§1696 Service in foreign and international litigation

Summary

A federal district court where a person lives or can be found can order that person to be served with papers from a foreign or international court. The court can do this after a foreign court asks (for example by a formal request called a letter rogatory) or after any interested person asks, and the court will say how the papers must be served. Being served this way does not by itself mean U.S. courts will accept or enforce the foreign court’s judgment. The law also allows those papers to be served without a court order.