Syllabus
INTEL CORP. v. ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Respondent Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), filed an anti-trust complaint against petitioner Intel Corporation (Intel) with the Directorate General for Competition (DG Competition) of the Commission of the European Communities (Commission), alleging that Intel had violated European competition law. After the DG Competition declined AMD's recommendation to seek documents Intel had produced in a private antitrust suit in an Alabama federal court, AMD petitioned the District Court for the Northern District of California under § 1782(a) for an order directing Intel to produce those documents. The District Court concluded that § 1782(a) did not authorize such discovery. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions to rule on the application's merits. The appeals court observed that § 1782(a) includes matters before bodies of a quasi-judicial or administrative nature, and, since 1964, has contained no limitation to foreign proceedings that are "pending." A proceeding judicial in character, the Ninth Circuit noted, was a likely sequel to the Commission investigation. The Court of Appeals rejected Intel's argument that § 1782(a) called for a threshold showing that the documents AMD sought, if located in the European Union, would have been discoverable in the Commission investigation. Nothing in § 1782(a)'s language or legislative history, the Ninth Circuit said, required a "foreign discoverability" rule of that order.