoc panel that would adjudicate the dispute between the 

Fund and Lithuania. After employing a multifactor test to

determine “‘whether the body in question possesses the

functional attributes most commonly associated with private arbitration,’” it concluded that the ad hoc panel was 

“foreign or international” rather than private. 5 F. 4th 216, 

225, 228 (2021).

We granted certiorari and consolidated the two cases.

595 U. S. ___ (2021). 

II 

We begin with the question whether the phrase “foreign

or international tribunal” in §1782 includes private adjudicative bodies or only governmental or intergovernmental

bodies. If the former, all agree that §1782 permits discovery 

to proceed in both cases. If the latter, we must determine 

whether the arbitral panels in these cases qualify as governmental or intergovernmental bodies. 

A 

Section 1782(a) provides: 

“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.” 
 

6 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

Opinion of the Court 

The key phrase for purposes of this case is “foreign or international tribunal.” 

Standing alone, the word “tribunal” casts little light on

the question. It can be used as a synonym for “court,” in

which case it carries a distinctively governmental flavor. 

See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 1677 (4th ed. rev. 1968) 

(“[t]he seat of a judge” or “a judicial court; the jurisdiction 

which the judges exercise”). But it can also be used more 

broadly to refer to any adjudicatory body. See, e.g., American Heritage Dictionary 1369 (1969) (“[a]nything having 

the power of determining or judging”). Here, statutory history indicates that Congress used “tribunal” in the broader 

sense. A prior version of §1782 covered “any judicial proceeding” in “any court in a foreign country,” 28 U. S. C.

§1782 (1958 ed.), but in 1964, Congress expanded the provision to cover proceedings in a “foreign or international tribunal.” As we have previously observed, that shift created 

“‘the possibility of U. S. judicial assistance in connection 

with administrative and quasi-judicial proceedings

abroad.’” Intel, 542 U. S., at 258 (alterations omitted). So 

a §1782 “tribunal” need not be a formal “court,” and the 

broad meaning of “tribunal” does not itself exclude private 

adjudicatory bodies.1 If we had nothing but this single word 

to go on, there would be a good case for including private 

arbitral panels. 

—————— 1Luxshare argues that commercial arbitral panels are §1782 tribunals

because they “fit comfortably” under the “quasi-judicial paradigm” from 

our decision in Intel. Brief for Respondent in No. 21–401, p. 19. There, 

we recognized that the body at issue, the Commission of the European 

Communities, was a §1782 tribunal in part because it was a “first-instance decisionmaker” that rendered dispositive rulings reviewable in 

court. 542 U. S., at 254–255, 258. But we did not purport to establish a 

test for what counts as a foreign or international tribunal. The issue 

before us now—whether a private arbitral body qualifies as a “foreign or

international tribunal”—was not before us in Intel. No one there disputed that the body at issue exercised governmental authority. 
 

Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

This is where context comes in. “Tribunal” does not stand 

alone—it belongs to the phrase “foreign or international tribunal.” And attached to these modifiers, “tribunal” is best 

understood as an adjudicative body that exercises governmental authority.2 Cf. FCC v. AT&T Inc., 562 U. S. 397, 

406 (2011) (“[T]wo words together may assume a more particular meaning than those words in isolation”).

Take “foreign tribunal” first. Congress could have used 

“foreign” in one of two ways here. It could mean something 

like “[b]elonging to another nation or country,” which would 

support reading “foreign tribunal” as a governmental body.

Black’s Law Dictionary, at 775. Or it could more generally 

mean “from” another country, which would sweep in private 

adjudicative bodies too. See, e.g., Random House Dictionary of the English Language 555 (1966) (“derived from another country or nation; not native”). The first meaning is 

the better fit. 

The word “foreign” takes on its more governmental meaning when modifying a word with potential governmental or 

sovereign connotations. That is why “foreign” suggests

something different in the phrase “foreign leader” than it 

does in “foreign films.” Brief for Petitioners in No. 21–401, 

pp. 20–21; Brief for Respondent in No. 21–401, pp. 7–8. The 

phrase “foreign leader” brings to mind “an official of a foreign state, not a team captain of a European football club.” 

Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17. So too with 

“foreign tribunal.” “Tribunal” is a word with potential governmental or sovereign connotations, so “foreign tribunal” 

more naturally refers to a tribunal belonging to a foreign 

nation than to a tribunal that is simply located in a foreign

nation. And for a tribunal to belong to a foreign nation, the 

tribunal must possess sovereign authority conferred by that 

—————— 2The parties do not dispute that the bodies at issue are sufficiently

adjudicatory, so we need not precisely define the outer bounds of §1782 

“tribunals.” The issue here is only whether the statute requires “tribunals” to be governmental or intergovernmental bodies. 
 

 

 

8 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

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nation. See id., at 14–15 (a governmental adjudicator is

“one whose role in deciding the dispute rests on” a “nation’s 

sovereign authority”).

This reading of “foreign tribunal” is reinforced by the 

statutory defaults for discovery procedure. In addition to 

authorizing district courts to order testimony or the production of evidence, §1782 permits them to “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 thing.” §1782(a) (emphasis

added). The reference to the procedure of “the foreign country or the international tribunal” parallels the authorization for district courts to grant discovery for use in a “foreign or international tribunal” mentioned just before in

§1782. The statute thus presumes that a “foreign tribunal” 

follows “the practice and procedure of the foreign country.”

It is unremarkable for the statute to presume that a foreign

court, quasi-judicial body, or any other governmental adjudicatory body follows the practice and procedures prescribed by the government that conferred authority on it.3 

But that would be an odd assumption to make about a private adjudicatory body, which is typically the creature of an

agreement between private parties who prescribe their own

rules. See Stolt-Nielsen S. A. v. AnimalFeeds Int’l Corp., 

559 U. S. 662, 683 (2010). That the default discovery procedures for a “foreign tribunal” are governmental suggests

that the body is governmental too.

Now for “international tribunal.” “International” can 

mean either (1) involving or of two or more “nations,” or (2)

involving or of two or more “nationalities.” American Heritage Dictionary, at 685 (“[o]f, relating to, or involving two 

—————— 3The provision makes the similarly unremarkable assumption that an 

“international tribunal” defaults to the rules on which the relevant nations agreed. 
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Opinion of the Court 

or more nations or nationalities”); see also Random House

Dictionary, at 743 (“between or among nations; involving 

two or more nations”; “of or pertaining to two or more nations or their citizens”). The latter definition is unlikely in 

this context because an adjudicative body would be “international” if it had adjudicators of different nationalities—

and it would be strange for the availability of discovery to 

turn on the national origin of the adjudicators. So no party

argues that “international” carries that meaning here. A 

tribunal is “international” when it involves or is of two or 

more nations, meaning that those nations have imbued the 

tribunal with official power to adjudicate disputes. See Tr. 

of Oral Arg. 77 (the United States arguing that “the touchstone” is whether the body is “exercising official power on 

behalf of the two governments”). 

So understood, “foreign tribunal” and “international tribunal” complement one another; the former is a tribunal 

imbued with governmental authority by one nation, and the

latter is a tribunal imbued with governmental authority by

multiple nations. 

B 

Section 1782’s focus on governmental and intergovernmental tribunals is confirmed by both the statute’s history 

and a comparison to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 

U. S. C. §1 et seq. 

From the start, the statute has been about respecting foreign nations and the governmental and intergovernmental

bodies they create. From 1855 until 1964, §1782 and its

antecedents covered assistance only to foreign “courts.” See 

Act of Mar. 2, 1855, ch. 140, §2, 10 Stat. 630; Act of Mar. 3,

1863, ch. 95, §1, 12 Stat. 769; Act of Feb. 27, 1877, ch. 69, 

§875, 19 Stat. 241; Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646, §1782, 62

Stat. 949; 28 U. S. C. §1782 (1958 ed.). And before 1964, a 

separate strand of law covered assistance to “‘any international tribunal or commission . . . in which the United 
 

10 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

Opinion of the Court 

States participate[d] as a party.’” Act of June 7, 1933, ch. 

50, 48 Stat. 117. The process of combining these two statutory lines began when Congress established the Commission on International Rules of Judicial Procedure. See Act 

of Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. 85–906, §§1–2, 72 Stat. 1743. It 

charged the Commission with improving the process of judicial assistance, specifying that the “assistance and cooperation” was “between the United States and foreign countries” and that “the rendering of assistance to foreign courts 

and quasi-judicial agencies” should be improved. Ibid. (emphasis added). In 1964, Congress adopted the Commission’s proposed legislation, which became the modern version of §1782. 

Interpreting §1782 to reach only bodies exercising governmental authority is consistent with Congress’ charge to 

the Commission. Seen in light of the statutory history, the

amendment did not signal an expansion from public to private bodies, but rather an expansion of the types of public 

bodies covered. By broadening the range of governmental

and intergovernmental bodies included in §1782, Congress 

increased the “assistance and cooperation” rendered by the

United States to those nations. 

After all, the animating purpose of §1782 is comity: Permitting federal courts to assist foreign and international 

governmental bodies promotes respect for foreign governments and encourages reciprocal assistance. It is difficult 

to see how enlisting district courts to help private bodies

would serve that end. Such a broad reading of §1782 would 

open district court doors to any interested person seeking

assistance for proceedings before any private adjudicative 

body—a category broad enough to include everything from 

a commercial arbitration panel to a university’s student disciplinary tribunal. See Brief for Petitioners in No. 21–401, 

at 19. Why would Congress lend the resources of district

courts to aid purely private bodies adjudicating purely private disputes abroad? 
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Opinion of the Court 

Extending §1782 to include private bodies would also be 

in significant tension with the FAA, which governs domestic arbitration, because §1782 permits much broader discovery than the FAA allows. Among other differences, the FAA 

permits only the arbitration panel to request discovery, see 

9 U. S. C. §7, while district courts can entertain §1782 requests from foreign or international tribunals or any “interested person,” 28 U. S. C. §1782(a). In addition, prearbitration discovery is off the table under the FAA but broadly 

available under §1782. See Intel, 542 U. S., at 259 (holding 

that discovery is available for use in proceedings “within 

reasonable contemplation”). Interpreting §1782 to reach

private arbitration would therefore create a notable mismatch between foreign and domestic arbitration. And as 

the Seventh Circuit observed, “[i]t’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.” Rolls-Royce, 

975 F. 3d, at 695. 

* * * 

In sum, we hold that §1782 requires a “foreign or international tribunal” to be governmental or intergovernmental. Thus, a “foreign tribunal” is one that exercises governmental authority conferred by a single nation, and an

“international tribunal” is one that exercises governmental

authority conferred by two or more nations. Private adjudicatory bodies do not fall within §1782. 

III 

That leaves the question whether the adjudicative bodies

in the cases before us are governmental or intergovernmental. They are not. 

A 

Analyzing the status of the arbitral panel involved in 
 

12 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

Opinion of the Court 

Luxshare’s dispute with ZF is straightforward. Private parties agreed in a private contract that DIS, a private disputeresolution organization, would arbitrate any disputes between them. See Stolt-Nielsen, 559 U. S., at 682 (“[A]n arbitrator derives his or her powers from the parties’ agreement to forgo the legal process and submit their disputes to

private dispute resolution”). By default, DIS panels operate

under DIS rules, just like panels of any other private arbitration organization operate under private arbitral rules. 

The panels are formed by the parties—with each party selecting one arbitrator and those two arbitrators choosing a 

third. No government is involved in creating the DIS panel 

or prescribing its procedures. This adjudicative body therefore does not qualify as a governmental body.

Luxshare weakly suggests that a commercial arbitral

panel like the DIS panel qualifies as governmental so long

as the law of the country in which it would sit (here, Germany) governs some aspects of arbitration and courts play

a role in enforcing arbitration agreements. See Brief for 

Respondent in No. 21–401, at 26–27; Boeing, 954 F. 3d, at 

213–214. But private entities do not become governmental 

because laws govern them and courts enforce their contracts—that would erase any distinction between private

and governmental adjudicative bodies. Luxshare’s implausibly broad definition of a governmental adjudicative body 

is nothing but an attempted end run around §1782’s limit. 

B 

The ad hoc arbitration panel at issue in the Fund’s dispute with Lithuania presents a harder question. A sovereign is on one side of the dispute, and the option to arbitrate

is contained in an international treaty rather than a private 

contract. These factors, which the Fund emphasizes, offer 

some support for the argument that the ad hoc panel is intergovernmental. Yet neither Lithuania’s presence nor the 
Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

treaty’s existence is dispositive, because Russia and Lithuania are free to structure investor-state dispute resolution 

as they see fit. What matters is the substance of their 

agreement: Did these two nations intend to confer governmental authority on an ad hoc panel formed pursuant to the

treaty? See BG Group plc v. Republic of Argentina, 572 

U. S. 25, 37 (2014) (“As a general matter, a treaty is a contract, though between nations,” and “[i]ts interpretation 

normally is, like a contract’s interpretation, a matter of determining the parties’ intent”).

The provision regarding ad hoc arbitration appears in Article 10, which permits an investor to choose one of four forums to resolve disputes: 

“a) [a] competent court or court of arbitration of the 

Contracting Party in which territory the investments 

are made; 

“b) the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber 

of Commerce; 

“c) the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce; 

“d) an ad hoc arbitration in accordance with Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).” App. to Pet. for 

Cert. in No. 21–518, at 64a–65a. 

The options on this menu vary in form. For example, a 

“competent court or court of arbitration of the Contracting

Party” (i.e., the state in which an investor does business) is 

clearly governmental; a court “of” a sovereign belongs to

that sovereign. The inclusion of courts on the list reflects 

Russia and Lithuania’s intent to give investors the choice

of bringing their disputes before a pre-existing governmental body.

An ad hoc arbitration panel, by contrast, is not a pre-existing body, but one formed for the purpose of adjudicating 

investor-state disputes. And nothing in the treaty reflects 
 

14 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

Opinion of the Court 

Russia and Lithuania’s intent that an ad hoc panel exercise

governmental authority. For instance, the treaty does not 

itself create the panel; instead, it simply references the set 

of rules that govern the panel’s formation and procedure if 

an investor chooses that forum. In addition, the ad hoc 

panel “functions independently” of and is not affiliated with

either Lithuania or Russia. 5 F. 4th, at 226. It consists of 

individuals chosen by the parties and lacking any “official

affiliation with Lithuania, Russia, or any other governmental or intergovernmental entity.” Ibid. And it lacks other 

possible indicia of a governmental nature. See ibid. (“[T]he

panel receives zero government funding,” “the proceedings 

. . . maintain confidentiality,” and the “‘award may be made

public only with the consent of both parties’”).4 

Indeed, the ad hoc panel at issue in the Fund’s dispute

with Lithuania is “materially indistinguishable in form and

function” from the DIS panel resolving the dispute between

ZF and Luxshare. Brief for George A. Bermann et al. as 

Amici Curiae 19. In a private arbitration, the panel derives 

its authority from the parties’ consent to arbitrate. The 

ad hoc panel in this case derives its authority in essentially 

the same way. Russia and Lithuania each agreed in the 

treaty to submit to ad hoc arbitration if an investor chose 

it. The Fund took Lithuania up on that offer by initiating 

such an arbitration, thereby triggering the formation of an 

—————— 4Comparing Article 10 of the treaty (governing investor-state disputes)

with Article 11 (governing state-to-state disputes) further suggests that

the ad hoc panel under Article 10 is of a nongovernmental nature. Article 11 provides that an unsettled dispute between the countries “shall, 

upon the request of either Contracting Party, be submitted to an Arbitral

Tribunal.” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 21–518, p. 65a. Each country is

involved in forming that arbitral body and funds its operations. See id., 

at 66a–67a. Article 11 also provides, under some circumstances, for the 

countries to invite officials of the International Court of Justice to appoint the body’s members. Id., at 66a. This reflects a higher level of 

government involvement and highlights the absence of such details in

Article 10’s ad hoc arbitration option. 
 

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Opinion of the Court 

ad hoc panel with the authority to resolve the parties’ dispute. That authority exists because Lithuania and the 

Fund consented to the arbitration, not because Russia and 

Lithuania clothed the panel with governmental authority. 

Cf. Granite Rock Co. v. Teamsters, 561 U. S. 287, 299 (2010) 

(“[T]he first principle that underscores all of our arbitration

decisions” is that “[a]rbitration is strictly ‘a matter of consent’”); AT&T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers, 475 U. S. 643, 648–649 (1986) (“[A]rbitrators derive

their authority to resolve disputes only because the parties

have agreed in advance to submit such grievances to arbitration”). So inclusion in the treaty does not, as the Fund

suggests, automatically render ad hoc arbitration governmental. Instead, it reflects the countries’ choice to offer investors the potentially appealing option of bringing their

disputes to a private arbitration panel that operates like 

commercial arbitration panels do. In a treaty designed to

attract foreign investors by offering “favourable conditions 

for investments,” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 21–518, at 

56a, that choice makes sense. 

None of this forecloses the possibility that sovereigns 

might imbue an ad hoc arbitration panel with official authority. Governmental and intergovernmental bodies may 

take many forms, and we do not attempt to prescribe how 

they should be structured. The point is only that a body

does not possess governmental authority just because nations agree in a treaty to submit to arbitration before it.

The relevant question is whether the nations intended that 

the ad hoc panel exercise governmental authority. And 

here, all indications are that they did not. 

The Fund tries to bolster its case by analogizing to past

adjudicatory bodies: (1) the body at issue in the dispute over 

the sinking of the Canadian ship I’m Alone, which derived 

from a treaty between the United States and Great Britain;

and (2) the United States-Germany Mixed Claims Commission. There appears to be broad consensus that these bodies 
 

16 ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC. v. LUXSHARE, LTD. 

Opinion of the Court 

would qualify as intergovernmental. Ergo, the Fund says,

the ad hoc panel must be intergovernmental too.

This does not follow. It is not dispositive whether an adjudicative body shares some features of other bodies that

look governmental. Instead, the inquiry is whether those 

features and other evidence establish the intent of the relevant nations to imbue the body in question with governmental authority. And though we need not decide the status of the I’m Alone and Mixed Claims commissions, it is 

worth noting some differences between the treaties providing for them and the treaty at issue here. For instance, 

those treaties specified that each sovereign would be involved in the formation of the bodies, and, with respect to

the treaty creating the Mixed Claims Commission in particular, it also specified where the commission would initially meet, the method of funding, and that the commissioners could appoint other officers to assist in the

proceedings. See Convention Between the United States 

and Great Britain for Prevention of Smuggling of Intoxicating Liquors, Art. IV, Jan. 23, 1924, 43 Stat. 1761–1762, 

T. S. No. 685; Agreement Between the United States and 

Germany for a Mixed Commission to Determine the 

Amount To Be Paid by Germany in Satisfaction of Germany’s Financial Obligations Under the Treaty Concluded

Between the Two Governments on August 25, 1921, Arts.

II, III, IV, V, Aug. 10, 1922, 42 Stat. 2200, T. S. No. 665. So 

while there are some similarities between the ad hoc arbitration panel and the I’m Alone and Mixed Claims commissions, there are distinctions too. Thus, even taking the

Fund’s argument on its own terms, its analogies are less

helpful than it hopes. 

* * * 

In sum, only a governmental or intergovernmental adjudicative body constitutes a “foreign or international tribu-
Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

nal” under §1782. Such bodies are those that exercise governmental authority conferred by one nation or multiple nations. Neither the private commercial arbitral panel in the 

first case nor the ad hoc arbitration panel in the second case 

qualifies. We reverse the order of the District Court in No. 

21–401 denying the motion to quash, and we reverse the 

judgment of the Court of Appeals in No. 21–518. 

It is so ordered.