## Facts

- Argentina defaulted on its external sovereign debt in 2001.
- NML Capital held Argentine bonds and obtained multiple New York judgments totaling over $2 billion.
- Argentina resisted collection efforts and moved assets out of the United States to avoid attachment.
- NML served post-judgment subpoenas on two nonparty banks seeking information about Argentina’s assets and accounts worldwide.
- Argentina and the banks moved to quash, arguing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) implicitly prohibited discovery about assets immune from execution.

## Issues

1. Whether the FSIA provides a foreign-sovereign judgment debtor immunity from post-judgment discovery concerning its extraterritorial assets.
2. Whether the FSIA’s execution-immunity provisions implicitly limit the scope of discovery in aid of execution under ordinary federal procedure.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the order permitting compliance with the subpoenas.
- The Court held that no FSIA provision immunizes a foreign-sovereign judgment debtor from post-judgment discovery regarding its assets located outside the United States.
- The Court rejected reading an implied “discovery immunity” into the FSIA based on policy or foreign-relations concerns.
- Justice Ginsburg dissented, favoring tighter tailoring of discovery to assets plausibly subject to execution.
- Justice Sotomayor did not participate.

## Legal Principles

- Sovereign immunity defenses in U.S. courts “stand or fall” on the FSIA’s text; courts should not create immunities the statute does not provide.
- FSIA provisions governing immunity from attachment and execution (including 28 U.S.C. § 1609) protect specified property from execution but do not, by themselves, restrict post-judgment discovery.
- Even if execution immunity were assumed to imply a matching discovery limitation, § 1609 addresses only “property in the United States,” leaving extraterritorial assets outside that implied protection.
- Post-judgment discovery in aid of execution proceeds under ordinary federal practice (including Rule 69) unless the FSIA expressly displaces it.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the FSIA does not shield a foreign state from post-judgment discovery into information about its worldwide assets, and that execution immunity for certain property does not create a categorical discovery immunity absent explicit statutory text.


Republic of Argentina v. NML Cap., Ltd., 573 U.S. 134 (2014)