By Jorge Schmidt, Legal Schmidt PLLC · Published July 12, 2026
An applicant asked a New York federal court for discovery from four American respondents: two banks, a holding company, and the U.S. arm of a Korean group. It got discovery from three of them. The fourth dropped out before the court reached a single discretionary question, for a reason that has nothing to do with the merits and everything to do with how the application was put together. That respondent had an office in New York. An office, the court held, is not enough.
The decision is In re Application of N3RVE, LLC, No. 1:26-mc-00248 (S.D.N.Y. June 24, 2026), a report and recommendation by Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker, adopted, No. 1:26-mc-00248 (S.D.N.Y. July 9, 2026). It is a short opinion doing ordinary work, which is why it repays attention. Most 28 U.S.C. § 1782 applications are not lost on grand questions of comity. They are lost, or narrowed, on choices the applicant made before filing: which respondent to name, what to allege about that respondent's connection to the district, what proof to attach about the foreign case, and how widely to draft the subpoena. N3RVE is a lesson on each. It also corrects a common piece of pessimism: the first Intel factor weighed against this applicant as to every remaining respondent, and it still got its discovery.
Section 1782 lets a U.S. district court order a person "found" in its district to produce documents or give testimony "for use" in a proceeding before a foreign or international tribunal, on the application of that tribunal or of any "interested person." The foreign proceeding need not be pending; it is enough that it is "within reasonable contemplation." Clearing those three requirements entitles the applicant to nothing. It opens the court's discretion, which under Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241 (2004), turns on four factors: whether the respondent is a participant in the foreign proceeding; the foreign tribunal's receptivity to U.S. assistance; whether the request conceals an attempt to circumvent foreign proof-gathering restrictions; and whether it is unduly intrusive or burdensome.
One feature of U.S. practice is worth naming. The application is normally made ex parte and is often referred to a magistrate judge, who issues a report and recommendation for the district judge to review. If nobody objects within fourteen days, that review is only for clear error. That is what happened here: no party objected, and Judge Gregory H. Woods adopted the recommendation in full. So the magistrate judge's reasoning is the decision.
N3RVE, LLC develops and promotes recording artists and songwriters. According to its application, its founder negotiated a five-million-dollar investment for a twenty percent stake with the controlling owner of the Korean group Genesis BBQ. The parties signed a subscription agreement in June 2022, the investment was restructured into two tranches, and only the first arrived. Communications ceased. N3RVE retained a Korean law firm, which produced a written opinion on the causes of action available against the Korean group, two individuals, and a holding company; sent demand letters and document-preservation notices; and prepared to sue in the Seoul Central District Court. Then it applied ex parte in the Southern District of New York for discovery from JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Iliad Holdings, LLC, and Genesis BBQ USA, LLC.
The requirement that the respondent "reside[] or [be] found" in the district mirrors the limits of personal jurisdiction consistent with due process. See In re del Valle Ruiz, 939 F.3d 520 (2d Cir. 2019); In re Edelman, 295 F.3d 171 (2d Cir. 2002) (endorsing a "flexible reading" of the phrase). The reading is broad, reaching both general and specific jurisdiction. But breadth is not generosity, and the court applied it to three different effects.
The banks were straightforward. JPMorgan Chase has its principal place of business in the district; Bank of America has a multitude of locations and significant activity there. Both are found in the Southern District of New York, as they routinely are.
Iliad Holdings was the interesting one. It is not at home in New York. But it was alleged to hold a New York bank account and to have moved the money at the center of the dispute through it. That is specific jurisdiction: the forum contact is the reason the evidence exists at all. Iliad was found in the district.
Genesis BBQ USA was not. It is a New Jersey corporation with no principal place of business in New York, and its New York office was not alleged to have any relationship to the transactions at issue in the contemplated Korean proceeding. A court cannot exercise general jurisdiction over a corporation that is not at home in the state, and an office in the district, without a link between that office and the matters in dispute, gives no specific jurisdiction either. The application against Genesis BBQ USA was denied in full, at the statutory stage, before the court weighed a single Intel factor. The applicant's theory of the case was sound; its choice of respondent was not. An address in the district is a fact about the respondent. What the statute wants is a fact about the relationship between the respondent, the district, and the evidence.
A contemplated proceeding must be more than a "twinkle" in the applicant's eye. See Certain Funds, Accounts &/or Investment Vehicles v. KPMG, L.L.P., 798 F.3d 113 (2d Cir. 2015). Where a legal theory has been developed, an attorney hired, and other steps taken to file the foreign action imminently, courts generally find the requirement satisfied.
N3RVE cleared that bar, and it is worth noticing how. Not by saying it intended to sue, but with documents: an opinion from Korean counsel identifying specific causes of action, demand letters to the contemplated defendants, preservation notices, and a named forum. Each is an object the court can look at. A declaration of intent is not. The third requirement gave no trouble, because an applicant who will be a party to the contemplated foreign action is an interested person.
The first Intel factor asks whether the respondent is a participant in the foreign proceeding, on the theory that a nonparticipant's evidence is the evidence the foreign court cannot get for itself. In applying it, the Second Circuit looks to who the actual discovery target is, not who the stated target is. Where an applicant subpoenas a bank for the records of participants in the foreign proceeding, the court has held that the applicant is in substance seeking the records of the parties themselves. See In re Saul Klein, No. 23 Misc. 211 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 21, 2023). A subpoena served on the U.S. agent or affiliate of a foreign adversary is treated the same way.
Applied here, the factor was bad news across the board. Iliad Holdings is itself a contemplated defendant. The bank subpoenas sought the account records of the contemplated Korean defendants, so the applicant was in substance seeking the parties' own records, and the Korean courts would likely be able to reach those parties. The factor weighed against discovery as to all three remaining respondents.
And the discovery issued anyway. The second factor favored it: Korean courts are recognized as receptive to evidence obtained in the United States, and there was no authoritative declaration to the contrary. The third favored it too: the discovery matched the contemplated civil actions, and an applicant need not exhaust discovery in the foreign forum first, because Section 1782 has no quasi-exhaustion requirement. That left the fourth factor, and the fourth factor is fixable.
The fourth factor asks whether the request is unduly intrusive or burdensome, and courts evaluate it together with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, which requires discovery to be relevant to the claims and defenses and proportional to the needs of the case. Intel itself says that unduly intrusive or burdensome requests "may be rejected or trimmed." The court took the second option, and the trimming is specific enough to be worth copying.
The magistrate judge imposed a single time period on every request, January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023, matching the events in dispute rather than the applicant's window running to the present. She converted requests for "any and all documents" about the holding company's formation and management into requests for documents "sufficient to identify" its owners, officers, and managers. She tied the remaining requests to the funding of N3RVE rather than to N3RVE at large. And she cut the bank subpoenas down from any account held by any contemplated defendant to documents sufficient to show the accounts at issue and to identify the source of the funds for the transfer in dispute.
The result: denied entirely as to Genesis BBQ USA; granted, as modified, against the other three. One limit is worth stating plainly, because a decision is only useful if you also know what it does not decide. The court did not pass on the receptivity of Korean administrative tribunals as distinct from the civil courts, and it did not analyze the contemplated administrative actions separately from the civil ones.
First, choose respondents the court can reach, and plead the reason. An office in the district is not a jurisdictional hook. Either the respondent is at home in the district, or the district's connection to the respondent is the reason the evidence exists. A New York bank account through which the disputed money moved is exactly such a connection. Allege it; do not assume the court will infer it.
Second, do not route discovery through your adversary's U.S. affiliate if you have another way in. Courts treat that subpoena as one served on the adversary itself, and it puts the first Intel factor on the wrong side of the ledger before you have said anything else.
Third, build the record for reasonable contemplation before you file: an opinion from foreign counsel identifying the causes of action, demand letters, preservation notices, and the name of the court you will file in. Four documents, and they are the difference between a contemplated proceeding and a twinkle.
Fourth, draft the subpoena the way you want the court to enter it. A defined time window tied to the events. "Documents sufficient to show" instead of "any and all documents." Requests tied to the transaction rather than to the party. Draft that way and you arrive at the fourth factor with nothing left to trim.
Fifth, do not abandon an application because the records you want are, in substance, your adversary's records. In N3RVE that fact hurt as to every respondent, and the discovery issued regardless: the foreign forum was receptive, the applicant was not evading Korean procedure, and the scope problem was one the court could solve with a pencil. Expect the narrowing, and propose it yourself.
This article is part of the Section 1782 practice resources at Section 1782: US Discovery in Aid of Foreign Proceedings. Jorge Schmidt practices at Legal Schmidt PLLC, a Miami firm focused on cross-border discovery under 28 U.S.C. § 1782, international judicial assistance, and complex commercial litigation. Contact: jorge@spllc.law · 305 902 5125.