## Facts

- Chemical manufacturers, including Celanese entities and Millenium Petrochemicals, used parcel-tanker shipping companies to transport chemicals.
- Competitors Odfjell and JO Tankers pled guilty to a Sherman Act price-fixing and customer-allocation conspiracy; Stolt admitted participation but received federal amnesty.
- The manufacturers commenced contractual arbitration against Odfjell and JO Tankers for alleged antitrust violations; Stolt was not a party to the arbitration.
- The arbitral panel issued subpoenas under FAA § 7 to four Stolt custodians of records and to Stolt’s former general counsel, Paul O’Brien, requiring appearance to testify and production of specified documents.
- Stolt moved to quash O’Brien’s subpoena and refused to comply with the custodians’ subpoenas; the manufacturers sought enforcement in the Southern District of New York.
- The district court enforced the four custodian subpoenas and denied the motion to quash O’Brien’s subpoena.
- The arbitral panel set the subpoenas as returnable on December 21, 2004, during a period scheduled for depositions and months before the October 2005 merits hearing; Stolt argued the subpoenas were being used for impermissible non-party pre-hearing discovery.
- Stolt appealed the enforcement order and denial of a stay.

## Issues

1. Whether FAA § 7 authorizes arbitrators to compel non-parties to provide testimony and documents only at a hearing before the arbitrators, as opposed to pre-hearing depositions and document discovery.
2. Whether the challenged subpoenas, as scheduled and used, exceeded the arbitral panel’s § 7 authority.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed enforcement of all subpoenas.
- The court held the subpoenas were valid because they required non-parties to appear before the arbitrators at an arbitral hearing and to bring documents to that hearing.
- The court declined to decide whether § 7 permits arbitrators to compel non-party pre-hearing discovery outside the presence of the arbitrators, finding it unnecessary on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- FAA § 7 authorizes arbitrators to summon any person to attend before them as a witness and, in a proper case, to bring material documents to the hearing.
- A subpoena requiring a non-party to testify and produce documents at a proceeding where the arbitrators are present and receiving evidence falls within § 7, even if conducted months before the final merits hearing.
- Whether § 7 authorizes non-party depositions or document production outside an arbitral hearing remains unresolved in the Second Circuit.

## Conclusion

The court upheld § 7 subpoenas directed to a non-party because they compelled appearance and document production before the arbitral panel at a hearing, not discovery taken outside the arbitrators’ presence, and it left open the broader question of purely pre-hearing non-party discovery in arbitration.


Stolt-Nielsen Transp. Grp., Inc. v. Celanese AG, 430 F.3d 567 (2d Cir. 2005)