Changzhou Sinotype Technology Co., Ltd. v. Rockefeller Technology Investments (Asia) VII

The United States and dozens of other states are parties to the Hague Service Convention. The Convention permits a party to “send judicial documents, by postal channels, directly to persons abroad” if the law of the forum authorizes such service. But because many states regard service of process by post as an infringement of their judicial sovereignty, the Convention permits states to object to the use of postal channels, and many states have objected. Here, the successful claimant in a US arbitration brought a petition in the California Superior Court for confirmation of a $414 million arbitral award, and it served the summons and the petition by FedEx in China, a country that has objected to service of process by postal channels. The questions presented are:

1. whether a private litigant can, by agreement with its opponent, waive a foreign state’s objection to service by postal channels in its territory under the Hague Service Convention; and

2. whether the Convention preempts state law that defines the transmission of judicial documents abroad for the purpose of obtaining jurisdiction over a defendant as something other than service of process and thus as outside the scope of the Convention.