Order | Filed: July 27, 2026
| Entered: July 27, 2026
Oh
| Texas Northern
Order
AMENDED ELECTRONIC ORDER granting in part 81 Respondent Sandip Minhas's Motion for Sanctions and Enforcement of Protective Order; denying 85 Applicant Hyo-Seob Oh's Motion to Modify the Protective Order to Allow the Use of the Minhas Deposition in a Related Action; denying 94 Oh's Motion to Strike Sandip Minhass Reply in Support of his Motion for Sanctions and Enforcement of the Protective Order and in the Alternative Motion for Leave to File Surreply; and denying 98 Minhas's Opposed Motion for Leave to File Supplemental Appendix in Support of his Motion for Sanctions and Enforcement of Protective Order.
Oh filed an Amended Application for Judicial Assistance Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782, and the Court granted it in part to give Oh leave to issue and serve his proposed subpoena duces tecum for a deposition of Minhas and accompanying document requests limited to requesting true and correct copies "of the Minhas Statement, dated June 30, 2021" and "of the Minhas Statement, dated November 9, 2021" and then entered a Stipulated Protective Order to protect confidential materials to be produced in response to the subpoena. See Dkt. Nos. 62, 63, 77, & 79.
This proceeding has a limited scope: to permit Oh to seek discovery for use in one proceeding (his own) in Korea. Oh sought the discovery for that limited purpose, and the Stipulated Protective Order reflects that limited intended use.
Oh now seeks to modify the Stipulated Protective Order to allow the deposition testimony obtained through the subpoena authorized in this matter under Section 1782 to be used in other matters pending in Korea. No matter how related Oh may claim those matters are, under the circumstances and for the reasons that Minhas's opposition [Dkt. No. 91] persuasively explain, the Court finds no good cause to modify the Stipulated Protective Order and denies what amounts to an attempt to create a back-door method to obtain discovery for a broader use than Oh represented he was seeking it for.
Minhas relatedly seeks sanctions for Oh's allegedly violating the Stipulated Protective Order by providing Minhas's deposition testimony that was marked "Confidential -- Attorneys' Eyes Only" to another plaintiff in a proceeding in Korea, which other plaintiff (through his counsel in Korea) then summarized the testimony in a brief filed in that separate Korean proceeding but told the Korean tribunal that he could not submit a copy of the testimony due to this Court's Stipulated Protective Order. Minhas invokes both Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b)(2) and civil contempt, but Rule 37(b)(2) is the best fit for a discovery order violation like this. And, at this point, the Court will focus on this alleged violation and denies Minhas's original request for 28 U.S.C. 1927 sanctions.
Oh responds that sanctions aren't warranted because the attorney in the Korean proceeding did not actually quote or submit the deposition testimony and only submitted it to the parties and Court and not for public distribution. To say that this misses the point feels like an understatement.
In reply, Minhas presses for civil contempt on the basis that at least one individual provided with the deposition transcript is not an attorney in Oh's Korean proceeding who is permitted to receive this discovery under the Stipulated Protective Order. Oh disagrees and asserts that the individual is one of his attorneys in his Korean proceeding and asks to strike Minhas's reply or file a surreply. But, as to that request to strike, the Court has the benefit of Oh's arguments that amount to a surreply and, having considered it all, denies Oh's request [Dkt. No. 94].
Minhas also now asks the Court to vacate its Section 1782 final judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). That really is a new request in a reply, and the Court won't consider it in the context of this discovery sanctions motion.
In any event, Rule 37(b)(2) sanctions are warranted here. Minhas has shown that Oh's counsel violated the Stipulated Protective Order insofar as, after being provided with a copy of it by Oh's counsel, another plaintiff in a separate action in Korea disclosed the deposition testimony that was marked as AEO and limited to use in Oh's own proceeding in Korea. (But Minhas's supplemental appendix is not important or necessary for the Court to... (truncated)