By Jorge Schmidt, Legal Schmidt PLLC · Published June 28, 2026
When the dispute is in São Paulo, Quito, or Mexico City but the evidence sits in the United States, Section 1782 is the bridge. It lets a litigant in a foreign proceeding ask a US district court to order discovery from a person who resides or is found here. For counsel across Latin America it is a fast, powerful route to US evidence — but it rewards discipline. Three recent cases show what works, how the orders are enforced, and the trap that sinks otherwise-valid applications.
An application must clear four statutory requirements: the target resides or is found in the district; the discovery is for use in a proceeding before a foreign or international tribunal; the applicant is an interested person (or the tribunal itself); and the material is not shielded by a legally applicable privilege. Even when those are met, the court still weighs four discretionary factors from Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241 (2004). Two themes run through the Latin American cases: how early counsel may move, and how much the discretionary factors can matter.
A foreign case need not be pending to support a Section 1782 application; it is enough that the proceeding is "within reasonable contemplation." The leading appellate decision is In re Consorcio Ecuatoriano de Telecomunicaciones S.A., 747 F.3d 1262 (11th Cir. 2014). An Ecuadorian telecom, embroiled in a contract dispute, sought discovery from a US freight company found in the Southern District of Florida for use in contemplated civil and criminal proceedings in Ecuador. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the grant. Proceedings need not be pending or imminent, it held, but they must be "more than speculative," supported by "reliable indications" that they will be instituted within a reasonable time. The telecom qualified as an interested person, the request was narrowly tailored, and the Intel factors favored discovery. The takeaway for Latin American counsel is that you can gather evidence before filing abroad — provided you can show a concrete, non-speculative plan to litigate.
Winning the order is only half the battle; compliance is the other half, and US courts will enforce. In In re Application of Banco Sistema S.A., No. 1:23-mc-00240 (S.D.N.Y. June 16, 2026), a Brazilian bank had obtained a Section 1782 order in 2023 to take discovery from a set of New York entities — GRTB, LLC, Julio Bogoricin Real Estate Corp., and related real-estate corporations — for use in a civil proceeding in the 1st Civil Court of Curitiba, Brazil. When the respondents did not comply, the court adopted a magistrate judge's Report and Recommendation, held them in civil contempt, imposed a fine of $250 per day for continued noncompliance, and awarded the bank its attorneys' fees. For counsel weighing whether a US order is worth pursuing, the message is clear: it is not advisory. Noncompliant US targets face mounting sanctions and a fee award.
Section 1782 is not a way around a foreign tribunal's own process, and a court will say no when it looks like one. El Poder del Consumidor v. The Coca-Cola Company, No. 1:24-cv-03665 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 30, 2024), is the cautionary tale. A Mexican consumer-advocacy organization sought discovery from Coca-Cola for use before COFEPRIS, Mexico's health-regulatory agency. The magistrate judge first found that COFEPRIS qualifies as a "tribunal" — it adjudicates in the first instance, takes evidence, can impose penalties, and its decisions are judicially reviewable — and that the statutory requirements were met.
The application failed anyway, on the third Intel factor: circumvention. The petitioner had "jumped the gun," seeking broad US discovery only days after filing its Mexican complaint, omitting Coca-Cola's Mexican subsidiaries from that complaint, and never asking COFEPRIS to gather the evidence itself. That sequence suggested an effort to bypass the agency's investigative autonomy, and principles of comity counseled against substituting US discovery for the foreign body's own process. The magistrate judge recommended denying the application without prejudice. The lesson is timing and respect: file when the foreign matter is developed, and be ready to explain why the foreign tribunal cannot gather the evidence on its own.
Private petitions are not the only route. The US government also uses Section 1782 to execute letters of request — letters rogatory — issued by foreign courts, and recent applications have arisen from courts in Argentina and Brazil. That channel runs through government counsel rather than an interested person's petition, on its own timeline. Counsel should know it exists as an alternative or complement, depending on the matter and who is driving the request.
The Latin American Section 1782 docket clusters in a few areas. Banking and asset tracing are the largest: records held by US correspondent banks are often the only way to follow money out of Brazil, Argentina, or Venezuela, and the targets are frequently the US branches of foreign institutions. Commercial-contract and telecom disputes appear as well, as in the Ecuadorian telecom case. Consumer-protection and public-health matters are a newer entrant, illustrated by the Mexican COFEPRIS application. And government letters of request from Argentine and Brazilian courts move through the separate, government-driven channel described above.
Across these sectors the same levers recur. The "reasonable contemplation" opening lets counsel move before the foreign case is formally filed. The discovery targets are usually US companies or the US arms of multinationals. And the recurring defense is comity — the argument that the applicant should have used the foreign forum's own process first. A regional practice note: many of these matters are decided in the Southern District of New York and the Southern District of Florida, the two busiest Section 1782 districts and the natural venues for Latin American counsel, because that is where the banks, the multinationals, and the money tend to be found.
Section 1782 is a fast and potent way to reach US evidence for Brazilian, Ecuadorian, Mexican, and other Latin American matters. The "reasonable contemplation" standard lets counsel move before the foreign case is formally pending, so long as the plan to litigate is concrete rather than speculative. Once an order issues, it carries real force — contempt, daily fines, and fee awards — against US targets who stall. But the discretionary factors are not a formality: do not jump the gun, do not use the statute to sidestep the foreign tribunal's own process, and tailor the request narrowly, or risk denial on comity and circumvention grounds. Filed at the right time and framed with respect for the foreign forum, a Section 1782 application is one of the most effective tools a Latin American litigant has in the United States.
For the full framework and strategy — statutory requirements, the Intel factors, and the defenses — see A Practical Guide to Bringing and Defending Section 1782 Applications.