The United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted an application 

Petitioners Qatar National Bank and Qatar Charity (the “Qatar Entities”) seek an order from this court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782, compelling the Perles Law Firm, P.C., to produce limited discovery. ECF No. 1. The Qatar Entities contend that the Perles Firm possesses non-privileged information about the identity or identities of individuals who allegedly forged a bank record that the firm then used in a now-dismissed suit against them. ECF No. 1, at 8-9; see Sotloff v. Qatar Charity, No. 22-CV-80726, 2023 WL 6471413 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 29, 2023) (the “Sotloff Action”). The Qatar Entities intend to use the discovered information to initiate international civil and criminal proceedings against the individual or individuals who perpetrated the alleged forgery. ECF No. 1, at 9. For the reasons set forth below, the court will grant the Application.

In May 2022, the Perles Firm served as lead counsel to the family members and estate of deceased American journalist Steven Sotloff (“Plaintiffs”) in their case against the Qatar Entities. ECF No. 1-1 ¶ 7; ECF No. 1-4. In the Sotloff action, which was before Judge Middlebrooks in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Plaintiffs brought claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2331 et seq., asserting that the Qatar Entities had facilitated an $800,000 wire transfer that financed, in part, the execution of Mr. Sotloff. ECF No. 1-1 ¶ 8; ECF No. 1-3. Central to their complaint was a one-page “Transfer Record,” purportedly created by Ziraat Bank, which reflected that the wire transfer had been sent from the Qatar National Bank account of an individual working on behalf of Qatar Charity to an account in the name of “Fadhel al Salim.” ECF No. 1-1 ¶ 11; ECF No. 1-4 ¶¶ 3, 36, 101-09, 226. Al Salim, an ISIS terrorist, later ordered the execution of Mr. Sotloff. ECF No. 1-1 ¶ 13; ECF No. 1-4 ¶¶ 3, 112.

After Judge Middlebrooks denied the Qatar Entities’ motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and for lack of personal jurisdiction, the Qatar Entities asked the court to order production of the Transfer Record, which Plaintiffs had yet to produce. ECF No. 1-1 ¶¶ 9, 14; see ECF Nos. 1-4, 1-5, 1-6. The Qatar Entities, despite searches of their own records, had been unable to find a record of the transfer. ECF No. 1-1 ¶ 15

Granted

Here, the Qatar Entities seek “two requests for documents and six deposition topics in order to ascertain the identities of the Forgers.” ECF No. 15, at 17. The Perles Firm does not dispute that the request is narrowly targeted but argues that it is “unduly intrusive” because “[t]he witnesses who came forward did so based on the understanding that their identities would be protected” and “[a]ll conversations . . . took place under the normal expectation that such conversations are protected by the attorney work product doctrine.” ECF No. 10, at 28. The court has already rejected both of these arguments as they apply to the third Intel factor, and it need not repeat its conclusions here.

(Mike Frisch)