*1 Pending before the court is the Renewed Ex Parte Application for Discovery Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 in Aid of Foreign Proceedings and Supporting Memorandum (the “Renewed Application”), [Doc. 3],[1] in which Applicant William Laggner (“Applicant” or “Mr. Laggner”) renews his request for an order from this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 authorizing him to take discovery from Ricardo Salinas Pliego (“Mr. Salinas”) for use in a proceeding pending in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands Financial Services Division. Upon consideration of the Renewed Application and all papers submitted in support thereof, this Court finds that (1) the statutory requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 1782 are satisfied and (2) the factors identified by the United States Supreme Court in Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241 (2004), weigh in favor of granting the Renewed Application. Accordingly, the Renewed Application is respectfully GRANTED.

In June of 2022, Mr. Laggner and other shareholders of Uphold Ltd. (“Uphold” or “the company”), a Cayman Islands exempted limited liability company, filed a petition against Uphold in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands seeking the winding up of, or alternative relief against, the company (the “Cayman Islands Proceedings”). [Doc. 3 at 2]. Mr. Laggner alleges that Uphold and a group of company insiders, including Uphold's board members and its former CEOs, in concert with Mr. Salinas, engaged in a series of unlawful and self-enriching transactions to the detriment of the company and its shareholders. [Id.]. According to Applicant, Mr. Salinas—the founder and chairman of the corporate conglomerate Grupo Salinas and the third wealthiest person in Mexico, who “routinely engages in questionable tactics to acquire companies and ... extract value out of them”—has played a substantial role in the subject transactions and gained a significant financial benefit from the alleged misconduct. [Id. at 2–3].

Given Mr. Salina's key role in the challenged transactions, Mr. Laggner requests authorization from this Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782, to take discovery from Mr. Salinas in the form of documents and deposition testimony regarding “communications, transactions, and agreements made by and between Uphold, the [the company's insiders], and [Mr. Salinas] in furtherance of the entities’ breaches of contract and fiduciary duties owed to Mr. Laggner and Uphold shareholders,” which, Applicant argues, is central to the shareholders’ claims in the pending Cayman Islands Proceedings. [Id. at 7–8].

Originally, Mr. Laggner filed an Ex Parte Application for Discovery on August 9, 2023. [Doc. 1]. Upon review, this Court denied that application, and ordered any renewed application to be filed before January 31, 2024. [Doc. 2]. This instant Renewed Application, [Doc. 3], followed.

*2 Section 1782(a) of Title 28 of the United States Code authorizes “[t]he district court of the district in which a person resides or is found” to “order him to give his testimony or statement or to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal” upon “the application of any interested person.” Thus, to obtain discovery under § 1782(a), the applicant must show that (1) he is an “interested person”; (2) the discovery sought is to be used in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal; and (3) the target of discovery is a person who resides or may be found in the district. See In re Perez Pallares, No. 10-cv-2528-PAB, 2010 WL 4193072, at *1 (D. Colo. Oct. 2010).

Meeting these threshold requirements, however, does not end the inquiry. Id. Instead, “the Court retains discretion over whether to permit the requested discovery.” Id. (citing Intel Corp., 542 U.S. at 260). In ruling on a § 1782(a) request, the Supreme Court has explained, a district court should consider: (1) whether the documents or testimony sought are within the foreign tribunal's jurisdictional reach; (2) the nature of the foreign tribunal and character of the proceedings underway abroad, and, more specifically, the receptivity of the foreign court to federal court assistance; (3) whether the request conceals an attempt to circumvent foreign proof-gathering restrictions or other policies of the foreign country; and (4) whether the request is unduly intrusive or burdensome. See id. at 264–65.

The record before the Court establishes that Applicant, as a party to the pending litigation before the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, is an interested person for purposes of § 1782(a), and that the discovery sought is to be used in aid of pending proceedings in a foreign tribunal, namely the Cayman Islands Proceedings. [Doc. 3 at 10–11; Doc. 3-18 at ¶¶ 1–4, 6; Doc. 3-19]; see also Intel Corp., 542 U.S. at 256 (“No doubt litigants are included among, and may be the most common example of, the ‘interested persons’ who may invoke § 1782 ....” (cleaned up)); id. at 257–58 (explaining that “first-instance decisionmaker[s]” come within “§ 1782(a)’s ambit” and that such decisionmakers “use” § 1782(a) discovery, as contemplated by the statute, so long as they are “proof-taking instances”).

As to the final statutory requirement, this Court concludes that, for purposes of § 1782(a), Mr. Salinas “resides or may be found” in the District of Colorado because for years, Mr. Salinas “has routinely traveled to Vail, Colorado,” where his son maintains a timeshare at the Four Seasons, staying for approximately one week each February. [Doc. 3 at 10; Doc. 3-1; Doc. 3-2; Doc. 3-3; Doc. 3-4; Doc. 3-5; Doc. 3-6; Doc. 3-10; Doc. 3-11; Doc. 3-12]; see In re Ex Parte Application Under 28 U.S.C. § 1782 to Take Discovery from Americo Fialdini Junior, No. 21-mc-0007-WJM-NYW, 2021 WL 253455, at *3 (D. Colo. Jan. 26, 2021); accord In re Matter of Application of Oxus Gold PLC, No. 3:06-mc-00082, 2006 WL 2927615, at *5 (D.N.J. Oct. 11, 2006) (explaining that the respondent was “admittedly present and c[ould] be found” in the district for purposes of § 1782(a) because he vacationed in the district on a “consistent basis every year”).

Finding the statutory requirements met, the Court considers whether to permit the requested discovery as an exercise of its discretion, as guided by the factors set forth by the Supreme Court in Intel Corp. First, the Court accepts Mr. Laggner's representation that the discovery sought is not within the jurisdictional reach of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands because Mr. Salinas is not a party to the Cayman Islands Proceedings and therefore, absent § 1782(a) aid, would not be accessible for use in that litigation. [Doc. 3 at 11–12; Doc. 3-18 at ¶ 5]. As to the second factor, the Court finds no indication that the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands “would reject evidence obtained with the aid of section 1782,” which supports permitting discovery here. Salt Mobile S.A. v. Liberty Global Inc., 20-mc-00153-CMA, 2021 WL 2375864, at *4 (D. Colo. June 10, 2021); see also [Doc. 3 at 12–14; 3-18 at ¶ 4]. Indeed, “the weight of authority reflects that Cayman courts are generally receptive to judicial assistance from federal courts.” In re Kuwait Ports Auth., 1:20-mc-00046-ALC, 2021 WL 5909999, at *10 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 13, 2021) (analyzing second Intel factor); see also [Doc. 3 at 13–14; 3-18 at ¶ 4]. Nor does Mr. Laggner's request, in this Court's view, appear to “conceal[ ] an attempt to circumvent foreign proof-gathering restrictions or other policies of a foreign country of the United States.” Intel, 542 U.S. at 265; [Doc. 3 at 14–15 (citing In re Perez Pallares, 2010 WL 4193072, at *1 (“[T]here is no indication on the present record that [the] petitioners’ request conceals an attempt to circumvent foreign proof-gathering restrictions or other policies of a foreign country or the United States.” (quotation omitted))]. Finally, the Court finds that the requested discovery—which is directed at evidence related to four specific events or transactions that occurred between 2015 and 2017 and are central to the shareholders’ claims in the Cayman Islands Proceedings—is not “unduly intrusive or burdensome.” Cf. Salt Mobile S.A., 2021 WL 2375864, at *5 (finding that request for documents and testimony concerning three specific transactions or events was not unduly burdensome, where the requests were “highly relevant to the claims [the petitioner] will bring in the [c]ontemplated [foreign proceedings”); see also [Doc. 3 at 7–8, 15–16]. Moreover, to the extent Mr. Salinas disagrees, he may seek relief from this Court once served with subpoenas. See In re Perez Pallares, 2010 WL 4193072, at *2 (To the extent the respondents disagree or seek modification of the requirements, such can be the subject of appropriate motions.”); Intel Corp., 542 U.S. at 265 (observing that “unduly intrusive or burdensome requests may be rejected or trimmed”); see also [Doc. 3 at 15].

*3 Accordingly, the Court concludes that discovery pursuant to § 1782(a) is appropriate here.

For the reasons set forth herein, it is therefore ORDERED that: