Service of Process Abroad

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Sorry, Google Maps. I fixed it for you with a Post-It™ Note Flag.  Man, those things are handy.

[Update, March, 2023:  This issue previously was isolated to Hong Kong alone.  Now, Beijing has begin rejecting requests on the same basis.  When this post was originally published, I speculated that the PRC wasn’t really hung up on the issue– and for the past six or seven years, that’s been true.  Things have now changed.]

A couple of years ago, I posted an admonishment that Service of Process in Hong Kong means Hong Kong, CHINA.  That post was a precursor to the nuts & bolts post I put up a few months later on How to Serve Process in Hong Kong.  In that post, I stressed the care needed in properly naming the former British colony: 
Continue Reading A Hong Kong Cautionary Tale

Bills go in the bottom door. As do, apparently, mailed summonses from the United States. (Image credit: GabrielleMerk, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Query from a colleague last week: hey, Aaron, settle a bet for me.  Does Switzerland object to Article 10(a) of the Hague Service Convention?

“Emphatically,” I responded.  And went on to tell him that if he tried serving his Swiss defendant by mail, the time it would take to quash it could be clocked with an egg timer. 
Continue Reading Hague Service Convention Article 10 methods: make sure they’re valid!

Image by user “chaitawat“, WIkimedia Commons.

My May 18, 2018 post “How to Serve Process in China… important updates”  highlighted a pair of developments in the submission of Hague Service Convention requests to the Central Authority for the People’s Republic of China.  In short… 
Continue Reading How to Serve Process in China… important updates, part two.

Baggage claim at Schiphol. Image: kevingessner, via Wikimedia Commons.

(This really does apply to Hague Service.  I promise.)

I flew into this mess on July 24th at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.  We sat on the tarmac for two hours waiting for a gate to clear for us, and another half hour at the gate waiting for a qualified jetway driver to provide a means of egress.  Then the real fun started.  Three more hours in the baggage claim area, before coming to the unfortunate conclusion that Icelandair had somehow misplaced my gear.  No worries, I thought.  They’ll get this mess sorted out and bring my suitcase to my hotel in The Hague tomorrow.  My most important meeting isn’t until the next day.

Whoa, was I wrong. 
Continue Reading Hague Service Certificates… a bit like waiting for lost luggage.