MSR REFILES ITS §1782 APPLICATION IN THE CARIBBEAN CORRUPTION SCANDAL, SEEKING DISCOVERY FROM AMERICAN BANKS, ALLEGING CORRUPTION, MONEY LAUNDERING, FRAUD AND TAX EVASION AS A DEFENSE TO FOREIGN DEFAMATION PROCEEDINGS

MSR MEDIA and PHILIPPE MARTINEZ have filed their RENEWED APPLICATION FOR AN ORDER PURSUANT TO 28 USC §1782 TO CONDUCT DISCOVERY FOR USE IN FOREIGN PROCEEDINGS. Their original Application was set aside on procedural, and not substantive, grounds, after objections were lodged in the District Court, Southern District of Florida, case where MSR had filed it.

The Application, which seeks bank account information from Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and JP Morgan Chase Bank, was filed for Discovery purposes in defense of a Foreign Defamation proceedings pending against MSR in St. Kitts, after MSR publicly alleged that a number of individuals inside and outside Kittitian government, and related entities, had engaged in systemic corruption, money laundering, fraud and tax evasion, and that the proof could be found in US bank accounts of the St. Kitts CIP agency and Caribbean Galaxy Real Estate Corporation. The defense at common law to Defamation is truth, and the stated purpose of the Application is to obtain it for use in the St. Kitts High Court of Justice proceedings.

The Application is supplemented by an exhibit, attached and made a part by reference, which is a declaration of counsel, who is a former Caribbean region judge, rendering an opinion that the St. Kitts High Court will find the evidence obtained by the Application admissible under Kittitian law and that the Court will be receptive to such judicial assistance. It also recites that it satisfies the statutory requirements and meets the discretionary factors of §1782.

The applicants are seeking an expeditious ruling from the District Court allowing them to serve the subpoenas on the banks named. The original Application roiled the other CBI republics from one end of the Caribbean to the other, as the programs of all the five EC passport sales jurisdictions have come under a microscope as the result of MSR's actions. Whether a sea change, resulting in major reform being imposed upon the industry, on a global basis, is coming or not, we will be closely watching further developments, and shall report them here.