> First, WhatsApp is a US company and has no presence in Brazil. Under many readings of US law (specifically, ECPA), US companies are in fact prohibited from complying with requests from foreign law enforcement for content, except in emergencies. Instead, foreign law enforcement must make a request for assistance to the US DoJ, which will then (eventually, and maybe) process it and serve it on the US company. This is one of the reasons why MLAT reform, such as the proposed UK-US agreement[1], is so important because it would allow US companies to directly respond to foreign law enforcement requests.

This is all WhatsApp's and the US's problem, not Brazil's. In fact, it's kind of insensitive for foreigners to suggest that a judge of a sovereign nation must consider US law in his rulings. If anything, I think this would justify ruling against WhatsApp more harshly, as it sends the message to the US that policies which don't respect the sovereignty of Brazil will hurt US economic interests in Brazil.

That said:

> Second, apparently, the data does not exist. WhatsApp publicly stated, including in testimony before the Brazilian Congressional Committee on Cyber Crimes[2], that it does not and has not retained any message content once messages are delivered, even before the recent full roll-out of E2E. Based on these statements, it would seem that WhatsApp is indeed unable to comply with the court's request, regardless of any jurisdictional arguments.

If this is true, that's a solid argument and stands on its own.