The director of the documentary \"Crude\", Joe Berlinger, claims that the outtake footage from the film is protected by the First Amendment, but the significant issue before the court was whether or not an investment arbitration panel is a “foreign tribunal” within the meaning of 28 USC 1782, which authorizes a judge in the United States to order discovery of evidence to be used in proceedings before a foreign tribunal.

The Court held that it was. “The arbitration here at issue is not pending in an arbitral tribunal established by private parties. It is pending in a tribunal established by an international treaty, the BIT between the United States and Ecuador.”

The court noted that several circuits have “held that international arbitral bodies under UNCITRAL rules constitute ‘foreign tribunals’ for purposes of Section 1782,” suggesting that court might have agreed even if it was a private arbitration.

Chevron’s lawyer, Randy Mastro, argued that over 600 hours of Berlinger's film that was left on the editing room floor will incriminate the plaintiffs’ lawyers and show collusion between the Ecuadorian judge, the court-appointed expert, the Ecuadorian government and plaintiffs.

The film chronicles the protracted legal struggle between 30,000 indigenous people and Chevron over the environmental damage from oil and toxic waste contamination in the Amazon rainforest. That indigenous group is currently seeking $27 billion in damages in an Ecuadorian court.