The directors of Byju’s Alpha are involved in an alleged fraud claim in the United States. It is claimed that the three directors unlawfully diverted $533 million in loan proceeds, and the whereabouts of that money is still unknown. The $533 million was part of a $1.2 billion loan to Alpha and the company is now fighting insolvency proceedings.
It emerged in court that funds were at some point transferred to OCI, a British company. Alpha’s creditors’ lawyers are now seeking documents about this transfer in the UK courts.
In order to do that, the supervising judge in the US case made a letter of request dated 26 June 2024 for the Respondents to produce documents and/or give sworn testimony for the benefit of the claim (“the LOR”).
In July 2024, a UK judge made an order which gave effect to the LOR, but OCI applied to set it aside. In February 2025, the court published its decision on that application.
OCI’s case was that the LOR was oppressive and represented an illegitimate attempt to obtain pre-trial discovery type material rather than evidence for trial.
Alpha argued that judicial comity requires the UK court to recognise and give effect to the LOR. They said that the LOR was a necessary and legitimate step to obtain material which was of essential relevance to the issues for the trial of the US claim, in particular the location of the assets and the reasons why the impugned transfers took place.
Ultimately, the UK court decided to set aside the order that gave effect to the LOR.
Did the LOR seek pre-trial discovery?
The UK judge found that the predominate effect of the LOR would be pre-trial discovery, which is contrary to the limits imposed by the Evidence (Proceedings in Other Jurisdictions) Act 1975 (the 1975 Act).
The LOR was found to seek information which would be relevant to the choices that Alpha will need to make to recover the lost $533 million. It does not seek evidence of direct relevance to the issues. The use of category type definitions was further proof of this.
For those reasons, the LOR fell outside the scope of the 1975 Act.
Is the LOR ‘oppressive’?
The judge concluded that the LOR was also oppressive.
Requests under the 1975 Act cannot seek relevant information in general but only information which will be evidence of material facts.
The judge found that the predominate consequence of the order would be to force OCI to provide evidence that would be used to frame a fraud claim against them. They would also be forced to answer questions about the underlying facts from which such a claim will emerge but without knowing the actual claim to be brought against them. This would be oppressive.
Further, the judge found that seeking this information at this stage against these Respondents was oppressive because it gave Alpha an opportunity to obtain sworn testimony and documents from the Respondents before they had formulated a claim against them.
Specific documents must be requested
A separate ground for refusing the document request in the LOR, was that it failed to meet the requirement in the 1975 Act for specific documents rather than disclosure categories.
The LOR failed to identify specific documents which OCI could produce. The LOR took a class-based approach to document production. That suggests that the documents sought are more akin to discovery from the Respondents rather than the production of specific documents required to prove facts which have been asserted.
The judge gave this helpful summary of the difference between specific documents, and classes of documents:
“What is required is a description which is sufficiently certain so that the recipient of the request knows the particular document or documents they need to bring with them. The object is to capture particular documents rather than a class of documents which gives the recipient the need to search and then consider whether any particular document falls within that class or not.”
The judge concluded that the descriptions of documents in the LOR failed the test because they define a class and ask for “all documents and communications” which fall within that class, adding “I suspect this is obvious but the inclusion of the expression “including but not limited to” is something of a give-away.”
Comity
The judge agreed that there need to be good reasons not to accede to a letter of request and that comity requires a high degree of deference to be given to the views expressed by courts that are seeking judicial assistance from the UK courts. This cooperation is of particular importance in the context of international fraud.
However, the court can only give effect to a letter of request if it falls within the parameters of the 1975 Act. In this case, the LOR did not.
Conclusion
The judge found that the LOR was predominantly about enabling Alpha to obtain information which would increase their understanding of relevant transactions and dealings with the $533 million. The information would allow Alpha to make material (and important) litigation decisions rather than the obtaining of evidence to prove the allegations.
Analysis
This decision is a reminder of the high bar for specificity in a letter of request. Classes of documents are not sufficient, and will be more likely to be seen as pre-trial discovery, which falls outside the scope of letters of request.
The purpose of a letter of request is not to help a party to obtain information that informs its litigation decisions. The purpose is to obtain evidence to prove the allegations. In that sense, it is distinguished from pre-trial discovery. The letter of request may only seek a much narrower selection of documents.
The UK courts are keen to cooperate in finding evidence, particularly in relation to international fraud. However, the courts continue to apply the 1975 Act narrowly, so that parties do not face oppressive conduct.
Read the full decision here: Byju’s Alpha, Inc v OCI Limited & Ors [2025] EWHC 271 (KB)
