Opinion ID: 6317061
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Third Intel Factor

Text: The district court gave the greatest weight, and Nigeria devotes the bulk of its argument, to the third Intel factor – “whether the § 1782(a) request conceals an attempt to circumvent foreign proof-gathering restrictions or other policies of a foreign country or the United States.” Intel, 542 U.S. at 265. Nigeria argues that the district court erred (1) by allowing VR to raise the MLAT issue, (2) by effectively erecting an extra-statutory requirement that a country with an MLAT pursue an MLAT request before (or instead of) seeking discovery under § 1782 for use in a criminal matter, and (3) by treating Nigeria’s potential use of discovery materials in the English Proceeding as relevant to the analysis of the 28 third Intel factor. We conclude that Nigeria’s first argument lacks merit but that its second and third are correct.
Nigeria first argues that the district court erred in rejecting its standing argument and allowing VR to raise the MLAT issue as a reason to vacate the earlier grant of discovery. We disagree. Ordinarily, “absent protest or objection by the offended sovereign, an individual has no standing to raise the violation of international law,” including treaties, “as an issue,” unless the treaty creates “privately enforceable rights” or gives “some other indication that the intent of the treaty drafters was to confer rights that could be vindicated in the manner sought by affected individuals.” Georges v. United Nations, 834 F.3d 88, 97 (2d Cir. 2016) (alterations, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted). That rule, however, concerns attempts by private parties to assert private rights under treaties. In United States v. Davis, 767 F.2d 1025 (2d Cir. 1985), for example, we held that a criminal defendant was not entitled to have evidence against him excluded simply because it was gathered pursuant to an MLAT request to Switzerland that did not comply with the procedures contemplated by 29 the United States-Switzerland MLAT, which expressly disclaimed the creation of private rights. Id. at 1029-31; see also Georges, 834 F.3d at 97-98 (holding that treaty created no private right to pierce United Nations’ immunity where United Nations committed “material breach” of treaty); In re United Kingdom, 685 F.3d 1, 13-15 (1st Cir. 2012) (holding that United States-United Kingdom MLAT did not create private right for targets of MLAT requests to move to quash subpoenas on grounds that requests did not comply with procedures outlined in treaty). Here, Nigeria makes a different kind of argument: that VR lacked standing even to point to the United States-Nigeria MLAT as a factor that might be relevant to the district court’s discretionary evaluation of the third Intel factor. It is true that Article I, ¶ 4 of the United States-Nigeria MLAT expressly disclaims the creation of rights in “any private party to obtain, suppress, or exclude any evidence, or to impede the execution of a request.” Nigeria’s standing argument, however, misapprehends the rule against private invocation of treaty rights. In raising the MLAT issue, VR was neither arguing that the MLAT conferred any rights on it nor seeking to assert such rights. Rather, it was appealing to the district court’s discretion to deny discovery on grounds that Nigeria was attempting to “circumvent” proof-gathering 30 restrictions or policies of the United States or Nigeria, a factor that the Supreme Court has instructed district courts to consider. The text of the MLAT itself supports that distinction. By pointing to the MLAT as a factor to be considered, VR is not asserting any right to “obtain, suppress or exclude” evidence by invoking the MLAT, nor to impede the execution of an MLAT request. United States-Nigeria MLAT, art. I, ¶ 4. The third Intel factor concerns efforts to evade “foreign proof-gathering restrictions or other policies of a foreign country or of the United States.” Intel, 542 U.S. at 265. If indeed the United States-Nigeria MLAT embodied a relevant proof-gathering restriction or policy of the United States or Nigeria, the district court would be entitled to consider that restriction or policy, regardless of whether the MLAT conferred any “rights” on VR. The district court thus did not err in allowing VR to raise the MLAT issue. We turn, therefore, to the merits of the district court’s evaluation of the third Intel factor. 2. As a matter of law, Nigeria’s request does not “circumvent” the MLAT. Nigeria next argues that in holding that its application concealed an attempt to “circumvent” the United States-Nigeria MLAT, the district court committed a legal error and effectively erected an impermissible “extra-statutory barrier[]” to discovery. Gianoli Aldunate, 3 F.3d at 59. We agree. 31 As an initial matter, we are not persuaded by VR’s argument that what the MLAT requires by its terms is not dispositive of this appeal because the district court was exercising its discretion rather than purporting to definitively interpret the treaty. To be sure, the district court acknowledged that “there is no principle of law compelling a foreign nation seeking evidence in this country for use in a criminal case to proceed first via an MLAT,” and it buttressed its analysis with policy reasons for preferring MLAT requests to § 1782 requests by foreign sovereigns for use in criminal matters. Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 499 F. Supp. 3d at 14. But whether the United States-Nigeria MLAT embodies a “proof-gathering restriction[] or other polic[y] of [Nigeria] or the United States” that one can “circumvent” within the meaning of Intel, 542 U.S. at 265, is a question of law, not discretion, and a district court abuses its discretion where it “bases its decision on an error of law,” Millea, 658 F.3d at 166. To answer that question, we must consider the terms of the MLAT, particularly where, as here, VR points to no other sources of United States policy aside from the treaty itself. To date, neither the Supreme Court nor any Court of Appeals has considered whether a foreign sovereign that has an MLAT with the United States “circumvents” that MLAT by filing a § 1782 application in the district court. 32 Besides the district court in the instant case, three district courts have considered that question, all of them in different Circuits – one in relation to the United States-Nigeria MLAT and two in relation to a similar MLAT between the United States and Turkey – and all have denied the applications before them principally on the same basis as the district court in this case. See generally In re Ekpenyong Ntekim, No. 1:13-mc-38, Sp. App’x at 24-26 (E.D. Va. Dec. 18, 2013) (unpublished opinion); In re Republic of Turkey, No. 2:20-mc-36, 2021 WL 671518 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 22, 2021) (“Republic of Turkey I”); In re Republic of Turkey, No. 20-C-5012, 2021 WL 3022318 (N.D. Ill. July 16, 2021) (“Republic of Turkey II”). The first district court, however, devoted a mere three sentences of analysis to the circumvention question, see Ekpenyong Ntekim, Sp. App’x at 25-26,1 and the other two relied on 1 The entirety of that district court’s reasoning regarding the MLAT was as follows: This request, from the Attorney General of Akwa Ibom State to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, would circumvent the procedure that the Government of the United States and the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have established to facilitate precisely this type of request. Thus, the facts of this case point persuasively to [sic] conclusion that applicant’s request should properly be handled by the United States executive branch through diplomatic means. As such, it is appropriate for applicant to direct 33 the reasoning of the district court in this case, see Republic of Turkey I, 2021 WL 671518, at -12; Republic of Turkey II, 2021 WL 3022318, at -7. With no binding authority on point and little original analysis in the scant persuasive authority that exists, we must consider for ourselves the import of the Supreme Court’s guidance in Intel and the meaning of the United States-Nigeria MLAT. We begin with the word “circumvent,” the focus of the third Intel factor. Something that is “circumvented” must be an obstacle that one ordinarily would expect to encounter. See Circumvent, Oxford English Dictionary (2021) (“To get the better of by craft or fraud; to overreach, outwit, cheat, ‘get round’, ‘take in’. Also, to evade or find a way around (a difficulty, obstacle, etc.).”); Circumvent, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019) (“To avoid (a restrictive problem, rule, etc.), esp. by clever and sometimes dishonest means . . . . To avoid (an obstacle, etc.) by changing route.”). If there are two equally valid means to the same end and neither is meant to restrict use of the other, the choice of one over the other is not “circumvention.” For example, if two trains run from Lagos to Abuja but one makes fewer stops along the way and therefore completes the journey in less his request to the relevant U.S. authorities designated under the Treaty. 34 time, a passenger who chooses the faster express train has not “circumvented” the slower local. In the context of § 1782 and the third Intel factor, circumvention occurs where the applicant uses a § 1782 application to avoid measures that are intended to restrict certain means of gathering or using evidence. In Kiobel by Samkalden v. Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, 895 F.3d 238 (2d Cir. 2018), for example, we held that the district court abused its discretion in granting a § 1782 application, in part because the applicant, who was engaged in litigation in the Netherlands, was attempting to gather evidence in the United States that it would not be able to obtain under the more restrictive Dutch discovery rules. Id. at 245. Indeed, we have cautioned that courts should not give undue weight to the mere absence in foreign jurisdictions of proof-gathering mechanisms available in the United States, for “‘[p]roof-gathering restrictions’ are best understood as rules akin to privileges that prohibit the acquisition or use of certain materials, rather than as rules that fail to facilitate investigation of claims by empowering parties to require their adversarial and non-party witnesses to provide information.” Mees, 793 F.3d at 303 n.20 (emphasis in original). In order to tell whether an application like Nigeria’s can, as a matter of law, be said to “circumvent” the United 35 States-Nigeria MLAT within the meaning of Intel, we must determine whether the MLAT is properly understood as embodying a proof-gathering restriction, or at least a policy preference for use of its processes over other means by which Nigeria can gather evidence in the United States for use in criminal matters. “When interpreting a treaty, we begin with the text of the treaty and the context in which the written words are used.” Cohen v. American Airlines, Inc., 13 F.4th 240, 245 (2d Cir. 2021), quoting Ehrlich v. American Airlines, Inc., 360 F.3d 366, 375 (2d Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). The text of the MLAT makes clear that it was intended to expand, not contract, each signatory’s access to criminal evidence in the other’s jurisdiction. Article XIX of the treaty provides that “[a]ssistance and procedures provided by this Treaty shall not prevent or restrict either of the Contracting Parties from granting any assistance under other applicable international conventions, arrangements, agreements, practices, or under the laws of the Contracting Parties.” That provision alone should end the matter. Section 1782 is, of course, a law of the United States, one of the Contracting Parties, and it was in place at the time the treaty was signed and entered into force. The text of the MLAT makes plain that it does not operate as a restriction on evidence-gathering by means of 36 such an existing law.2 The preamble to the treaty further supports that construction: It explains that the treaty’s purposes are “to improve the effectiveness of the law enforcement authorities of both countries in the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of crime through cooperation and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters” and “to enhance assistance in the fight against crime.” (Emphasis added.) A treaty could hardly be said to “improve” or “enhance” the capabilities of law enforcement authorities if it deprived them of tools previously at their disposal.3 To be sure, parts of the United States-Nigeria MLAT do impose limits on the assistance that the Department of Justice or Nigerian Attorney General will 2 At oral argument, VR argued for the first time that in the phrase “[a]ssistance and procedures provided by this Treaty,” United States-Nigeria MLAT, art. XIX, the word “and” should be read conjunctively and “provided” in the past tense, and therefore Article XIX only applies where the Requesting State has already sought and obtained the assistance of the Requested State under the procedures outlined in the treaty. That belated argument mangles the plain language of the treaty. The phrase “provided by this Treaty” makes clear that “this Treaty” – not the Requested State’s Central Authority – is doing the “provid[ing].” 3 The text of the treaty is clear enough, standing alone, to resolve the issue before us. We note, nevertheless, that the legislative history is fully consistent with our reading of the text. Mirroring the text, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee noted its understanding that Article XIX is intended to make clear that the MLAT “shall not be deemed to prevent recourse to any assistance available under the internal laws of either country.” S. Exec. Rep. No. 106-24, at 102. 37 provide in response to an MLAT request. Article III, ¶ 1, for instance, authorizes the relevant authorities to deny requests that are noncompliant with the provisions of the treaty, relate to political offenses, relate to conduct that is only criminal under military law, or would violate the Requested State’s constitution or endanger its essential national interests. In addition, Article VIII imposes restrictions on the use of assistance obtained through MLAT requests. But reading those limiting provisions together with Article XIX’s rule of construction, it is clear that they are intended only as internal limits applicable to MLAT requests, not as restrictions on proof-gathering means external to the treaty. Reading the treaty’s procedures and substantive limitations as purely internal not only comports with the clear commands of the text – it also makes eminent sense. An MLAT is not merely a means by which a foreign sovereign may gather evidence in another jurisdiction. It is a cooperative arrangement pursuant to which the Requested State’s executive authorities affirmatively provide assistance to the Requesting State’s executive authorities. Under the United States-Nigeria MLAT, the Department of Justice is obligated to assist the Nigerian authorities by means that would be unavailable in the United States to private persons or to the Nigerian authorities acting alone, even with access to 38 § 1782. These include, among other means of assistance: “transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; [] executing requests for searches and seizures; [] tracing, identifying, and immobilizing criminally obtained assets; [and] assisting in proceedings related to forfeiture, restitution, and collection of fines.” United States-Nigeria MLAT, art. I, ¶ 2. It is hardly surprising that there should be sharper limits on borrowing the power of the Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners than on making the sorts of ordinary discovery requests available to every civil litigant in a United States District Court. It similarly makes sense that those sharper limits would apply to requests by American prosecutors for assistance by the Nigerian authorities. For similar reasons, we are unpersuaded by VR’s policy argument that opening the § 1782 process to foreign sovereigns investigating criminal offenses would deter other countries from entering MLATs with the United States. An MLAT offers a foreign sovereign many forms of assistance that are not available via the ordinary civil discovery procedures available under § 1782, such as the ability to execute (through the Department of Justice) searches and seizures in this country. That alone, not to mention the other tools that an MLAT provides, is a significant incentive for other countries to negotiate MLATs with the United 39 States. Moreover, regardless of the possible soundness of its policy arguments, VR does not point to any principle of law that would prevent a sovereign, with or without an MLAT with the United States, from obtaining discovery in a criminal matter by means of a direct § 1782 application. If anything, it is VR’s position – that an MLAT should be considered an obstacle to a foreign sovereign seeking discovery pursuant to § 1782 for use in criminal matters – that would disincentivize the further proliferation of MLATs. Nor do the policy reasons that the district court identified justify an insistence on first resort to the MLAT process. While district courts have broad discretion to grant or deny § 1782 applications, that discretion is not a license to engage in a free-ranging policy analysis of any given application without a basis in the Intel factors or the broader “twin aims” of the statute. See Malev Hungarian Airlines, 964 F.2d at 100-01, quoting Indep. Oil & Chem. Workers v. Procter & Gamble, 864 F.2d 927, 929 (1st Cir. 1988) (“Judicial discretion is necessarily broad – but it is not absolute. Abuse occurs . . . where an improper factor is relied upon . . . .”). Thus, in Malev Hungarian Airlines, we held that a district court abused its discretion by denying an application on the basis that the applicant had not exhausted its opportunities for discovery before the foreign tribunal – a 40 requirement that, while perhaps supported by sound policy considerations, has no basis in the text or purpose of § 1782. Id. at 101. The district court may well be correct that the MLAT process promotes comity and consistent outcomes . . . , adds protection for the domestic entities from whom discovery is sought by foreign prosecutors and criminal investigators, and assures that the U.S. government’s expertise and analytic rigor is applied to the application, including to assure that the discovery is not sought for ulterior (non-prosecutive) ends. Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 499 F. Supp. 3d at 15. It may also be that foreign sovereigns and prosecutors – both those with an MLAT and those without – often send their evidence-gathering requests to the Department of Justice instead of making applications under § 1782.4 But consistency, protection of domestic entities, and reliance on executive expertise are not relevant considerations when 4 The district court suggested that channeling requests through the Department of Justice is the most common procedure – at least where an MLAT exists – but it did not cite any empirical data comparing the respective frequency of use of these alternate procedures. See Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 499 F. Supp. 3d at 15 (“[B]ased on the authorities the parties have mustered, other foreign prosecutors appear to have consistently pursued discovery via the governing MLAT rather than proceeding in the first instance to a district court under § 1782.”). In any event, the existence of a general practice among foreign sovereigns, standing alone, neither establishes a United States or foreign policy preferring the use of MLATs nor provides an independent reason to deny an MLAT signatory’s § 1782 application. 41 evaluating the third or any other Intel factor. And while the promotion of comity may be relevant to the overarching inquiry of whether granting the application would serve the second of the “twin aims” of § 1782 – “encouraging foreign countries by example to provide similar means of assistance to our courts,” Mees, 793 F.3d at 297-98, quoting Schmitz, 376 F.3d at 84 – the district court did not explain why allowing foreign sovereigns to make direct § 1782 requests for discovery in criminal matters would undermine that aim. To the extent that § 1782 forces district courts to make determinations that they might consider other actors better equipped to make, “we are not at liberty to second-guess the policy choices of our Congress.” Malev Hungarian Airlines, 964 F.2d at 100. Moreover, insofar as Congress has set any policy regarding foreign requests for assistance in criminal matters – with or without an MLAT5 – that 5 At oral argument, VR’s counsel asserted that it is standard procedure for countries without an MLAT seeking assistance in criminal matters to send letters rogatory to the Department of Justice. When pressed, however, VR’s counsel could not provide any empirical basis for that assertion besides the fact that the Department has procedures for processing letters rogatory from such countries – an apparent reference to outdated Department guidance cited in VR’s brief. Whatever the Department’s procedures for processing letters rogatory may be after the enactment of 18 U.S.C. § 3512 in 2009, the existence of such an option does not imply a relevant policy preference on behalf of the United States. There is no requirement in the text of § 1782 that foreign sovereigns and prosecutors proceed by letters rogatory directed to the Executive Branch rather than by direct 42 policy is that § 1782 applications should remain an option for the foreign sovereign. When Congress codified the process for granting orders authorizing the Justice Department to provide assistance to a foreign sovereign, see 18 U.S.C. § 3512, it expressly provided that “[n]othing in [that] section shall be construed to preclude any foreign authority or an interested person from obtaining assistance in a criminal investigation or prosecution pursuant to section 1782 of title 28, United States Code.” Id. § 3512(g). It is of course possible that a specific treaty could enact a policy that would trump that more general provision, but neither VR nor the district court identifies any reason why the United States-Nigeria MLAT should be read to do so. In sum, the United States-Nigeria MLAT does not, as a matter of law, embody a “proof-gathering restriction[] or [] polic[y]” that prefers its own procedures above other means of gathering evidence for use in criminal matters. Intel, 542 U.S. at 265. Nigeria does not “circumvent” any relevant restriction or policy within the meaning of Intel by filing an application under § 1782 when it applications to courts under § 1782. To the contrary, the statute mentions letters rogatory as an option only where a foreign or international tribunal seeks assistance. See 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a) (“The order may be made pursuant to [1] a letter rogatory issued, or request made, by a foreign or international tribunal or [2] upon the application of any interested person . . . .”). 43 could otherwise file an MLAT request. We therefore hold that the district court based its decision on legal error, and thereby exceeded the bounds of its discretion, by requiring Nigeria to justify its use of a § 1782 application rather than an MLAT request for discovery in connection with criminal proceedings. 3. It would not be “improper” for Nigeria to use the materials sought in the English Proceeding. Nigeria further argues that the district court erred in considering its potential use of evidence gathered pursuant to its § 1782 application in the English Proceeding, and its representations to Judge Schofield on that subject, when deciding the question of “circumvention” within the meaning of the third Intel factor. Again, we agree. In evaluating the statutory requirements of § 1782, the district court stated that the English Proceeding was not a “proceeding before a foreign or international tribunal” within the meaning of the statute. See Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 499 F. Supp. 3d at 10-11. The present application names the Nigerian Proceedings – which the district court was willing to assume were qualifying proceedings – as the matter for which Nigeria seeks discovery. Thus the district court’s discussion of the English Proceeding in the context of the second statutory 44 requirement is arguably dictum. However, the district court also relied on its characterization of the English Proceeding as beyond the scope of the statute in its evaluation of the third Intel factor, viewing Nigeria’s potential use of evidence gathered pursuant to its § 1782 application in that proceeding as evidence of Nigeria’s intent to “circumvent” proof-gathering restrictions or policies. See id. at 17 (“[T]he Court finds that the DOJ review contemplated by the MLAT would serve salutary purposes here, including helping determine whether, in whole or in part, the materials sought are genuinely intended for use in a criminal prosecution or investigation, or whether they are sought for the improper purpose of fortifying Nigeria’s attempt in the English courts to void the multi-billiondollar arbitral Award against it.” (emphasis added)). We therefore have occasion to note that there would be nothing “improper” about Nigeria’s use of discovery gathered pursuant to the instant application in the English Proceeding. From the record before us, it appears that the English Proceeding would independently qualify as a “proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal” within the meaning of the statute. In concluding that it did not, the district court relied principally upon Euromepa, S.A. v. R. Esmerian, Inc., 154 F.3d 24 (2d Cir. 1998). In that case, the applicant initially sought discovery for use in a civil fraud 45 action in France. Euromepa, 154 F.3d at 25. While the application was pending, however, the French trial court entered judgment for the plaintiff (the respondent in this country), and France’s court of last resort for the matter affirmed that judgment. Id. at 25-26. The defendant (the applicant in this country) then declared bankruptcy in France. Id. at 26. The respondent moved in the district court to dismiss the § 1782 application as moot, asserting that the matter for which discovery was sought had run its course; the applicant argued in response that the still-ongoing bankruptcy proceeding was a qualifying “proceeding” within the meaning of § 1782. Id. at 28. The district court dismissed the application as moot, and we affirmed. Although we acknowledged that “a bankruptcy proceeding may, in some instances, be an adjudicative proceeding within the meaning of the statute,” we noted that “[a]s a matter of French law, the judgment of the French Supreme Court acts as res judicata with respect to the merits of the dispute in the French Bankruptcy Proceeding.” Id. Therefore, “in the French Bankruptcy Proceeding, nothing [was] being adjudicated; the already extant judgment [was] merely being enforced.” Id. Contrary to the district court’s reasoning in the present case, the English Proceeding is not “of a similar post-judgment character” to the French 46 bankruptcy proceeding in Euromepa. Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 499 F. Supp. 3d at 10. True, there is something resembling an “already extant judgment” here – the Arbitration Award – and Nigeria is attempting to keep that Award from being “enforced” in the English Proceeding. Euromepa, 154 F.3d at 28. But the district court misread Euromepa to the extent that it understood that case to hold that the mere completion of an initial adjudication of a dispute categorically disqualifies a foreign proceeding under § 1782‘s statutory “proceeding” requirement. Euromepa was fundamentally a case about mootness, at least in the practical sense. We held that there was no longer a qualifying “proceeding” under the statute because the French equivalent of our res judicata doctrine prevented the French bankruptcy court from reconsidering the underlying merits of the dispute, and thus the discovery sought in the United States was no longer of any use in the matter for which it was originally sought. Here, in contrast, Nigeria is expressly asking the English Court to probe the merits of, and set aside, the Arbitration Award, and VR has never disputed that the English Court has the authority to do so. The English Court, unquestionably a foreign tribunal, has scheduled a trial, a quintessential adjudicative proceeding, to determine the merits of a contention that an arbitral 47 award should be vacated as fraudulently obtained, a recognized judicial function in this country as well as in the United Kingdom. Cf. India, 385 F.2d at 1020-22 (explaining that “an Indian Income-Tax Office is not a ‘tribunal’” and its taxcollection efforts are not adjudicative proceedings). We have no doubt, therefore, that if Nigeria had sought to obtain discovery under § 1782 in the first instance for use in the English Proceeding, such a request would satisfy the statutory requirements. Of course, Nigeria did not state in the present application that it sought discovery for use in the English Proceeding – it stated that it sought discovery for use in the Nigerian Proceedings. But we have held that “Section 1782 does not prevent an applicant who lawfully has obtained discovery under the statute with respect to one foreign proceeding from using the discovery elsewhere.” Accent Delight, 869 F.3d at 135. While that holding concerned the statutory “for use” requirement, it necessarily follows that the possibility of use in a different but independently qualifying proceeding does not constitute an attempt to “circumvent” a proof-gathering restriction or policy of the United States or a foreign state. The district court thus erred to the extent that its evaluation of the third Intel factor relied on its characterization of the English Proceeding as an 48 “improper” use for discovery obtained pursuant to the present application. For the same reason, the district court’s concern about Nigeria’s representations to Judge Schofield was misplaced. Nigeria asserts that the district court’s characterization of those representations as “dishonest” was clearly erroneous. We need not decide that question, because the district court considered Nigeria’s putative dishonesty to Judge Schofield relevant only insofar as it evinced an intent “to avoid [Department of Justice] scrutiny into whether Nigeria is seeking discovery from the VR entities for the improper purpose of attempting to undermine the arbitral Award against it,” Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 499 F. Supp. 3d at 16, which, as just discussed, would not be an improper purpose. Regardless of whether Nigeria “misled” Judge Schofield regarding its intentions, the district court’s reasoning as to why any putative dishonesty would be relevant to its analysis of the third Intel factor relied on legal error, strengthening our conclusion that the district court abused its discretion in evaluating the third Intel factor.6 6 That is not to say that if a district court determines that the stated reasons underlying a § 1782 application were purely pretextual, that fact should be irrelevant to the court’s consideration of the application. At the same time, we note that VR’s description of the district court’s concern in this case appears somewhat exaggerated. Nigeria’s dismissal of VR’s suggestion that it was 49