§ 1297.271.Request For Superior Court Assistance

An arbitral tribunal has no power to compel a reluctant witness or a nonparty to produce evidence the way a court can, and this section builds the bridge between the two systems. The tribunal, or a party acting with the tribunal's approval, may request assistance from the superior court in taking evidence, and the court may execute that request within its own competence and according to its own rules on taking evidence.

The section also plugs the arbitration into the state court's subpoena power directly: a subpoena may issue as provided in Section 1282.6, the general arbitration subpoena provision, and when it does, the witness compensation rules of Section 1283.2 apply just as they would in a domestic arbitration. The result is that international arbitration seated in California doesn't have to do without the compulsory process only a court can supply.