In Rockefeller Technology Investments (Asia) VII v. Changzhou Sinotype Technology Co., Ltd., the Supreme Court today holds that parties can contractually agree to overseas service of notices by a less formal method than provided for in an international treaty, the Hague Convention on Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters.
The legal issue might be relatively mundane, but on its resolution rests the validity of a $414 million judgment against a Chinese-based company. The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Carol Corrigan reinstates the judgment after the Court of Appeal had reversed it.
As the plaintiff and defendant companies had contractually agreed was permitted, the plaintiff sent by Federal Express, with copies by email, notices regarding an arbitration and a later superior court proceeding to confirm the arbitration award. The defendant didn’t respond at all until it moved to vacate the nine-figure judgment based on the award, at that point claiming it hadn’t been served through a central government authority (see here) as required by the Hague Convention.
The Convention required the formal service because China had exercised its right to object to alternate service means. But, relying on U.S. Supreme Court case law, the court concludes that China’s objection did not “estop[ ] its citizens from agreeing to notification” by those alternate methods. Its opinion states that “the Convention applies only when the law of the forum state requires formal service of process to be sent abroad” and that, “because the parties’ agreement constituted a waiver of formal service of process under California law in favor of an alternative form of notification, the Convention does not apply.”
The court reverses the Second District, Division Three.
