Stolt-Nielsen Sa v. Celanese Ag
| Decision Date | 21 November 2005 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 04-6373 CV. |
| Citation | 430 F.3d 567 |
| Parties | STOLT-NIELSEN SA, Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group Ltd. (SNTG), Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group, BV, and Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group, Inc., Appellants, v. CELANESE AG, Celanese, Ltd., and Millenium Petrochemicals, Inc., Defendants-Claimants-Appellees, Celanese Chemicals Europe GMBH, Celanese Pte, Ltd, Grupo Celanese SA, and Corporativos Celanese S. de RL de C.V., Claimants-Appellees, Odfjell ASA, Odfjell USA, Inc., Odfjell Seachem as, Jo Tankers as, Jo Tankers, BV, and Jo Tankers, Inc., Plaintiffs. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
J. Mark Gidley, White & Case, LLP, Washington, DC, for Appellants.
Hector Torres, Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, LLP, New York, NY, for Appellees.
Before: STRAUB and SACK, Circuit Judges, and KRAVITZ, District Judge.*
Stolt-Nielsen SA, Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group, Ltd., Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group, BV, and Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group, Inc. (collectively, "Stolt") appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Jed. S. Rakoff, District Judge) granting a motion to enforce four subpoenas served on Stolt's custodians of records and denying Stolt's request to quash a subpoena served on its former counsel. The subpoenas were issued by an arbitration panel presiding over an arbitral proceeding to which neither Stolt nor its former counsel is a party. Section 7 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provides that arbitrators "may summon in writing any person to attend before them ... as a witness and in a proper case to bring with him or them any book, record, document, or paper which may be deemed material as evidence in the case." 9 U.S.C. § 7. We have previously stated that "open questions remain as to whether § 7 may be invoked as authority for compelling pre-hearing depositions and pre-hearing document discovery, especially where such evidence is sought from non-parties." Nat'l Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. Bear Stearns & Co., 165 F.3d 184, 188 (2d Cir.1999). In this appeal, Stolt asks us to resolve the question left open in Bear Stearns and hold that Section 7 does not authorize arbitrators to issue subpoenas to compel pre-hearing depositions and document discovery from non-parties.
We decline to decide whether Section 7 authorizes arbitrators to issue subpoenas to non-parties to compel pre-hearing discovery, because there is no occasion to do so in this case. Contrary to Stolt's claim, the subpoenas in question did not compel pre-hearing depositions or document discovery from non-parties. Instead, the subpoenas compelled non-parties to appear and provide testimony and documents to the arbitration panel itself at a hearing held in connection with the arbitrators' consideration of the dispute before them. The plain language of Section 7 authorizes arbitrators to issue subpoenas in such circumstances. Therefore, the District Court did not err in granting the motion to compel or in denying the motion to quash.
The present case arises out of a dispute over alleged anti-competitive behavior in the business of shipping and transporting chemicals by specialized shipping vessels known as parcel tankers. Celanese AG, Celanese Ltd., and Millenium Petrochemicals, Inc. (collectively, "Claimants") develop, produce, and sell chemical products. Between 1990 and 2002, Claimants entered into numerous contracts for the shipment of chemical products by Stolt and by two other groups of companies known in this case as "Odfjell" and "JO Tankers."1 In 2003 and 2004, certain of the Odfjell and JO Tankers groups of companies (as well as certain individuals) pled guilty to a criminal conspiracy to rig bids and fix prices in the parcel tanker market in violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. Stolt admitted participation in the conspiracy but was granted conditional amnesty from prosecution under the Sherman Act in connection with its parcel tanker operations.
Pursuant to an arbitration clause contained in the parties' shipping contracts,2 Claimants instituted arbitration proceedings against Odfjell and JO Tankers for price-fixing, bid-rigging, and other wrongful behavior. Stolt is not a party to Claimants' arbitration with JO Tankers and Odfjell. Claimants' arbitration with Odfjell and JO Tankers is to be conducted in New York under the rules of the Society of Maritime Arbitrators, which provide that the powers and duties of the arbitrators will be governed by the Society's rules and the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq. The arbitration panel consists of three arbitrators. The parties appointed two arbitrators, who in turn chose the Honorable John J. Gibbons, former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as chairman of the panel.
In April 2004, the arbitration panel, at Claimants' request, issued a subpoena ad testificandum and subpoena duces tecum directing non-party Hendrikus van Westenbrugge, a former executive of JO Tankers then incarcerated at a federal correctional facility in New Jersey, to appear for a pre-hearing deposition before Claimants and to produce at that time various documents sought by Claimants. After Mr. van Westenbrugge failed to comply with the subpoena, Claimants moved the District Court to compel compliance with the arbitration panel's subpoena. The District Court declined. After considering the language of Section 7 and case law interpreting that provision, the court held that Section 7 grants arbitrators the power to compel non-parties to provide testimony and documents before the arbitrators themselves, but it does not authorize arbitrators "to compel a pre-hearing deposition of or pre-hearing document production from a non-party." Odfjell ASA v. Celanese AG, 328 F.Supp.2d 505, 507 (S.D.N.Y.2004) (emphasis in original).
In August 2004, the arbitration panel issued five more subpoenas, four of them directed to Stolt custodians of records and one to Stolt's former general counsel, Paul O'Brien. The subpoenas directed the recipients to "appear and testify in an arbitration proceeding" and to bring certain documents with them. Stolt moved the District Court to quash the subpoena directed to Mr. O'Brien (the "O'Brien subpoena"), and after Stolt indicated its intention not to comply with the custodians of records' subpoenas (the "Stolt subpoenas"), Claimants moved the District Court to compel compliance with the Stolt subpoenas.
On December 7, 2004, the District Court issued an order granting Claimants' motion to compel compliance with the Stolt subpoenas and denying Stolt's motion to quash the O'Brien subpoena. Having been apprised of the court's order, the arbitration panel informed Stolt that the subpoenas would be returnable on December 21, 2004. Stolt then appealed the December 7 order to this Court, and after the arbitration panel rejected Stolt's request for a continuance, Stolt asked the District Court to stay the arbitration hearing pending this appeal.
On December 18, 2004, the District Court denied Stolt's motion for a stay pending appeal and provided the parties with a written explanation for its December 7 order. Odfjell ASA v. Celanese AG, 348 F.Supp.2d 283 (S.D.N.Y.2004). The District Court rejected Stolt's argument that the subpoenas were "thinly disguised attempt[s] to obtain the pre-hearing discovery" that the court had previously prohibited. Id. at 286. The District Court explained that in contrast to the van Westenbrugge subpoenas, "the instant subpoenas ... call for the non-party to appear before the arbitrators themselves." Id. According to the court, "[t]his difference is dispositive" because Section 7 authorizes arbitrators to summon witnesses to testify "before them" and to bring documents, and that "is precisely what the instant subpoenas require." Id. at 287. Finally, the court rejected Stolt's argument that the subpoenas were unenforceable on grounds of inadmissibility and privilege, concluding that the arbitration panel was the proper venue to raise such arguments in the first instance. Id. at 287-88.
On December 21, 2004, a panel of this Court denied Stolt's motion for an emergency stay pending the present appeal. That same day, Mr. O'Brien and Stolt's custodians of records appeared before the arbitration panel in accordance with the subpoenas. Stolt's custodians of records brought with them more than 300 boxes of documents in response to the subpoenas. Due to the logistical difficulties in having the witnesses authenticate 300 boxes of documents, the parties agreed to continue compliance with the Stolt subpoenas, pending Claimants' review of the documents Stolt had produced.
Mr. O'Brien, however, did testify before the arbitration panel and also provided documents to the panel, in accordance with the subpoena. Stolt's counsel asserted attorney-client privilege at several points during the hearing in objection to questions asked of Mr. O'Brien.3 Based on Stolt's assertion of privilege, Mr. O'Brien refused to answer thirty-two questions that the panel directed him to answer; Stolt also objected to Mr. O'Brien's production of several documents. See Odfjell ASA v. Celanese, 380 F.Supp.2d 297, 300 (S.D.N.Y.2005). After the hearing was adjourned, Claimants moved the District Court to compel Mr. O'Brien to answer the thirty-two questions and to produce the requested documents. Id. The District Court denied the motion, ruling that Stolt first should be allowed to produce evidence establishing the validity of its claim of attorney-client privilege. The court remanded the matter to the arbitration panel for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. Id. at 303.
At the outset, we address the issues of subject matter and appellate jurisdiction, although the parties themselves do not question the existence of either. In their opening briefs, both parties presumed...
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