MK Family Law

Tatiana Akhmedova filed an ex parte request of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas , using 28 USC 1782 to seek certain evidence in support of her English divorce action.  Tatiana alleges that the English courts have ordered certain money judgments and transfers of property in her divorce action against her Husband, Farkhad Akhmedova.  She also alleges that Farkhad has failed to abide by the orders and, in fact, has transferred certain assets that the English court awarded to her, including a yacht, the M/Y Luna. In her attempts to collect on the judgments, the English court ordered Farkhad's son Temur, to produce certain electronic information and cooperate in a forensic investigation.  Needless to say, at the end of the day, Tatiana claims no one cooperated, and Tatiana is now seeking discovery from Rackspace, the email host for Great Circle, the entity that provided email and IT hosting for the M/Y Luna.  She is also asking that the court per...

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion in In Re. Mariani (20 Misc. 152) on April 16, 2020 where it granted Lorenzo Mariani's petition under 28 U.S.C. 1782 to serve a subpoena duces tecum on Citibank, N.A. to obtain documents to use in his divorce proceeding in Florence, Italy. For a petitioner to succeed in securing discovery for his or her foreign proceeding, s/he must: 1. make the request in the federal district court where the person resides or is found (Citibank is in New York); 2. the discovery is for use in a foreign proceeding in a foreign tribunal (his divorce was pending in the courts in Florence, Italy); and 3. the request is made by a foreign international tribunal or any interested person (Mr. Mariani is an interested person in his own divorce). Mr. Mariani met these three requirements under 28 U.S.C. 1782. Meeting these three requirements leaves the federal district court free to grant the discovery request in its di...