According to the text, judicial processes of this type “may have important foreign relations implications for the United States and affect the reciprocal treatment that the U.S. government receives in the courts of other nations.”
In this context, the agency recalls that this type of dispute is usually governed by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).
These regulations establish, among other provisions, that assets belonging to foreign States located on U.S. territory enjoy, in general terms, immunity from judicial enforcement proceedings.

The memorandum also mentions a relevant precedent cited in the legal debate: the Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital case, related to the Argentine default of 2002. In that ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the FSIA does not necessarily limit the scope of post-judgment discovery of the assets of a foreign State
.However, the court itself recognized at that time that there may be additional grounds for restricting such procedures.
In line with that criterion, the Department of Justice emphasized that “the United States has a substantial interest in ensuring that U.S. courts that oversee post-judgment discovery of assets of presumably immune foreign states adhere carefully to basic principles of relevance and are sensitive to the important issues of international courtesy, reciprocity and foreign relations posed by a potentially burdensome discovery.”












