Skip to content
National Association of Attorneys General
  • Issues
    • Issues
      • Anticorruption
      • Antitrust
      • Bankruptcy
      • Charities
      • Civil Law
    • Issues
      • Consumer Protection
      • Criminal Law
      • Cyber and Technology
      • Disaster Preparedness & Response
      • Elder Justice
    • Issues
      • Ethics
      • Human Trafficking
      • Medicaid Fraud
      • Opioids
      • Powers & Duties
    • Issues
      • Public Health
      • The U.S. Supreme Court
      • Tobacco
      • Veterans & Military
  • Our Work
    • Training & Research
    • Centers
      • Center for Consumer Protection
      • Center for Supreme Court Advocacy
      • Center for Tobacco & Public Health
    • Committees
    • Initiatives
      • Presidential Initiative
      • Strategic Partnerships
      • International Fellows
      • COVID-19
    • Bankruptcy
    • Policy & Advocacy
  • Events & Training
    • Event Calendar
    • Attorney General Symposium
    • Presidential Summit
    • Capital Forum
    • Region Meetings
    • CLE Credit
    • NAAG Trainings
    • Online Learning
    • NAMFCU Trainings
    • NAAG Faculty
  • News & Resources
    • Attorney General Journal
    • Reports & Publications
    • Newsroom
    • NAAG Policy Letters
    • Podcasts
    • Online Learning
    • Research & Data
    • Member Directory
  • Attorneys General
    • What Attorneys General Do
    • Who is my Attorney General?
    • Attorneys General Office 101
    • Research & Data
    • Awards & Recognition
    • Careers in Attorney General Offices
    • Careers in Medicaid Fraud Control Units
  • About NAAG
    • NAAG Staff
    • NAAG Leadership
    • NAAG Member Services
    • NAAG Regions
    • NAAG FAQs
    • SAGE
    • NAMFCU
    • Newsroom
    • Careers at NAAG
  • Find my AG
  • About NAMFCU
    • About the Medicaid Fraud Control Units
    • Reporting Fraud and Abuse
    • MFCU Member Hub
    • Careers with a MFCU
  • Contact Us
National Association of Attorneys General
  • Find My AG
  • Consumer Complaints
  • Member Benefits
  • Contact Us
Log In
  • Issues
    • Issues
      • Anticorruption
      • Antitrust
      • Bankruptcy
      • Charities
      • Civil Law
    • Issues
      • Consumer Protection
      • Criminal Law
      • Cyber and Technology
      • Disaster Preparedness & Response
      • Elder Justice
    • Issues
      • Ethics
      • Human Trafficking
      • Medicaid Fraud
      • Opioids
      • Powers & Duties
    • Issues
      • Public Health
      • The U.S. Supreme Court
      • Tobacco
      • Veterans & Military
  • Our Work
    • Training & Research
    • Centers
      • Center for Consumer Protection
      • Center for Supreme Court Advocacy
      • Center for Tobacco & Public Health
    • Committees
    • Initiatives
      • Presidential Initiative
      • Strategic Partnerships
      • International Fellows
      • COVID-19
    • Bankruptcy
    • Policy & Advocacy
  • Events & Training
    • Event Calendar
    • Attorney General Symposium
    • Presidential Summit
    • Capital Forum
    • Region Meetings
    • CLE Credit
    • NAAG Trainings
    • Online Learning
    • NAMFCU Trainings
    • NAAG Faculty
  • News & Resources
    • Attorney General Journal
    • Reports & Publications
    • Newsroom
    • NAAG Policy Letters
    • Podcasts
    • Online Learning
    • Research & Data
    • Member Directory
  • Attorneys General
    • What Attorneys General Do
    • Who is my Attorney General?
    • Attorneys General Office 101
    • Research & Data
    • Awards & Recognition
    • Careers in Attorney General Offices
    • Careers in Medicaid Fraud Control Units
  • About NAAG
    • NAAG Staff
    • NAAG Leadership
    • NAAG Member Services
    • NAAG Regions
    • NAAG FAQs
    • SAGE
    • NAMFCU
    • Newsroom
    • Careers at NAAG
  • Find my AG
  • About NAMFCU
    • About the Medicaid Fraud Control Units
    • Reporting Fraud and Abuse
    • MFCU Member Hub
    • Careers with a MFCU
  • Contact Us

Supreme Court Report: ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 21-401; AlixPartners, LLC v. Fund for Protection of Investor Rights in Foreign States, 21-518

Home / Supreme Court / Supreme Court Report: ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 21-401; AlixPartners, LLC v. Fund for Protection of Investor Rights in Foreign States, 21-518
December 21, 2021 Supreme Court
Share this

  • Dan Schweitzer
    Director, Center for Supreme Court Advocacy
    National Association of Attorneys General

December 21, 2021
Volume 29, Issue 5

This Report summarizes an opinion issued on December 10, 2021 (Part I); and cases granted review on December 10 and 15, 2021 (Part II).

Cases Granted Review: ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 21-401; AlixPartners, LLC v. Fund for Protection of Investor Rights in Foreign States, 21-518

ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 21-401; AlixPartners, LLC v. Fund for Protection of Investor Rights in Foreign States, 21-518. At issue in these consolidated cases is “[w]hether 28 U.S.C. §1782(a), which permits litigants to invoke the authority of United States courts to render assistance in gathering evidence for use in ‘a foreign or international tribunal,’ encompasses private commercial arbitral tribunals . . . or excludes such tribunals[.]” In ZF Automotive US, ZF Friedrichshafen AG  (ZF AG), a German corporation headquartered in Germany, sold its Global Body Control Systems business unit to respondent Luxshare, a Hong Kong limited liability company. The Master Purchase Agreement provides that it is to be governed by German law, and requires that all disputes be resolved “by three (3) arbitrators in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS).” Luxshare alleges that “[a]fter the [April 2018] [c]losing” of its deal with ZF AG, it learned that ZF US―a Michigan-based automotive parts manufacturer and an indirect subsidiary of ZF AG―fraudulently concealed information during the negotiation and diligence process. In October 2020, Luxshare filed an ex parte application for discovery under §1782. The district court granted the application, after which Luxshare served petitioners (ZF US and several of its officers) with subpoenas. Petitioners moved to quash the subpoenas on various grounds, including that the application should have been denied in its entirety because, inter alia, the DIS arbitration was not a “tribunal” within the meaning of §1782. The magistrate judge partially granted and partially denied petitioners’ motion to quash, and the district court deferred to the magistrate judge’s conclusions. Petitioners appealed to the Sixth Circuit, whose circuit precedent establishes that the DIS arbitration is a “tribunal” within the meaning of §1782. The Supreme Court granted certiorari before judgment in the Sixth Circuit.

Petitioners contend that the Sixth Circuit precedent is wrong, and that private commercial arbitral tribunals such as the DIS tribunal is not a “tribunal” within the meaning of §1782. They argue that the “statute’s text, contemporaneous dictionary definitions, th[e] Court’s precedent, legal scholarship, and compelling policy concerns . . . confirm that a ‘foreign or international tribunal’ under Section 1782 includes only governmental or intergovernmental adjudicative bodies, and excludes private arbitrators that have no sovereign authority.” Petitioners insist that “[a]s those sources have explained, at the time Section 1782 was enacted in 1964, dictionaries consistently defined a ‘tribunal’ as a court or other governmental adjudicator—a definition that plainly excludes private arbitrators, who exercise no sovereign authority.” And they maintain that when §1782’s language was broadened to refer to “tribunals,” and not just “courts,” it was done to “permit United States courts to assist the many varieties of quasi-judicial bodies operating in foreign countries. But they contain no hint at all that Congress intended to allow the conscription of United States courts to aid purely private foreign arbitrators.”

[Editor’s note: Some of the language in the background section of the summary above was taken from the petition for writ of certiorari and brief in opposition.]

Related Posts

Related Posts

Supreme Court Report, Volume 31, Issue 20

Supreme Court Report, Volume 32, Issue 6

Supreme Court Report, Volume 31, Issue 15

Connect with NAAG and the Attorney General Community

Create a NAAG account to subscribe to our newsletters or mailing lists.

Create Account
Subscribe
Marble columns and the top of a federal building

scroll to filters

White Logo for the National Association of Attorneys General

1850 M Street NW
12th floor
Washington, DC 20036

TEL 202-326-6000
EMAIL 

Youtube
  • Issues
    • Issues
      • Anticorruption
      • Antitrust
      • Bankruptcy
      • Charities
      • Civil Law
    • Issues
      • Consumer Protection
      • Criminal Law
      • Cyber and Technology
      • Disaster Preparedness & Response
      • Elder Justice
    • Issues
      • Ethics
      • Human Trafficking
      • Medicaid Fraud
      • Opioids
      • Powers & Duties
    • Issues
      • Public Health
      • The U.S. Supreme Court
      • Tobacco
      • Veterans & Military
  • Our Work
    • Training & Research
    • Centers
      • Center for Consumer Protection
      • Center for Supreme Court Advocacy
      • Center for Tobacco & Public Health
    • Committees
    • Initiatives
      • Presidential Initiative
      • Strategic Partnerships
      • International Fellows
      • COVID-19
    • Bankruptcy
    • Policy & Advocacy
  • Events & Training
    • Event Calendar
    • Attorney General Symposium
    • Presidential Summit
    • Capital Forum
    • Region Meetings
    • CLE Credit
    • NAAG Trainings
    • Online Learning
    • NAMFCU Trainings
    • NAAG Faculty
  • News & Resources
    • Attorney General Journal
    • Reports & Publications
    • Newsroom
    • NAAG Policy Letters
    • Podcasts
    • Online Learning
    • Research & Data
    • Member Directory
  • Attorneys General
    • What Attorneys General Do
    • Who is my Attorney General?
    • Attorneys General Office 101
    • Research & Data
    • Awards & Recognition
    • Careers in Attorney General Offices
    • Careers in Medicaid Fraud Control Units
  • About NAAG
    • NAAG Staff
    • NAAG Leadership
    • NAAG Member Services
    • NAAG Regions
    • NAAG FAQs
    • SAGE
    • NAMFCU
    • Newsroom
    • Careers at NAAG
  • Find my AG
  • About NAMFCU
    • About the Medicaid Fraud Control Units
    • Reporting Fraud and Abuse
    • MFCU Member Hub
    • Careers with a MFCU
  • Contact Us
  • Find My AG
  • Consumer Complaints
  • Member Benefits
  • Contact Us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy & Cookies Notice
  • Sitemap
  • Member Login

About the National Association of Attorneys General

As the nonpartisan national forum for America's state and territory attorneys general and their staff, NAAG provides collaboration, insight, and expertise to empower and champion America's attorneys general.
Learn More

© 2025 Copyright National Association of Attorneys General

Website by Yoko Co

Internal Feedback / Report an Error

Request an Update / Report an Error

The change you are requesting will be linked to this page. The URL for the page will be included in a hidden field when the form is submitted.
Please enter your change or describe your request. Be sure to reference where the error appears on the page and what needs to be done specifically.
Upload any files that need to be linked to this page. PDF only. Submit another request if you have more than five files to upload.
Drop files here or
Accepted file types: pdf, docx, xls, Max. file size: 128 MB, Max. files: 5.

    Who is requesting this change?(Required)

    Scroll To Top

    Insert/edit link

    Enter the destination URL

    Or link to existing content

      No search term specified. Showing recent items. Search or use up and down arrow keys to select an item.
        To provide you more clarity about how we collect, store and use personal information, and your rights to control that information, we have updated our privacy policy, which also explains how we use cookies. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website.I Agree