Summary

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

On November 24, 2025, the Court recognized Blasket Renewable Investment's foreign arbitral award against the Kingdom of Spain and entered a final judgment of more than $47 million in favor of Blasket. Final J. Shortly thereafter, Blasket commenced postjudgment discovery efforts, issuing subpoenas to several United States-based third parties supplying services to Spain's national football team in connection with the team's participation in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. See, e.g., Subpoena of FWC2026 US Inc. These subpoenas sought a wide array of documents, including agreements and business communications between the entities and Spain, as well as records of payments to or from Spain or on Spain's behalf. Crucially, the subpoenas defined Spain to include its Royal Spanish Football Federation and national football team, among other government instrumentalities.

Spain now moves to quash or modify these third party subpoenas. It alleges that the subpoenas are unduly burdensome because they seek information from third parties more readily obtained from Spain itself. Spain also contends that the subpoenas harass its football team and federation by demanding private information about their finances irrelevant to Blasket's efforts to identify Spain's attachable assets. Blasket opposes Spain's motion, insisting both that it may seek postjudgment discovery from any person, and that Spain's football federation and team are alter egos of the State, so subpoenas of their financial information are properly tailored towards identifying Spain's attachable assets. And even if the Spanish national team and federation are not Spain's alter egos, Blasket presses, Spain has a financial relationship with them, so the subpoenas permissibly seek information about assets they might hold on Spain's behalf.

Yet Blasket has offered no evidence that Spain exercises sufficient control over its national football federation and team to render them alter egos of the state. And the Court has no reason to believe that United States-based entities providing services to Spain's national football team are likely to possess information about property that the team or its governing federation holds on behalf of Spain. In other words, Spain has established that the documents Blasket demands from nonparties are largely irrelevant to identifying Spain's attachable property. So even under this Court's liberal postjudgment discovery regime, Blasket's subpoenas are overbroad, and the Court grants Spain's motion to modify them.