## Facts

- U.S. national plaintiffs (and estates) sued Crédit Lyonnais, S.A., a French bank, under the Antiterrorism Act (ATA), alleging injuries from Hamas attacks in Israel.
- Plaintiffs alleged Hamas received funding through a charity, CBSP, which banked with Crédit Lyonnais.
- Plaintiffs sought discovery of Crédit Lyonnais account and transaction records relating to CBSP and related entities; the documents were created and maintained in France.
- Crédit Lyonnais resisted production, asserting French bank-secrecy and data-protection restrictions and the French blocking statute, and argued compliance could trigger French sanctions.
- Plaintiffs moved to compel production in U.S. federal court; Crédit Lyonnais argued discovery should proceed through the Hague Evidence Convention rather than the Federal Rules.

## Issues

1. Whether the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permit compelling a French bank to produce France-located customer/account records notwithstanding French secrecy, data-protection rules, and the blocking statute.
2. Whether the Hague Evidence Convention should be required as the primary means for obtaining the foreign-located evidence.
3. How international comity balancing applies when U.S. ATA enforcement interests conflict with French confidentiality and evidence-gathering policies.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion to compel in substantial part and ordered Crédit Lyonnais to produce significant CBSP-related account and transactional information.
- The court held the Hague Evidence Convention is not the exclusive mechanism for transnational discovery and did not displace ordinary discovery under the Federal Rules.
- Applying comity factors, the court found the requested materials were important, the requests were sufficiently specific, and alternative sources were inadequate.
- The court concluded U.S. interests in enforcing the ATA and addressing terrorist financing outweighed the asserted French confidentiality interests for the discovery sought.
- The court imposed protective measures, including confidentiality restrictions and redactions, to reduce conflict with French law and limit dissemination.

## Legal Principles

- The Hague Evidence Convention generally supplements, rather than replaces, discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; use of the Convention is not mandatory merely because evidence is abroad.
- Foreign blocking statutes and secrecy laws do not automatically bar U.S. discovery; they are considered within an international comity balancing test.
- Comity analysis considers, among other factors, the importance and specificity of the requests, the availability of alternative means, the locus of the information, and the competing national interests.
- Where requested evidence is central to claims and not reasonably obtainable elsewhere, U.S. courts may compel production despite foreign confidentiality regimes, while using protective orders and tailored limits to reduce hardship and disclosure.

## Conclusion

The court ordered Crédit Lyonnais to produce France-held banking records relevant to alleged terrorist financing, holding that the Federal Rules governed most discovery and that comity balancing favored disclosure, subject to confidentiality protections and tailored limits to mitigate conflict with French law.


Strauss v. Crédit Lyonnais, S.A., 242 F.R.D. 199 (E.D.N.Y. 2007)