China

Serving Chinese Defendants—Another Problematic Decision

An order last week in Teetex, LLC v. Zeetex, LLC illustrates some common and problematic approaches to serving process on defendants in China. When service under the Hague Service Convention had not been accomplished within six months, the district court authorized service by email on the defendant’s general manager in China and the general manager’s…

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China’s New Data Security Law in U.S. Discovery Disputes

Discovery litigation regarding the impact of China’s Data Security Law (“DSL”), which took effect less than a year ago in September 2021, has steadily increased in U.S. courts, and it is likely to continue to increase over the coming months and years.  One driver of this litigation is the uncertainty created by the newness of…

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SDNY Rejects Service by Email on Chinese Companies

In Smart Study Co. v. Acuteye-US, a federal court in the Southern District of New York (Judge Gregory Woods) rejected service by email on Chinese companies in a trademark and copyright infringement case. China and the United States are parties to the Hague Service Convention. The court reasoned that the Convention precludes service by email,…

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Enforcing Chinese Judgments

It has become routine for courts in the United States to recognize and enforce Chinese judgments, subject to the same limits that are applied to judgments from other countries. Last year, a New York court threatened to upset this positive trend. Relying on U.S. State Department Country Reports noting corruption and lack of judicial independence…

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Court Holds that China’s Data Privacy Law Does Not Bar U.S. Discovery

A recent decision held that China’s new data privacy law does not bar compliance with U.S. discovery orders. In Cadence Design Systems, Inc. v. Syntronic AB, Chief Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero reasoned that there was no conflict between his discovery order and China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) because of an exception in the PIPL for…

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District Court Quashes Substituted Service on Chinese Defendant

In a recent decision, Topstone Communications, Inc. v. Chenyi Xu, a federal court in Texas (Judge Keith Ellison) held that a plaintiff headquartered in Texas must serve defendants based in China by using the Hague Service Convention. The opinion provides a good analysis of how both substituted service on a state official and service by email…

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Recent Scholarship on Antisuit Injunctions

Giuseppe Colangelo and Valerio Torti have posted an interesting paper on antisuit injunctions in patent litigation. The paper helpfully surveys recent clusters of litigation in China, Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. Especially notable is the growth both in antisuit injunctions against Chinese companies and in antisuit injunctions issued by Chinese courts…

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Cert Petition Challenges Second Circuit’s Comity Abstention Doctrine

A cert petition filed with the Supreme Court on March 21, 2022 challenges the doctrine of prescriptive comity abstention.  The Second Circuit used this doctrine to reverse a $147 million antitrust judgment against Chinese companies for fixing the price of vitamin C sold into the United States. The Second Circuit’s decision relies on the kind…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

UC Davis School of Law
wsdodge@ucdavis.eduEmail

Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law School
mgardner@cornell.eduEmail

John F. Coyle

University of North Carolina School of Law
jfcoyle@email.unc.eduEmail

Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
zclopton@law.northwestern.eduEmail

Matt Slovin

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Noah Buyon

Duke University School of Law
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Will Moon

University of Maryland
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William K. McGoughran

Vanderbilt Law School
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Chimène Keitner

UC Davis School of Law
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Catherine Amirfar

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
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Justin R. Rassi

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
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Isabelle Glimcher

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
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Ben Köhler

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
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Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
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