Source: http://loble.co.uk/legal-materials/obtaining-evidence.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 04:18:09+00:00

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Steven Loble has acted in a large number of cases involving obtaining evidence in England for use in proceedings in the United States of America, as well as enforcement of judgments. He has undertaken cases in this area throughout his career. This experience provides first hand knowledge of how the law and procedure works in practice and enables us to meet clients' needs in securing testimony and documents for use at trial in foreign countries, particularly in the United States.
It also enables us to assist clients who have been served with an Order to give evidence for foreign pleadings, if it appears that the Order should not have been made or if the Order is too wide. In such cases, we can apply for the Order to be set aside or modified to deal with the client’s concerns.
This paper explains the procedures for obtaining evidence from non-parties in England and Wales (referred to below as England for the sake of brevity)for use in legal proceedings in the United States of America. The United Kingdom is made up of a number of different jurisdictions – England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands (each of which is a separate jurisdiction). The paper suggests the most appropriate procedures in particular cases for England only; it is not an exhaustive review of the law or procedure.
Evidence may be obtained in England for use in foreign proceedings without any formal order. In certain other countries the obtaining of evidence without the permission of the Court is a criminal offence but the English Courts will not interfere with any procedure by which witnesses appear voluntarily to give evidence or produce documents. Only in restricted circumstances may production of documents be contrary toEnglish law (e.g. pursuant to the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1989).
The U.S. is a prolific source of requests for evidence and therefore the means of obtaining evidence outside the U.S. under U.S. Federal Law is also set out in this guide.
Depositions can be taken and documentary evidence collected from any persons willing to appear voluntarily. This must be done in a way acceptable to the U.S. Court and depositions are frequently taken before the U.S. Consul.
3.	Pursuant to Letters Rogatory (known in England as "Letters of Request" and so referred to below).
Further, a U.S. national or U.S. resident present in England and Wales may be subpoenaed pursuant to 28 USC Para. 1783.
However, there may be a conflict between the obligation of a U.S. national or U.S. resident to comply with such a subpoena and local law - for example, in the case of a London branch of a U.S. bank when such a subpoena would not be effective. A London branch of a U.S. bank should require the protection of an English Court Order before divulging any documents or information. There is also a limit to the subject matter jurisdiction of foreign courts (see MacKinnon v. Donaldson, Lufkin and Jennrette Securities Corporation  2 WLR 453).
The Evidence (Proceedings in other Jurisdictions) Act 1975 was passed partly to give effect to the Hague Convention. The Act goes further than necessary for the purposesof the Convention and should be read in conjunction with Part 34 of the English Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) to ascertain the boundaries within which evidence can be obtained pursuant to the Convention, or for foreign proceedings generally, and the procedure for obtaining such evidence. Theprocedure under The Hague Convention is the same for any country which is a party toit and indeed for any country which requests judicial assistance from the English Court.
If English Solicitors are not instructed by the party seeking an Order for depositions or the production of documents, the Treasury Solicitor (the government legal service) will make an application to the Court for an Order but it is more prudent to instruct English Solicitors in case the witnesses resist the Order. It is also quicker to instruct Solicitors and to send the Letters of Request directly to them - an Order can then be obtained within a week, whereas transmission through diplomatic channels takes considerably longer.
Discovery in England andWales (which is documentary only) is much narrower than the discovery which is allowed in the U.S.: English Courts will not countenance "fishing expeditions". The English Court is prohibited from making an order requiring any particular steps to be taken unless they are steps which could be taken to obtain evidence for the purposes of civil proceedings in the English Court. The English rules distinguish between (i) evidence in the nature of proof to be used for the purposes of the trial and (ii) evidence in the nature of pre-trial discovery to be used for purposes of a train of enquiry which might produce evidence for trial. The English Court will not execute Letters of Request issued for the purpose of obtaining pre-trial discovery of documents and will not give effect to a request for those purposes.
Under s.2(3), the English Court is prohibited from making an order requiring any particular steps to be taken unless they are steps which can be required to be taken by way of obtaining evidence for the purposes of civil proceedings in the English Court, whether or not they are proceedings of the same description as those to which the application for the order relates. This provision, which applies both to oral and documentary evidence recognises and gives effect to the distinction between evidence in the nature of proof to be used for the purposes of the trial and evidence inthe nature of pre-trial disclosure to be used for the purposes of leading to a train of inquiry which might produce direct evidence for the trial. This distinction was in the mind of the draftsman of the Act of 1975 and was made the subject ofan express declaration by Her Majesty's Government when ratifying the Hague Convention that the United Kingdom would "not execute letters of request issued for the purpose of obtaining pre-trial discovery of documents" (see Cmnd. 6727 (1976)).
The English Court will not give effect to any request from a U.S. Court unless proceedings have actually been instituted or proceedings are contemplated. Inthiscontext "contemplated" means that proceedings are imminent or pending.
Subject to the above, the general principle followed by the English Court is that the English Court will ordinarily give effect to requests from foreign courts so far as is proper and practicable and to the extent that is permissible under English Law.
General investigation (e.g. in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Proceedings) will not be allowed - re. International Power Industries Inc.  (not officially reported). Documents sought must be specifically listed and not referred to by general descriptions.
“The difficulty in the present case, as in previous cases, arises because of the difference in approach to discovery in this country and the United States. Their discovery procedures are not necessarily the same in all States. But in general in the United States there is a tradition of oral discovery which has never been developed in this country. Rightly or wrongly, we regard oral discovery as a form of discovery which generates unnecessary costs and complexity. There is another difference between the approach to discovery in this country and that in the United States. Generally, where it is possible to get much wider "non party" discovery. That isdiscovery against those who are not parties to the proceedings.” (per Lord Woolf MR).
i) Does the court have jurisdiction to make an order in response to the Letter of Request, and if not can this be overcome by making modifications to the order sought or imposing conditions when making it?
ii) Ought the order of Master Turner be set aside because it was sought for an impermissible purpose, specifically for an impermissible investigatory purpose? If so, can this objection to the order be met by making modifications to it or by imposing conditions?
iii) Ought the court set aside the order as a matter of discretion because it is unfairly oppressive to Mr Dunt? Can this objection be met by modifications or conditions?
"In face of a statement in letters rogatory that a certain person is a necessary witness for the Applicant . . . the court of request should not be astute to examine the issues in the action and the circumstances of the case with excessive particularity for the purpose of determining in advance whether the evidence of that person is relevant and admissible"
- see the Westinghouse case (cit sup) at p 654G per Lord Fraser. (As Moore-Bick J pointedout in United States of America v Philip Morris Inc (unrep) 10 December 2003 at para 76, this observation appears to be directed to whether the court should enquire for itself whether the witness can give relevant and admissible evidence.) However, in this case the Kansas court issuing the request did not itself state that the examination is likely to produce or is directed to producing such evidence. Ms Cockerill submits, and I readily accept, that this doesnot mean that the Request is in any way defective. Moreover, I am unable to accept Mr Hunter's submission that requests from foreign courts "normally" include such a statement: I simply do not know whether or not that normally is the case, but even if it were, I would not therefore attach particular significance to the absence of such a statement in the Letter of Request from the Kansas court. However, this does mean that this court may and must consider without the assistance of such a statement whether the request is within the statutory limits.
 I have referred to Mr Owens' evidence that the Kansas Plaintiff is seeking the deposition of Mr Dunt and others "for use at trial in the Kansas action", but this assertion in itself does not, in my judgment, provide convincing support for the request as it was made by the Kansas court, still less convincing support for the contention of the Kansas Plaintiff that Mr Dunt's evidence is not a matter of background significance, but "crucial" or "critical" to the litigation. Moreover, Mr Owens does not appear to acknowledge, or appear to recognise, the nature and ambit of the request made: for example, that all the documents to which Mr Diel referred were dated before the start of the pleaded conspiracy, and that the topics for examination are far wider than London meetings of the kind that Mr Owens describes that Mr Dunt is said to have had as Regional Director.
 However, the approach of the English court upon this initial question of jurisdiction is, as Lord Woolf MR emphasised in The State of Minnesota case (loc cit) at para 40, "if there is doubt on this matter, I should give the benefit of that doubt to the Plaintiffs". I can see that Mr Dunt might well have some knowledge of some matters which the Kansas Plaintiff asserts in the proceedings and which might, for all I know, be denied by one or more of the Defendants. Although the evidence is far from satisfactory and making properly generous allowance for the approach that Lord Woolf describes, I have concluded that I should not set aside the order of Master Turner on the grounds of jurisdiction. It is therefore not necessary for me to consider whether, had the original request been defective in this respect, it could be saved by restrictions such as the Kansas Plaintiff now proposes or by the sort of condition or undertaking put forward by MsCockerill and referred to in Golden Eagle Refinery Co Inc v Associated International Insurance Co (unrep) 19 February 1998 (for example, that Mr Dunt would be examined as if he were giving evidence in chief at the trial or that his examination should be for the purpose only of eliciting and recording testimony appropriate to be given at trial).
"the mere fact that letters rogatory have been issued at the pre-trial discovery stage does not mean that they are not seeking for evidence in the sense of s 1 of the Act of 1975 but it does, so to speak, put one on one's guard."
See too Buxton LJ in the Golden Eagle Refinery case (loc cit).
"As was held in Re Norway's Application No 1, [at  QB 433] where the matters on which examination is requested by the Letter of Request to proceed, are too widely drawn, it will lead to the inference that the Letter of Request was designed to elicit information which might lead to the obtaining of evidence rather than to establish allegations of fact, and that would amount to an impermissible fishing expedition."
Of course sometimes, as Sir Richard Scott V-C said in the First American Corporation case at p 1166, "the width of a request may be an inevitable consequence of the complexities of the issues and of the witnesses involvement in them", but I cannot accept that in this case the very wide ambit of the Letter of Request can be so explained.
 Moreover, the evidence of Mr Owens about the relevance of Mr Dunt's testimony confirms my view that the Letter of Request was directed to questioning mainly of an investigatory nature. The request ranges far wider than Mr Owens' explanation about the significance of Mr Dunt's testimony could possibly justify.
 I conclude that the Letter of Request seeks an impermissible investigation and for that reason this court should not accede to it.
We should be asked to advise on the form of the document request before the request is submitted to the U.S. Court. This will certainly save time in the long run: if this procedure is not followed there may be contested hearings in England and, as can be seen above, possibly part or all of the request may be struck out.
Section 2(4)(a) of the 1975 Act prohibits the English Court from making an order against a stranger to the proceedings requiring him to make general discovery of documents. Such an order would be in the nature of a "fishing expedition" which is never allowed in the English Court. The request for witnesses to be heard or documents to be produced must specify which evidence witnesses can give or the actual documents which are to be produced.
(b) to produce any documents other than particular documents specified in the Order as being documents appearing to the Court making the Order to be, or likely to be, in his possession custody or power."
The Court must be satisfied that the documents in question are in the possession, custody or power of the person against whom the Order is made. The burden of proving this fact is on the applicant.
Once an Order has been made by the English Court depositions are taken in "the English manner" (Order 39 RSC) before an Examiner appointed by the Court. The Examiner will bean English barrister. In order to facilitate the taking of depositions at a time convenient to the party requesting the Order it is normally better to have an Examiner of the party's choice appointed rather than one of the Court Examiners who may not be available at the required time. This can only be done if the application for the Order is made by solicitors who will also make the appropriate arrangements for the examination - including providing a Court reporter if required.
Examinations may also be videotaped. An application to set aside an Order forvideotaping the taking of evidence was unsuccessful - (J. Barber & Sons v. Lloyd's Underwriters  2 AllER 845.
"Two things are clear. (i) A video recording of evidence given in English Courts is not permitted. There is statutory recognition of tape recordings: photographs in Court are banned. In my judgment videotaping is not allowed. (ii) At the other extreme, evidence in the form of tape recordings and video recordings is capable of admission in English Courts, just as photographs are commonly admitted.
Here we have an intermediate situation. What is sought is videotaping outside the Court, and it is proposed that the videotaping should be available to the Court itself.That is parallel to the taking of tape recordings outside Court of a shorthand transcript outside Court. It is clearly something different from recording proceedings in the Court itself.... Proceedings involving examination of witnesses outside Court are not necessarily limited to the permitted methods of recording proceedings in Court. It seems to me that the request by the Californian Court is not inconsistent with the English mode".
It is noteworthy that many of the leading cases on extraterritoriality are concerned with whether or not evidence should be produced for foreign proceedings.
"I think that the branch of Barclays Bank in Douglas, Isle of Man, should be considered in the same way as a branch of the Bank of Ireland or an American Bank or any other Bank in the Isle of Man which is not subject to our jurisdiction.... It is subject to the laws and regulations of the Isle of Man. It is licensed by the Isle of Man Government. It has customers there who are subject to Manx law. It seems to me that the Court here ought not in its discretionto make an Order against the Head Office here in request of the books of the branch in the Isle of Man in regards to the customers of that branch. It would not be right to compel the branch - or its customers - to open their books or to reveal their confidences in support of legal proceedings in Wales".
The case of MacKinnon (above) concerned an Order made against an American bank, which was not a party to the main action, requiring it to produce books and papers held at its Head Office in New York. These related to an account of one of the Defendants, a Bahamian company which had, since the issue of the Writ, been struck off the Register of Companies, and a subsequent subpoena duces tecum which was served on an Officer of the Bank at its London Office. Hoffman J. held that the Order and subpoena, taking effect in New York, were an infringement of the sovereignty of the United States and therefore the English Courts should not require a foreign bank which owed a duty of confidence to its customers to produce documents outside the jurisdiction of the English Courts. The fact that the bank was regulated by the law of the country where the customer's account was kept (in this case the United States) and concerned business transactions outside the jurisdiction was material.
"the need to exercise the Court's jurisdiction with due regard to the sovereignty of others is particularly important in the case of banks.... If every country where a bank happened to carry on business asserted a right to require that bank to produce documents relating to accounts kept in any other such country, banks would be in an unhappy position of being forced to submit to whichever sovereign was able to apply the greatest pressure".
".... this decision shows a welcome revival in a United States Court of sensitivity to foreign sovereign interests".
Perhaps the best known case on the subject of such requests is Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation v. Westinghouse Electric Corporation  AC 547. In this case the House of Lords reversed a decision of the Court of Appeal which had upheld the implementation of Letters of Request issued by a Court in Virginia.
".... for many years now, the United States has sought to exercise jurisdiction over foreigners in respect of acts done outside the jurisdiction of that Country. This is not in accordance with international law and has led to legislation on the part of other States designed to protect their nationalsfromcriminal proceedings in foreign courts where the claims to jurisdiction by those courts are excessive and constitute an invasion of sovereignty".
"Now Section 5 of the 1975 Act providesfor the obtaining of evidence for criminal proceedings but expressly the section only applies to proceedings which have been instituted (none have been instituted) and, impliedly, to a request by the Court in which the proceedings have been instituted. The case is therefore not within Section 5, and the procedure is an attempt to get the evidence in spite of that fact".
A party wishing to obtain evidence for use in foreign proceedings should institute proceedings, or at least produce some evidence that proceedings are about to be commenced, before any application is made to the Court for an order.
There is also the question of attorney-client privilege which in England is either legal advice privilege or litigation privilege.
In United States of America v. Philip Morris and Others the government was suing a number of tobacco companies for $280 billion, alleging that they misled the public about the risks of smoking.
Steven Loble acted for the United States of America in that case.
In December 2003, after a 3-day hearing, the Commercial Court in London made an order that Andrew Foyle, a partner in City solicitors firm Lovells, be examined about the document destruction policies of a company called BATCo, despite protestations that such evidence could not be obtained as a result of legal professional privilege.
The decision was appealed to the Court of Appeal. The appeal was unsuccessful.
In England there are two types of privilege – legal advice privilege and litigation privilege.
The judge went on to find that no privilege, neither litigation privilege nor legal advice privilege, attached to communications between the intended witness and BAT, and ordered Mr Foyle, a partner in a large London law firm to give evidence for use at trial in the US proceedings.
Both BAT and Mr Foyle appealed the decision. The appeals were unsuccessful.
“68. In the present case it is quite clear that the judge correctly considered that a "mere possibility" of litigation did not suffice. He was also correct to conclude that the fact that there was "a distinct possibility that sooner or later someone might make a claim" was insufficient. So was "a general apprehension of future litigation". He repeated three times that the appropriate test was that litigation must have been reasonably in prospect. The expression "real likelihood" seems to have been used as a counterpoise to "a mere possibility", and I do not consider that any more canproperly be read into this phrase. The judge was certainly not saying that there must have been a greater than 50% chance of litigation.
"Legal professional privilege is concerned with the interaction between two aspects of the public interest in the administration of justice. The public interest in the efficient working of the legal system requires that people should be able to obtain professional legal advice on their rightsand liabilities and obligations. This is desirable for theorderly conduct of everyday affairs. Similarly, people should be able to seek legal advice and assistance in connection with the proper conduct of court proceedings. To this end communications between clients and lawyers must be uninhibited. But, in practice, candour cannot be expected if disclosure of the contents of communications between client and lawyer may be compelled, to a client’s prejudice and contrary to his wishes. That is one aspect of the public interest. It takes the form of according to the client a right, or privilege as it is unhelpfully called, to withhold disclosure of the contents of client-lawyer communications. In the ordinary course the client has an interest in asserting this right, in so far as disclosure would or might prejudice him.
The other aspect of the public interest is that all relevant material should be available to courts when deciding cases. Courts should not have to reach decisions in ignorance of the contents of documents or other material which, if disclosed, might prejudice him.
An unusual feature of the case was the United States of America applied for a High Court Judge to sit as Examiner to resolve any questions of privilege as they arose. It is believed that this was the first time that such an Order had ever been made.
X A.G. v. A Bank  2 All ER 464 discussed the question of disclosure of documents in breach of the duty of confidentiality owed by a bank to its customers. Leggatt J. referred to the case of British Nylon Spinners Limited v. Imperial Chemical Industries Limited  2 All ER 780 and quoted the passage.
"The Courts of this Country will, in the natural course, pay great respect and attention to the Superior Court of the United States of America, but I conceive that it is nonetheless the proper province of English Courts, when their jurisdiction is invoked, not to refrain from exercising that jurisdiction if they think that it is their duty so to do for the protection of rights which are peculiarly subject to their protection. In so saying, I do not conceive that I am offending in any way against the principles of comity .....".
"The writ of the United States does not run in this country, and, if due regard is had to the comity of nations, it will not seek to run here."
Any sanction imposed now on the Bank would look like pressure on this Court, whereas as it seems to me, it is for the New York Court to relieve against the dilemma, in which it turns out to have placed its own national, by refraining from holding it in contempt proceedings are issued".
Accordingly, it was ordered that the injunctions should continue.
In In Re the State of Norway (No. 1 and No. 2) - Judgment 9th February 1989 (see paragraph 13 below for further details) Lord Goff upheld the decision of the Judge of the first instance that "witnesses should not be required to reveal the identity ofa settlor in breach of a banker's duty of confidentiality unless the witness should have evidence that the settlor was acting as the nominee or agent of the tax payer".
There was also much discussion of the practice relating to Letters of Request, possible infringement of UK sovereignty and extra-territoriality in the case of In Re. the State of Norway (No.1), In Re. the State of Norway (No. 2) House of Lords (Judgment 9th February 1989).
There had previously been two cases in the Court of Appeal which to some extent resulted in conflicting decisions. The main issue was whether an action in the Sandefjord City Court in Norway to set aside an assessment of tax was a "civil or commercial matter". The Court of Appeal in Norway (No. 1) had decided that this should be decided pursuant to the laws of the requesting Court and not the recipient Court of the Letters Rogatory. In Norway (No. 2) the Court decided that it should be resolved pursuant to the law of the Court receiving the request.
"The words (civil or commercial matter) should be given their ordinary meaning, so that proceedings in any civil matter should include all proceedings other than criminal proceedings, and proceedings in any commercial matter should be treated as falling within proceedings in civil matters. On this simple approach, I do not see why the expression should be read as excluding proceedings in a fiscal matter ....".
It will be seen from the above cases that the English Courts are keen, in accordance with the principle of comity of nations, to give effect to requests for evidence from foreign courts. The English Courts are, however, jealous in protecting the sovereignty of the U.K. and the border separating the willingness to assist foreign courts and the protection of sovereignty is not always clearly defined.
Another recent case, Janice Windh and Another v. Land Rover North America Inc., and Others  EWHC 432 (QB), involved an application to set aside an order for two witnesses to give evidence for proceedings in California. Steven Loble acted for the successfulapplicant in that case. The application to set aside the order was made by the defendant and not the witnesses. This is only the second reported case in which an application has not been made by the proposed witness.
It was contended by Mr Onions QC that in his judgment Master Turner addressed himself only to the first of these two questions.
1.	Both questions need to be asked because of the terms of s.2(3) and 2(4) of the 1975 Act which in effect provide that the Court’s discretionary power under s2 of the Act to make provision for the obtaining of evidence for use in proceedings in another jurisdiction is subject to jurisdictional limitations directed against “fishing” applications both in relation to oral testimony as well as documents.
iii) Appreciated that the intention behind the seekingof evidence has to be the obtaining of material to be used at the trial of the proceedings, as opposed to obtaining material for the impermissible purpose of a “fishing” or investigatory exercise.
Further, he had struck out parts of the requests which he viewed as “directed towards obtaining general discovery”.
I am satisfied that taken in the context of his judgment as a whole, and having regard to the strenuous representations before the Master both on the papers and orally through Mr Onions QC, there can be no question of Master Turner having failed to apply his mind to both questions as indicated by Sir Richard Scott V-C.
After almost two full days of argument, the judge reserved judgment and then refused permission to appeal.
“ In the light of the parties' respective arguments, I have reached the following conclusions. Firstly, I see no answer to Mr Mellor's point on the request for disclosure of documents by Mr Beckert. The three categories of document listed in the draft letter of request, which I have read out, plainly do not identify particular documents, even in a compendious way. In truth thethree categories amount to no more than a wish list of documents which the Fourth Defendant hopes may exist. Secondly, I accept Mr Mellor's submission that the request in respect of the oral testimony of Mr Beckert and Mr Juster falls within the description of "fishing" in the State of Norway and Minnesota cases.
Before embarking on any exercise to obtain evidence (take depositions) in England, please callus to discuss the matter.
Similarly, if you or your clients arethe recipient of an Order, we can advise on whether there are realistic prospects of challenging the Order or modifying it to deal with concerns raised by the Order. There is a 7 day time limit from date of service for applying to set aside such an Order, so it is important that you contact us immediately if you wish to consider applying to set aside or modify the Order.
We will work within whatever time constraints there are, but it is advisable, when seeking to take depositions or obtain documents from witnesses in England, to allow a reasonable amount of time to draft the request, ensure that it comports with the English requirements, obtain an Order from the English Court, serve the Order personally on the witnesses (and, if necessary, deal with any request to set aside the Order).
"It must be remembered that it is the duty and pleasure of the English Court to respond positively to a letter of request if it can. It is also in the public interest that a court (on either side of the Atlantic) should have all relevant material available to it when it decides a case." United States of America v. Philip Morris and Others.

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