MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty)

MLATs are how foreign law enforcement obtains evidence located in another country. The U.S., for example, has MLATs with most major jurisdictions including the EU, U.K., Japan, and most of Latin America. The treaty creates a formal legal pathway: U.S. prosecutors send a request to the foreign authority, which evaluates whether the conduct under investigation is a crime locally, and if so executes the request through local courts.

For offshore hosting, MLATs are the practical limit of jurisdictional protection. A host in Iceland is shielded from U.S. DMCA process but is not shielded from a U.S. criminal investigation that goes through MLAT — Iceland will execute properly-served MLAT requests. The protection MLATs offer is procedural (slower than direct U.S. process, takes 6-18 months typical) and substantive (the foreign authority decides whether to comply based on local law). Some jurisdictions are 'thinner' on MLATs than others — Saint Kitts and Nevis, for example, has fewer treaty partners than Iceland.