Cross-Border Discovery Issues

global-privacy-3As explained in Part I and Part II of this series, U.S.-based commercial litigators should be aware that other countries’ privacy laws may affect their cases in unexpected ways. Perhaps the most likely stage for these issues to surface is during discovery, where materials of interest are located in another country, and that country’s privacy laws effectively prohibit counsel from removing those materials from the jurisdiction. This post provides an overview of some of the issues at the intersection of U.S. discovery practice and international privacy law.