Summary

SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF OF RESPONDENT

Respondent financialright claims GmbH ("FRC") files this Supplemental Brief under Supreme Court Rule 15.8 to call the Court's attention to an "intervening matter not available" at the time Respondent filed its Brief in Opposition. Sup. Ct. R. 15.8.

On October 2, 2026, FRC and Petitioner Burford German Funding ("Burford") received a partial final award in the arbitration referenced in FRC's Brief in Opposition. See Brief in Opposition, 8 n.2. In that award, the tribunal mooted Burford's petition by squarely rejecting the ultimate relief Petitioners seek here should their appeal succeed: arbitration of FRC's Section 1782 Application. See Supp. App. 2-3.1

In the arbitration, Burford had asked the tribunal to resolve the issue of whether FRC's filing of its Section 1782 Application had breached the arbitration clause in the litigation funding agreement between FRC and Burford. Burford argued that the Section 1782 Application was subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, not the District Court (to which Section 1782 itself grants sole authority). The District Court and the Third Circuit, however, declined to compel arbitration.

Seeking to delay FRC's statutory right to discovery (which they have now done for nearly three years through serial motions, appeals and Coinbase stays), Petitioners brought the issue before this Court. But just last Friday, the arbitral tribunal to whom Petitioners seek the Section 1782 Application to be referred unequivocally rejected arbitral jurisdiction and instead agreed that exclusive jurisdiction over FRC's Section 1782 Application lies with the District Court because it is a "third-party proceeding arising out of" FRC's German litigation against Hausfeld, not out of the litigation funding agreement between FRC and Burford.

Because the tribunal has held that the District Court is the appropriate forum for FRC's Section 1782 Application because it is outside the scope of the arbitration agreement, the Petition for Certiorari is moot--even if Petitioners are correct in their complaints about the Third Circuit's decision (which they are not), the ultimate outcome of District Court resolution of the application would be unchanged. The Court should thus promptly deny the Petition and allow FRC the opportunity to take the discovery that Petitioners have improperly withheld since 2024.

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