## Facts

- Integrity Insurance Company, through its liquidator, initiated arbitration against American Centennial Insurance Company (ACIC) over disputes arising from multiple reinsurance agreements containing arbitration clauses.
- Separate from the arbitration, Integrity’s liquidator sued former officers and directors in a New Jersey directors-and-officers action; discovery there was stayed during settlement discussions.
- At ACIC’s request, the arbitrator issued subpoenas duces tecum to two nonparties to the arbitration: Thomas Lennon (counsel for certain former Integrity officers/directors) and Eugene McGee (a former Integrity vice president/director and a defendant in the New Jersey action).
- The subpoenas required Lennon and McGee to appear for pre-hearing depositions and to produce documents in advance relating to the reinsurance agreements and the New Jersey litigation; ACIC also sought information from Lennon about another individual’s location for service purposes.
- Lennon and McGee petitioned the Southern District of New York to quash the subpoenas, contending the FAA does not permit arbitrators to compel nonparty pre-hearing discovery.

## Issues

1. Whether FAA § 7 authorizes an arbitrator to compel nonparties to appear for pre-hearing depositions.
2. Whether FAA § 7 authorizes an arbitrator to compel nonparties to produce documents prior to an arbitration hearing through subpoenas duces tecum.

## Decision

- The court granted the petition to quash.
- The court held that FAA § 7 does not authorize arbitrators to compel nonparties to submit to pre-hearing depositions.
- The court held that FAA § 7 does not authorize arbitrators to compel nonparties to produce documents in advance of the arbitration hearing.
- The court recognized that arbitrators may compel a nonparty to attend a hearing before the arbitrators and bring material documents to that hearing, but not to provide general pre-hearing discovery.

## Legal Principles

- FAA § 7 permits arbitrators to summon a person “to attend before them” as a witness and, in a proper case, to bring documents deemed material as evidence.
- The phrase “attend before them” limits arbitral subpoena power over nonparties to attendance at an arbitration hearing (with documents), not pre-hearing discovery devices.
- Arbitration is not governed by the full discovery framework of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; absent clear statutory authorization, courts will not expand arbitral authority to compel nonparty discovery.
- Because nonparties did not consent to the arbitration agreement, any compulsory participation must fall within the FAA’s express, limited grant of authority.

## Conclusion

The court quashed arbitral subpoenas directed to nonparties because FAA § 7 authorizes compelling nonparties to appear before the arbitrators at a hearing with documents, but does not permit pre-hearing depositions or advance document production as a form of discovery.


Integrity Ins. Co. v. Am. Centennial Ins. Co., 885 F. Supp. 69 (S.D.N.Y. 1995)