Service of Process Abroad

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NASA photo.

With all the America-First hype swirling about the country, it’s never been more important to remind lawyers that things simply don’t work over there the same way they work here.  Global commerce isn’t going away, folks.  Tariffs notwithstanding, we still need goods from abroad to carry on our daily lives, so it’s still critical to understand the ways in which foreign systems operate.  We still have to sell our stuff abroad, or our economy will collapse in short order.  We still have to get all the K-Pop we can absorb.Continue Reading Things are different overseas. Get used to it.

Huawei’s leadership respond to Trump ban.

Big in the news of late:  Huawei and the Trump Administration’s ban.

Continue Reading Chinese Companies and the FSIA

Fidel Castro arrives MATS Terminal, Washington, D.C., April 15, 1959. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Trump Administration has fully implemented Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which allows suits to proceed in U.S. courts against companies that do business in Cuba and profit from the use of property expropriated after the 1959 Communist Revolution.  Earlier this year, I posted the following illustration of how such a suit plays out:

Continue Reading HELMS-BURTON TITLE III EFFECTIVE

USS Cole, the ship at the heart of the suit. U.S. Navy photo.

Last fall, I posted “FSIA Service… it’s really not that difficult” following several very poorly titled articles describing the Trump Administration’s support of a foreign government’s argument in a sovereign immunity case.  Sudan had asserted that service on its Embassy in Washington was not appropriate under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and the Department of Justice weighed in on Sudan’s side.  The outrage from both left and right irked the hell out of me.  But the knee-jerk, non-lawyer reaction from the left– my own people, for crying out loud– really set my teeth on edge.  Yesterday, logic won.Continue Reading SCOTUS solidifies FSIA service logic

1854 Grimms’ German Dictionary, via Wikimedia Commons

Here we go again.  I’ve written before in this space that, yes, counsel, you do have to translate that thing.

But resistance keeps coming up in the legal community:  “oh, come on, the defendant lived in Chicago* for twelve years– the guy speaks English!”

Perhaps, but he lives in Germany now, and you’re serving him there.  Germany requires translation into German, without regard to the defendant’s competence in English.

(Yet they continue to push.)Continue Reading Translation: it’s not about the defendant!

Waterfront Dr, Road Town, Tortola. Kevin Stroup via Wikimedia Commons.

We aren’t building rockets here.  But we are building a ship of sorts, and a leaky hull means the cruise ship might not get you to that cabana sheltered rum drink you’ve been craving.  Serving process in the British Virgin Islands is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which U.S. venue* is hearing the matter– in exactly the same way as service in England and Wales.Continue Reading How to Serve Process in the British Virgin Islands (updated 2025)

Yeah, cruise ships dock there. A lot. [Prince George Wharf, Nassau Harbor. TampAGS, for AGS Media, via Wikimedia Commons.]

We aren’t building rockets here.  But we are building a ship of sorts, and a leaky hull means the cruise ship might not get you to that cabana sheltered rum drink you’ve been craving.  Serving process in the Bahamas is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which venue is hearing the matter.  No longer an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, the Bahamas adopted an independent constitution in 1968,* and fully implemented the Service Convention thirty years later.  Not even 200 miles off south Florida, the islands get a whole bunch of tourists– and commerce– from the U.S. & Canada, and lawsuits are a natural result.
Continue Reading How to Serve Process in The Bahamas (updated 2025)

One of the odd quirks about serving an offshore defendant is the very routine possibility that plaintiff’s counsel could be contacted by the defense before a foreign authority notifies anyone that service has even been effected.   A hypo, to illustrate…

Dieter from Düsseldorf signs a contract with Pete from Peoria to supply Pete’s company with…