Search results

×

Legal Process Guidelines

Government, Law Enforcement, and Civil Litigants within the United States

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to law enforcement and civil litigants seeking records from Network Merchants, LLC (“NMI”). These Guidelines do not create any obligation or enforceable right against NMI, nor do they constitute legal advice or a waiver of any objection by NMI. These Guidelines and NMI’s policies may be updated in the future without further notice.

Protecting the privacy of all who rely on our services is paramount to us. To this end, NMI requires valid and binding legal process before disclosing data, except in emergencies, where lawful consent has been provided, or in other circumstances in NMI’s sole discretion and consistent with applicable law. We review all legal process for authenticity, facial validity, and legal sufficiency, including by ensuring the form of legal process is sufficient under applicable law to obtain the type of data requested. NMI reserves the right to object to requests that do not comply with applicable laws. 

1. About NMI

NMI is a global leader in embedded payment solutions – we are not a bank. Our payment software tools enable thousands of partners that serve merchants around the world and across the commerce ecosystem. Our products and solutions include industry-leading payment gateway technology and our seamless merchant underwriting, acquiring, onboarding and management platform and more. 

Because NMI is not a bank, we do not hold funds nor manage bank accounts, and we cannot freeze assets and cannot process garnishment requests. Banking services are provided by Merrick Bank, Member FDIC. 

2. General Requirements for Law Enforcement Requests and Civil Requests

All legal process must be:

  • addressed to Network Merchants, LLC;
  • dated and signed by an attorney, government official, or judicial officer (as applicable); 
  • assembled in the complete form as issued by the competent authority and issued on government letterhead or with a caption that identifies the court that issued the process and the case/docket number; and
  • issued under the authority of a court with jurisdiction over NMI. 
  • State law enforcement and state civil litigants outside of Illinois and Delaware generally must domesticate their legal process in Illinois or Delaware, where the company is headquartered and incorporated, respectively. If you believe your request is binding on NMI and need not be domesticated, please identify the legal basis for your position.

 

Additionally, all legal process must identify: 

  • Sufficient information for NMI to locate the relevant business and/or individual whose data is being requested. 
    • Names, dates of birth, and social security numbers alone cannot be used to accurately locate responsive data. Accordingly, please include additional identifying information, including but not limited to email address, physical address, Gateway IDs, and/or transaction IDs, to the extent available.
  • The specific types of data requested (see Section 5) and the applicable date range for the request;
  • The legal basis for the request; and
  • How and to whom the responsive data should be produced.

3. Law Enforcement Requests

a. Service of Preservation Requests, Data Requests, and Testimony Requests

Preservation requests and requests seeking the production of data must be submitted in PDF format to NMI at legalnotices@nmi.com. Acceptance of legal process via email is for convenience only and does not waive any objections, including lack of jurisdiction or proper service. 

Requests that include a demand for witness testimony must be personally served on NMI at its Illinois offices. For more information about testimony requests, please see Section 6. 

b. Preservation Requests

NMI will preserve data for 90 days upon receipt of a formal preservation request from law enforcement in connection with an official criminal investigation and pending the issuance of a court order or other legal process. Law enforcement may request one extension of the preservation request for an additional 90 days. If law enforcement agents do not request an extension before the expiration of the initial 90-day preservation period and/or do not serve NMI with compulsory legal process before the expiration of the preservation period, the preserved information will be deleted after the preservation period expires. It is the responsibility of law enforcement to track the expiration date for a preservation request and notify NMI of any request to extend the preservation period.

Preservation requests must be sent on official law enforcement letterhead, signed by a law enforcement official and must include sufficient identifiers for the entity and/or individual whose data is requested to be preserved (see Section 2) and a statement that steps are being taken to obtain a court order or other legal process for the data sought to be preserved.

c. Emergency Disclosure Request Procedures

If law enforcement believes there is an ongoing emergency involving an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm to a person, please complete the NMI Emergency Disclosure Request form and submit it to us at legalnotices@nmi.com. The subject line of the email should include “Emergency Request.” We review these requests on a case-by-case basis.

Please note that we will only review and respond to emergency requests from law enforcement. We will not respond to emergency requests sent to this address by non-law enforcement officials.

4. Civil Requests

a. Service and Jurisdiction Requirements

Except for requests related to bankruptcy proceedings, all civil requests, including requests for records and/or testimony, must be personally served on NMI at its Illinois offices. Civil requests related to bankruptcy proceedings may be submitted via email at legalnotices@nmi.com.

All state civil requests must be properly domesticated in Illinois or Delaware.

b. Bankruptcy Requests

Please note NMI is not a bank, and therefore we do not hold funds or manage bank accounts, and we cannot freeze assets and generally cannot process garnishment requests. Accordingly, please consider whether NMI is the appropriate recipient of your request or whether it should be directed to NMI’s sponsor bank, Merrick Bank (Member FDIC), or another entity. 

5. Information That May Be Available 

Our Privacy Policy sets forth the categories of information that may be available from us. However, the information we may have for a particular request depends on whose data is being requested and which of our services they have used. We cannot guarantee the availability of any information. We retain data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Absent exigent circumstances or other lawful exceptions, certain categories of information may only be obtained pursuant to a court order or a search warrant.

6. Witness Testimony Requests

NMI provides a business record certification with its productions, which generally eliminates the need for live testimony to authenticate records. Should you believe that a custodian of records is still necessary to provide testimony, we require domestication of all state subpoenas pursuant to, as applicable, the Uniform Act to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses from Within or Without a State in Criminal Proceedings, 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. 220/1, et seq., or the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act, 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. 35/1, et seq. All subpoenas seeking witness testimony must be personally served on NMI at its Illinois offices.

NMI does not provide expert witness testimony.

7. Notice Policy

We reserve the right to notify people who use our service of requests for their information prior to disclosure, unless we are prohibited by law from doing so or in exceptional circumstances as determined in our sole discretion. 

8. Cost Reimbursement

We reserve the right to seek reasonable reimbursement costs for responding to requests for information.