Suppose you are suing a Chinese corporation and seek to effect service of process by means of the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters (the convention). Suppose further that China refuses to make service on the ground that the requested service infringes on its sovereignty. What are you to do? A recent decision held that, under such circumstances, one may serve the defendant's lawyer in the United States. Indeed, it is not unusual under a variety of circumstances for a court to authorize service on a foreign party through service on its U.S. lawyer.
Service on a foreign corporation is governed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(h), which states that a foreign corporation must be served "in a judicial district of the United States…or at a place not within any judicial district of the United States, in any manner prescribed by Rule 4(f) for serving an individual, except personal delivery…." Rule 4(f)(1) permits service outside the United States "by any internationally agreed means of service that is reasonably calculated to give notice, such as those authorized by the Hague Convention."
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