Service of process by email?
Not necessarily, says the Second Circuit, quoting our article
Quoting with approval the first sentence of our research article, the Second Circuit recently rejected a contention that the Hague Convention authorized service of process by email on a Chinese defendant, reasoning that "reading into the Convention's silence implicit permission for all types of service not affirmatively barred would render meaningless its 'approved methods of service,' encouraging end-runs around the very system it created." Smart Study Co., Ltd v Shenzhenshixindajixieyouxiangongsi, 24-313, 2025 WL 3672740, at *5 [2d Cir Dec. 18, 2025] The Second Circuit quoted and added its own emphasis to our carefully-phrased assessment: “The Hague Convention ... establishes a specific mechanism for international service of process between parties to the Convention and allows for the use of other specified methods in certain circumstances.” (emphases added by the court)).
Smart Study is the seventh federal case in which our article, Permissibility of Effectuating Service of Process by Email Between Parties to Hague Convention on Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters,14 A.L.R. Fed. 3d Art. 8 (Originally published in 2016), has been cited. Secondary sources citing the article include the Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law and the Wayne Law Review.
