The final months of the most recent U.S. Supreme Court term saw two decisions in the area of international litigation and a personal jurisdiction decision that re-enforced earlier decisions that make it more difficult to assert jurisdiction over foreign parties. We look at them in this article.
The most significant decision was in Water Splash v. Menon, No. 16-254 (May 22, 2017), which resolved a lower court split that had existed for many years. The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters (the Convention) seeks to simplify, standardize, and generally improve the process of serving documents abroad. It specifies certain approved methods of service and preempts inconsistent methods of service wherever the Convention applies.
