Serving Taiwanese Defendants By Mail Under The Federal Rules

Olivia Goldner (Summer Law Clerk-Chicago) assisted in researching and drafting this blog post.

Serving a defendant that is located outside the United States must comply with U.S. law and the law of the defendant's home country, as well as any international agreement that may exist between the United States and the defendant's home country, to ensure the service will be enforceable. From a practical standpoint, this means international service of process is time-consuming and expensive in most cases.

Consequently, service of process by mail to a foreign defendant, and to Taiwanese defendants in particular, has become increasingly common as a more uniform and manageable method for delivering notice to entities overseas. There have been questions of whether service by mail to a Taiwanese defendant is permissible under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) Rule 4(f)(2)(c)(ii), which provides that an individual in a foreign country may be served, unless prohibited