Divorce Image 1782 Petition

This 27th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series looks at a way to search for assets in the U.S. when your underlying divorce case is brought outside of the U.S.

If your underlying divorce case is commenced in a foreign country, how do you search for secret bank accounts or other kinds of assets your spouse hid in the U.S?  You may be able to search for assets your spouse hid in the U.S. by filing a petition in U.S. federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 (hereinafter “the petition”).

By filing the petition you might elicit evidence from bank & other witnesses who reside in the U.S. You could use the petition to gather evidence about any of your spouse’s U.S.-based: bank accounts; stocks & bonds; business entities; real estate; intellectual property licenses; etc. To file a legally sufficient petition, you must satisfy three statutory requirements:

  1. the bank or other witness the subject of your petition must reside or be found in the district where the court sits;
  2. the evidence possessed by the witness will be used in a foreign case;
  3. you must be an interested party.

The 28 U.S.C. § 1782 petition¹ below was granted via an April 12, 2012 order from the U.S. District Court in Delaware.  This petition sought evidence from a witness in Delaware regarding alimony in a Turkish family court case:

(Click On The Translated Copy Of The Petition)

¹The § 1782 petition has been partly sanitized for privacy reasons.

First Image: Bildagentur Zoonar GmbH/Shutterstock.com

Copyright 2015 Fred L. Abrams