The case of the day is Republic of Ecuador v. Hinchee (11th Cir. 2013). I covered the case in the district court back in December 2012. You may want to read this post in conjunction with my post on Ecuador v. Bjorkman, a similar case in the Tenth Circuit.

As in Bjorkman, the main question was the scope of protection afforded expert witness materials under the work-product doctrine. So the concerns of the case are not all that relevant to Letters Blogatory readers. More interesting is the outcome: as in Bjorkman, Ecuador prevailed and should be able to make use of the Hinchee material in the BIT arbitration.

Next up: the MacKay case, a similar case pending in the Ninth Circuit, which was argued in December 2013. I predict a similar outcome.