Singapore court denies xAI’s requests for documents in lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI
Singapore declined xAI’s document requests in its Apple and OpenAI lawsuit, saying they were too broad and did not fit the Hague Evidence Convention.
Intelligence analysis by GPT-5.4 Mini
Singapore’s Attorney General’s Chambers told a U.S. court it would not help xAI collect documents from several local firms, including Gojek, Grab, and WeChat-related entities. The rejection echoes earlier pushback in South Korea and centers on breadth, specificity, and whether the case fits the treaty.
xAI is trying to gather papers from companies in other countries for its fight with Apple and OpenAI. Think of it like asking lots of neighbors for their notebooks to prove a point in a school argument.
Singapore said no to this set of requests. It thought the asks were too broad, not clear enough, and not a good fit for the international rules xAI was using.
That matters because xAI may have a harder time collecting the proof it wants. The case can still keep going, but this is one more door that stayed closed.
Analysis
What Singapore rejected
Singapore’s Attorney General’s Chambers told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that it would not comply with xAI’s document requests aimed at several Singapore-linked companies, including Gojek, Grab, GrabTaxi, and WeChat-related entities. The letter says the requests did not satisfy the Hague Evidence Convention.
Why the requests were denied
Singapore gave three main reasons. First, it viewed the underlying dispute as an antitrust and unfair-competition case, which it said falls outside the convention’s scope. Second, it said the requests were not specific enough about the person or entity to be examined, and in some cases the company names did not match Singapore business-registry records. Third, it said the requests were too broad.
That breadth is the central issue. xAI was not asking for a narrow set of records. Instead, it sought large categories of material tied to app usage, in-app payments, revenue, App Store rankings, Apple App Store features, super apps, switching behavior, and plans to add generative AI. Singapore said that approach looked like a fishing expedition, echoing the same objection South Korea raised when it rejected a similar request involving Kakao.
Where this fits in the larger case
The article frames this as one piece of xAI’s broader effort to support its lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI. xAI argues that Apple and OpenAI colluded to favor ChatGPT in the App Store and that Apple’s rules make it harder for X to become a super app. Some related requests remain pending in other countries, including China, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Vietnam.
The practical effect is that xAI is running into resistance when it tries to use foreign courts to gather wide-ranging evidence from Asian platform companies. The U.S. court has already used similar language in the past when rejecting some of xAI’s discovery demands.
Key points
- Singapore refused xAI’s requests for documents from several local companies tied to its case against Apple and OpenAI.
- The Attorney General’s Chambers said the requests did not comply with the Hague Evidence Convention.
- Singapore said the underlying antitrust and unfair-competition claims were outside the convention’s scope.
- It also criticized the requests as too broad and not specific enough, calling them a fishing expedition.
- The decision echoes an earlier rejection from South Korea in a related request involving Kakao.
If xAI narrows its requests, the broader case may still produce usable evidence from other jurisdictions where requests are still pending. The denial could also push the company toward more precise discovery that is easier for courts to accept.
The rejection suggests foreign courts may keep treating xAI’s requests as overbroad, which could slow or block its evidence gathering. If that pattern continues, xAI may have less material to support its claims about Apple, OpenAI, and app-store competition.
