Service of Process Abroad

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SNL’s Kate McKinnon, as Ginsburg, J. Oh, the irony of Vitamin C!

Another hat tip to Ted Folkman for pointing out a great “Case of the Day” last summer.  Animal Science Products, Inc. v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. (S. Ct. 2018) was handed down in June, and at once clarifies and muddies an important part of Hague Service doctrine.  For the authoritative statement, I give you my favorite Justice,* writing for the Unanimous Nine:

A federal court should accord respectful consideration to a foreign government’s submission, but is not bound to accord conclusive effect to the foreign government’s statements.

Italics mine.  This holding is pertinent to service of process abroad, but I’m unsure just what effect it will have (read Ted’s post for a nice rundown of the facts and procedural posture).  In short, the Chinese government gave a conclusory statement that its law required price collusion among manufacturers of Vitamin C.  But China’s amicus brief failed to cite any particular code language or prior public policy statement, and was actually refuted by earlier public assertions by Beijing.

The gist of the opinion: yeah, trial courts should give a fair amount of deference to a foreign government’s statement of its own law, but that deference isn’t absolute.  A pretty reasonable rule, giving trial courts much needed latitude to reject specious statements by less-than-friendly governments or low-level officials who really don’t know what they’re talking about.

So what effect does that have on the almost bulletproof quality of Hague Certificates?  Well, maybe nothing.

And, yet, maybe quite a bit.

In Northrup King v. Compania Productora Semillas (1995), the 8th Circuit declined to “look behind” a Hague Certificate, accepting as facially conclusive a foreign Central Authority’s statement that service had been effected in accordance with that country’s own law.  This widely accepted deference gives considerable– perhaps unassailable– weight to the Certificate’s conclusions.  In short, if the foreign Authority says process has been served, for the purpose of U.S. law, it’s served.  And if a defendant wants to refute that conclusion, they must attack the Certificate in the foreign country’s court.  The Northrup King holding has long been the basis for my constant assertion that the Certificate is like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket,** the keys to the castle, bulletproof.

I still contend that defense counsel should always question the validity of a Hague Certificate, but for different reasons— not the least of which is that not just anybody can sign a Hague request.  I’m no longer as sure about the Kevlar-like quality of even a valid Certificate.

That said, Northrup King accepted not just a conclusion of law, but of fact.  And it’s the factual conclusion that distinguishes the two cases, so the bulletproofness (yes, I made up that word) should still overcome a motion to quash.  I can’t say with certainty whether Animal Science Projects calls that into question.

Still, it’s arguable, and worth watching the interplay of these two cases.

* The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, known in the wider zeitgeist as The Notorious RBG.  I met Justice Ginsburg in April, 2017, about an hour after being admitted to the Supreme Court Bar.  I highly recommend the experience, even if you never think you’ll argue there.

** Not my original thought.  I really don’t know whose it was.

Here’s what it would have looked like in 1933.

One of the biggest challenges in serving offshore defendant companies is ensuring that they’re properly named (see Always Name Your Defendant Entity Correctly).  Closely connected to that issue is the defendant’s address– simply put, if you don’t know where they are, I can’t get them served for you.  Both of these ideas are equally applicable to cases involving U.S. defendants, so this shouldn’t be an earth-shattering thought.  I suggested some time ago that, when executing a contract with an offshore party, a few things must at least be contemplated (see Five Essential Things…).  Chief among them is my advice to DESIGNATE AN AGENT FOR SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES.  Do that, and you never have to retain somebody like me.

It’s not difficult– you can’t throw a rock in downtown Dover, Delaware without hitting a corporate agent.  A whole bunch of outfits are happy to accept service on a company’s behalf for a low annual fee.  But if that isn’t in the cards– ie: the offshore party refuses– at the very least, make sure the foreign entity actually exists before you hand them seventeen million dollars.

Look, if you’re a mortgage officer, and a young, nice-looking couple walk into your office so they can buy that $130,000 two-bedroom starter home, in addition to pay stubs and tax returns, you’re going to insist on a copy of their driver’s licenses to make sure they are who they say they are.

But a great number of my clients need to serve breach of contract complaints on offshore companies that the plaintiff never verified.  Now, to be sure, many of those litigants never ran their contract by a lawyer before signing… they trusted the other party, and only sought counsel when the deal soured.

But some of those contracts were drafted by lawyers who simply didn’t undertake due diligence.  Above all, lawyers…

INSIST THAT OFFSHORE COMPANIES PROVE THEIR EXISTENCE.  ALWAYS.

Even if you KNOW them.

How?  The same way the mortgage officer insists on her borrowers’ ID’s.

When a foreign* company shows up to sign a contract, insist that they provide a Certificate of Incorporation or comparable document.  Essentially, you’re demanding to see the company’s birth certificate– and you’re going to use that birth certificate to go further in your verification.  Here in Missouri (and just about everywhere else), the Certificate indicates that the company was born on such & such a date and was, at one time anyway, a real thing.  It’s not that difficult to exercise due diligence and check the SoS website to verify that, yes, InBev International, Inc.  is still an active entity or that– uh oh– Anheuser-Busch Beverage Group, Inc. is not.  [Wait– Budweiser doesn’t exist anymore?!]

Overseas, corporate registries do pretty much the same thing.  We can easily discern that British Airways PLC is an active, registered company in England, its current incarnation incorporated in 1983.  We know that its registered address is Waterside, PO BOX 365, Harmondsworth, UB7 0GB.  Handy information to have.  And when I say to my solicitor, “hey, Nigel, could you send your process server out to tag these guys?’ he doesn’t bat an eyelash.**

But if the contract was formed in the absence of this knowledge, it could make service impossible.  In short… we’ve gotta find them first, and if we can’t, the case probably goes away.

* Foreign is a term of art.  It means “from outside the jurisdiction” in two senses: (1) in the “across the state line” sense and in the (2) “you need a passport to go there” sense.

** His name is not really Nigel.

The view from Stirling Castle. William Wallace bested the English here.

Two nights ago, my wife and I returned home from an all-too-brief visit to Scotland.  The daughter of some old friends got married in a beautiful ceremony in front of stunning seaside views, and then we traveled across the country & back again (this isn’t a big deal, as the country is barely eighty miles wide at the latitude we traveled).  Along the way, Peggy was a bit puzzled at times regarding terminology.

Okay, she said, we’re in Scotland, but also in England?  Huh?

Well, no.  We’re in Scotland, but also in Great Britain, and also in the United Kingdom (for now?) and the European Union (also for now).

I tried to explain that Scots are British, and Northern Irish are UK citizens but not British, and the Welsh will smack you for calling them English, as will the Scots and definitely the folks in the Republic of Ireland.  Scotch is term reserved only for whisky (not whiskey) and cellophane tape, and you refer to a person from Scotland as a Scot or Scottish.

Confused yet?  Well, you’re not alone.  Here’s a handy YouTube video that explains– very briefly– the difference between the geographic and political distinctions in the British Isles.  It’s the shortest of the bunch, but there are a slew of others that explain the various boundaries.

This is critical stuff when serving process.  It all falls under the Hague Service Convention, but saying “I need to serve a defendant in the UK” isn’t sufficiently specific to know what law governs.  Likewise, “I need to serve an Irish defendant” leaves out some critical details.  Once the defendant’s specific location is determined, the following guides are pertinent:

  • England & Wales (unified under the same legal regime)
  • Ireland (split into two jurisdictions)
  • Scotland (again, don’t call them English, or you’ll get hit)

Let me know if you need some guidance.  My understanding took decades to refine, and I’m still unsure at times.

 

To be sure, a good time was had by all– especially at the reception where (I’m am not making this up) I watched a couple of hundred Scotsmen sing The Proclaimers’ “500 Miles” to the bride and groom before their sendoff.  It was a stunning experience.  To the new Mr. and Mrs. Baird, I wish all possible joy and happiness.

 

The Martyrs Monument and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, St. Andrews.

[Dateline: Pittenweem, in the Kingdom of Fife.  I’m in Scotland this week, having just attended the wedding of the daughter of some old friends.  This is, without question, my favorite country to visit, and I’ve been coming since college.  Nice people here.]

Most of us in the U.S. have a fairly cinematic image of Scotland in our heads– usually something to do with Gene Kelly waking up in a mystical village & falling in love with Cyd Charisse (and who wouldn’t?), or Mel Gibson with half a blue face, before he really went nuts.  The beach in the picture above?  Yeah… three words: Chariots of Fire.

But there’s quite a bit more to this northern half of Great Britain.  Serving process in Scotland is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which U.S. venue is hearing the matter, but it’s a different system than in its fellow U.K. (for now, anyway) members.

Some background is in order, if you’re so inclined, before we cut to the chase.

Now, here’s how service is done in Scotland:

Article 5 Service

  • Translate the documents. The UK’s declaration to Article 5(3) requires that documents be in English.  Game over, right?  Pack up and go home?  Not so fast, counsel… make sure your defendant speaks English, because his U.S. Due Process rights follow him, in a sense.  Anybody sued in a U.S. court must be served in a language they understand, so if they don’t speak English, translation is still necessary.
  • Fill out a USM-94. Be very careful about ensuring that it is complete and concise, and make sure that it is signed by a court official or an attorney.  If it is not, make sure that the person signing is commissioned by the court.
  • Send to the Central Authority.
  • Sit tight. It may take a while—likely three or four months from submission to return of proof.
  • If your defendant is an individual, there is a significant chance that your Article 5 request will fail. The English Central Authority uses Royal Mail to carry service of process, and if the defendant doesn’t sign for the delivery… no dice.  You get a very pleasant notice from London inviting you to try again.

Article 10 alternative methods

The U.K.’s declarations and Central Authority information—as well as those of all the other countries in the treaty—can be found here.

Bonus practice tip… if you’re defense counsel, always question the validity of service effected on your overseas client.  The plaintiff may not have done it correctly.

Wikimedia Commons

An interesting story hit the blogosphere a couple of weeks ago (see “MtGox’s US customers try to find Mark Karpeles” over at the FinanceFeeds blog).  I won’t pretend to understand the mechanics of the case discussed– the Bitcoin phenomenon and the MtGox security breach lie far outside my expertise, and frankly, the whole concept is pretty complex and I don’t have the time to give it reasonable study.  Suffice to say that this case is a classic illustration of just how complex cross-border finance and cross-border litigation have become.

A particular paragraph in the post caught my eye:

Karpeles is a French citizen believed to be living in Japan, so service upon him is governed by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents. In order to effect service under the Hague Convention, a physical address is required.

Well, sort of.

Er, not exactly.

Wait… no.  That’s not right at all.

It is correct that in order to effect service under the Convention, you have to have an address.  But service on Karpelès is not “governed” by the Hague Service Convention unless and until the plaintiffs know his whereabouts.  He is merely believed to be living in Japan.  By its own terms (Article 1), the Convention doesn’t apply “where the address of the person to be served with the document is not known.”

In short, if the fellow can’t be found after a diligent search, adherence to the strictures of the Convention is unnecessary.  Frankly, adherence is impossible, because the primary bit of information necessary for a service request to a Hague Central Authority– Japanese, French, or otherwise– is where to find the guy.

So what is a litigant to do?  Well, do what the DNC did earlier this month: use Rule 4(f)(3) to serve him electronically (see my recent post “Twitter Service Hits the Bigtime“).  Or ask the court to appoint his U.S. counsel– if indeed he has counsel here**– as his agent for service, then serve him under 4(e)(2)(C).

The FinanceFeeds post went on to say that…

The Court agreed that the time for Mr Lack to file Proof of Service on Defendant Mark Karpeles should be extended to and through October 31, 2018.

That tells me that none of the lawyers in the room (including the judge) are reading the whole of Rule 4(m), the basis for the standard 90-day deadline to serve a defendant.  The last sentence of 4(m) is a beautiful little safe harbor for plaintiffs seeking to serve abroad:  “This subdivision (m) does not apply to service in a foreign country…”  [Emphasis mine.] *

Now, that doesn’t mean a plaintiff has unlimited time to get the job done– a reasonable diligence standard applies– but it does negate the need to extend anything.  The plaintiff merely has to not be dilatory (I had to look that up once) in his efforts to serve.  Yes, keep the court updated on your progress.  Yes, make sure the judge knows what you’re up against.  Don’t give up on the effort.  Just know that an ordinary extension of time isn’t necessary.

The takeaway from all this?  Not all is lost if a defendant can’t be located, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure account for that.

* At that, even assuming the plaintiffs do find an address, they shouldn’t expect a proof of service by the end of October.  Serving in Japan has been taking longer than normal lately– and “normal” is four months, at best.

** UPDATE (a day after posting):  Within hours of my post, up pops another FinanceFeeds article about this defendant, but in a different suit in N.D. Ill.  Apparently, yes, he does have U.S. counsel.  And the ability (not to mention, obligation) to waive.

The very boots. This image is tastefully cropped & zoomed so as to not appeal to prurient interests.

[Author’s Note:  In a bit of sad irony, my initial draft of this post was written just as news of Kate Spade’s suicide broke on June 5th.  Honestly, I knew very little about her except that she (1) designed handbags and (2) is a local icon here in Kansas City.  She grew up here, and attended high school a mere two miles from my house.  As I’ve come to find out, she brought some Midwestern sensibility to the fashion game, and thus made a pretty big impact on a pretty big industry.]

I’ve attended a lot of CLE lectures over the years, but the best one I ever saw was overseas.*  All of the best ones are connected to some sort of long flight, because if you’re in Rome or Paris or Istanbul or Oxford, how bad can the lecture possibly be?  Just the setting alone makes them interesting.

Until a few years ago, I had no idea that “Fashion Law” was even a thing.  I doubted highly that designer clothes mattered even a bit in the great grand scheme of the universe.  Then I heard my friend Layne Randolph‘s lecture on trademarks and trade dress, and I was astounded to discover that, not only was this really “a thing,” but the thing matters– immensely.  I simply hadn’t ever contemplated the economic value of high-fashion brands.  I’d always viewed Ralph Lauren and Kate Spade and Vera Wang and Manolo Blahnik as a just bunch of fussy/snooty people that were waaaaay too proud of themselves and their work-product.  It didn’t help that I’m a big guy, and fashion houses aren’t exactly beating my door down, begging me to buy their stuff.  It also didn’t help that many years ago, an ex-girlfriend routinely forced me at emotional gunpoint to watch Sex & The City with her.  I hated every excruciating moment of it, and I hated fashion designers by association.

But Layne’s presentation was awfully compelling.  As a newly minted J.D., I found the just-filed Christian Louboutin suit against Yves Saint-Laurent an excuse to pay attention to her query: whether Louboutin’s iconic red soles were protected as a mark or dress.  It was a pretty compelling legal question.

You learn something new every day, right?

Well, a few weeks later, I plunked down nine dollars to see the third and final installment of the Men in Black series.  In the opening scene, a rather curvy alien woman walks down a hallway in a super-duper-maximum-security prison on the moon (hey, I didn’t write it) to spring her boyfriend/boss, one of the guys from Flight of the Conchords (I said I didn’t write it).

Of course, movies these days are all about prurient interests, so the very first action shot is of the bright red soles on the woman’s thigh-high boots as she walks away from the camera while it slowly rises to a very high-cut leather mini-skirt and…  well, you get the idea.  Just what every twelve year-old boy wants to see at the movies.

Being a twelve year-old boy myself (our bodies age, but our brains’ development arrests in the 7th grade), one would think I’d follow the camera and enjoy the highly inappropriate objectification of a woman’s body.  Nope.  I was fixated on those crimson soles and the legal issues surrounding them.  I wondered how many lawyers were involved in the licensing agreement that Columbia Pictures needed Christian Louboutin’s people to sign, just for that one shot, and w0w, what a waste, because the product placement value of this particular trade dress in a scene targeted to twelve year-old boys is…

This one would be a tough one to go after. Serving in India is a bear.

Dammit.  I’m an adult.  And a lawyer to boot.  (See what I did there?)

Now that I handle service abroad nearly full time, I still can’t watch that movie and not ponder the procedural implications.  What if a Dutch company decides to make a cheap knockoff of the same boot?  What are the procedural hurdles?

Well, watch the latest Louboutin kerfluffle unfold and you’ll find out.

In short, y’all, the world has reached globalized status, and all the ire the Tea Party can muster is not enough to put the Genie back in the bottle.  Litigation crosses borders more now than ever, and although we lawyers like to think the law has streamlined itself since the dawn of the internet age… nope.  Not as much as you might think.  In much of the world, service of process is still effected in the same manner it was in 1965, when the Hague Service Convention first came about.  The treaty is still mandatory, and it’s still exclusive doctrine, so trademark and trade infringement suits must still be properly served.  Pay attention to detail.  It matters.

* Shameless plug:  UMKC Law hosts a couple of CLE Abroad programs every year, and I have the privilege of speaking on many of them.  The trips are a whole bunch of fun… and potentially deductible.**

** You bet your sweet bippy there’s a disclaimer on this one.  I’m not a tax lawyer and, if you’re reading this, neither are you.  So seek specific professional advice on whether you can deduct an overseas CLE trip (or how much of it you can).

[Author’s note: this is the latest in a continuing series of commentary on practice-area-specific applications of the Hague Service Convention and other doctrines of international law governing service abroad– not only service of process, but other notices and orders as well.  The obvious irony here is that I’m using two images of the great actor Sean Bean which, although developed in satire, are blatant rip-offs.  My hope is that I’ll be forgiven, given my ardent and emphatic recommendation that my readers go back and watch The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones— at least Season One.  If that’s unacceptable, I will readily cease & desist.]

It happens all the time.  I’ll give a lecture or mention what I do at a bar association event, and the colleague I just met will express appreciation for what I do, tell me it’s a really neat niche, and then try to convince himself that our practice areas don’t overlap.  I’m here to tell you that, yes, they do.  The conversation usually goes something like this:

Sorry, Aaron.  I’m a a copyright lawyer– I don’t do immigration.  But thanks for doing that CLE.  You’re a funny guy.  (Funny how?  I’m a clown?  I amuse you?)  No, I mean I really like how you got that picture of Ned Stark into your slide deck!

This is Boromir, from the Fellowship of the Ring. It is not Ned Stark.

Wait a sec, there, pal.  First of all… immigration?  You’re kidding, right?  You did just sit through my lecture on international law, right?  Those are not the same concepts.  (He’s not kidding, sadly.*)

Second of all (setting my incredulity aside), let’s say you do handle copyrights exclusively, no visa applications ever.  What if some random website hosted somewhere overseas decides that “all your base are belong to us,” rips off your client’s content, and publishes it as their own?  Your client justifiably seeks proper attribution and compensation, but the infringing party refuses to cooperate. So you sue.

But don’t you think you might have to serve the publisher?  (Yes.) And just how are you going to go about doing that?  (Hmmmm.  I never thought about that.)

Well, if you’re going to serve in a foreign country, odds are quite good that the Hague Service Convention applies, so you’ve got to figure out what options are available to you.

Next, you may have to set up a translation of the documents.  Never mind that the stolen copy is in English– so the bad guys must understand English– foreign translation requirements aren’t focused on the defendant’s comprehension.  They’re focused on the foreign officials handling the documents.

Then ask the appropriate Central Authority for help.  And pray that you’ve filled out your USM-94 correctly.  [That’s a big one.  Very important, the USM-94.]

If you don’t get them served…

This is Ned Stark.

You’ll have a tough time getting the copy attributed to your client without that defendant.

* A huge segment of the practicing bar thinks that international law is immigration law, and immigration law is international law.  My local bar association even conflates the two ideas in its committee structure.  This is so baffling that both the international lawyers and the immigration lawyers in town have given up trying to convince everybody else.

[Author’s note: this is the latest in a continuing series of commentary on practice-area-specific applications of the Hague Service Convention and other doctrines of international law governing service abroad– not only service of process, but other notices and orders as well.]

It happens all the time.  I’ll give a lecture or mention what I do at a bar association event, and the colleague I just met will express appreciation for what I do, tell me it’s a really neat niche, and then try to convince himself that our practice areas don’t overlap.  I’m here to tell you that, yes, they do.  The conversation usually goes something like this:

Sorry, Aaron.  I’m a patent lawyer– I don’t do immigration.  But thanks for doing that CLE.  You’re a funny guy.  (Funny how?  I’m a clown?  I amuse you?)  No, I mean I really like how you got that picture of Ned Stark into your slide deck!

This is Boromir, from the Fellowship of the Ring. It is not Ned Stark.

Wait a sec, there, pal.  First of all… immigration?  You’re kidding, right?  You did just sit through my lecture on international law, right?  Those are not the same concepts.  (He’s not kidding, sadly.*)

Second of all (setting my incredulity aside), let’s say you do handle patents exclusively, no visa applications ever.  What if some offshore bad guy (let’s call him “OBG” for short) decides that “all your base are belong to us” and starts making your client’s widgets with his own name on them?  Your client, who sacrificed an incredible amount of blood, sweat, and tears** to invent– or an incredible amount of money to buy the rights to– the widget, wants to sue.  Now.

Well, don’t you think you might have to serve the offshore bad guy?  (Yes.) And just how are you going to go about doing that?  (Hmmmm.  I never thought about that.)

Well, for most of the world, start off by looking up the Hague Service Convention.  It’s mandatory doctrine if you need to serve OBG in his homeland.

In all likelihood, you’ll have to set up a translation of the documents– and that’s a big deal with patent cases, so here’s a handy guide on how to keep those costs down.

Then, you’ll have to determine what alternative methods are available.

Then, if you go the Article 5 route, ask the appropriate foreign Central Authority for help.

Last, pray that you’ve filled out your USM-94 correctly.  That’s a big one.  Very important, the USM-94.

If you don’t get him served…

This is Ned Stark.

You’ll have a tough time making the patent-holder whole.

* A huge segment of the practicing bar thinks that international law is immigration law, and immigration law is international law.  My local bar association even conflates the two ideas in its committee structure.  This is so baffling that both the international lawyers and the immigration lawyers in town have given up trying to convince everybody else.

** Apologies to a certain Mr. C of Blenheim, Oxfordshire.  The original quote included “blood, tears, toil, and sweat” but a 1970s fusion band morphed it a bit for brevity.

Two years ago, I wrote about the “coming of age,” if you will, of service by electronic means.  Well, the idea just hit the bigtime with service on Wikileaks via Twitter.

Setting aside questions about properly identified defendants (read: properly named entities and individuals associated with them), his one seems to fit squarely with a Rule 4(f)(3) alternative.  That is, the legality of it seems okay.

If Wikileaks has an address, it seems for the moment that company HQ is inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London– a mere 20 miles from me as I write this.*  This could mean either of two governing regimes controls: the Hague Service Convention or Rule 4 alone.

If the Embassy is viewed as Ecuador’s sovereign territory, no mandatory treaty governs manner of service.  If it’s not (and the UK apparently takes this view), Hague channels just aren’t tenable.  No process server is getting in the gate, and neither is an English judicial official.  Mail is silly to even contemplate, whether sent from the clerk or from the UK Central Authority– it’s a non-starter to think Julian Assange is going to sign for a FedEx delivery from either.  (UK service under Article 5 is usually mailed.)

So, what’s a court to do?  Authorize an alternative means that, under the circumstances, is reasonably calculated to put a defendant on notice of a claim against it– and offers an opportunity to defend.**

That’s the constitutional standard, and it seems to have been met here.

Now let the substantive arguments begin.  (There are some whoppers to come.)

* My last dispatch from England this trip… ironically a trip to discuss Hague service with colleagues from the UK and the US.  I write this from a bus on the way to Heathrow.

** See Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950) for the full discussion.

The mind just reels.  I’m in England at the moment, and an England issue has come up that I cannot bear yet again without a rant.  Forgive me…

Lawyers, stop taking legal advice from non-lawyer process servers.  Just stop it.  That goes double for non-lawyer process servers in other countries.

Seriously– it’s like an MD taking diagnostic direction from a CNA.  Sure, the aide is a vital part of the medical team,* and they do some amazing work.  But if things go badly, the malpractice suit isn’t coming at the aide.  Yes, the physician has to rely on the aide’s input, and the aide may be incredibly talented at carrying out a treatment plan, but the responsibility of decision lies with the person with all those fancy diplomas on the wall.

Twice in as many weeks, I’ve had U.S. lawyers call me to ask how much it costs to have a defendant served in (England, India), and I unabashedly tell them what I charge.

Oh, that’s too much.  I’ll just go directly to a process server.  I emailed a guy in (London, Bangalore)– he tells me it’s no sweat– he can fix me up for about what my local guy charges me.

So this is me, for a moment…

Ahem, no.  It doesn’t work that way.  In either country.  The Hague Service Convention governs both scenarios, and both countries’ declarations are pretty straightforward on how to effect service.

Options in ENGLAND:
  1. Article 5 request to the Central Authority.
  2. Mail, under Article 10(a)… almost always a bad idea.
  3. Private Process Server, Article 10(c).

But the UK position on Article 10 carries a caveat: using a process server is only valid if that process server is instructed by a solicitor.  If the process server tells you not to worry about it, give your malpractice carrier a heads-up because you’re taking advice on U.S. law** from a foreign non-lawyer.

Options in INDIA:
  1. Article 5 request to the Central Authority.  END OF LIST.
  2. THERE IS NO OPTION TWO IN INDIA, despite what India-based process servers may tell you.

The truth is, India is one of the few common law jurisdictions that doesn’t have them except in rare circumstances.  If the process server tells you not to worry about it, give your malpractice carrier a heads-up because you’re taking advice on U.S. law** from a foreign non-lawyer.  A guy in Bangalore saying he’s a process server is a bit like an Über driver  in New York saying he can fly you around in his drone.  Yeah, it’s theoretically possible, but… jeez.  Come on.

So why would one of those folks overseas make claims like these?

  • Oh, yes, we can serve those documents in Gujarat for you.  Nooooo problem.
  • No, you don’t have to worry about the Hague Service Convention.  Nobody here takes it too seriously.
  • We’re a common law country, just like you.  We do things the same way you do.
  • Of course I can take instruction directly from you, mate.  You’re a lawyer, right?

Why do you think they make such claims?  Because they have a commercial interest in convincing you to hire them instead of a U.S. lawyer who handles this sort of thing all the time.

But here’s the huge difference: a U.S. lawyer who handles this sort of thing all the time is actually cognizant of (and concerned about) compliance with U.S. law as it relates to the treaty.  We actually understand that Sandra Day O’Connor’s thoughts on the matter are a bit more valid than those of the fellow in London or Bangalore.

The takeaway from this rant?

  • In England (and Wales), make sure your process server understands that his/her affidavit must (1) demonstrate that Hague doctrine has been observed, and (2) reflect that s/he is instructed by a solicitor.
  • In India, don’t even bother.  You’ve got to make an Article 5 request to Delhi.

Oh, and if you try pulling this stunt in China… you and the guy you hire are subject to arrest and imprisonment.

I hear the food’s not very good in Chinese prisons, so good luck.

 

* I use this analogy carefully– my grandmother was a nurse’s aide, and she was the most competent caregiver I’ve ever known.  This post is not about whether process servers know their stuff.  They do– and I have several that I rely on regularly.  But legal analysis isn’t their stuff.

** The Hague Service Convention– including a foreign countries’ declarations to it– constitutes supreme U.S. law, which particularly overrides conflicting lower law.  That pesky old Supremacy Clause strikes again!