Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/43

23 JURISDICTION OVER FOREIGN CORPORATIONS. 23 company organized in New York. So also it has been held that a court of equity will not entertain a suit by stockholders to re- strain or redress frauds or breaches of trust on the part of officers or directors of a foreign corporation,^ and that even where there is a statute authorizing service of process, the courts have no visi- tatorial power over foreign corporations, nor jurisdiction to regu- late their internal affairs.^ Even though provision be made for the service of process upon foreign corporations, the Courts are left free to determine whether they will take jurisdiction of the subject- matter of the controversy or administer the relief which the case requires. The discussion of this subject involves questions of expediency and of power to enforce decrees as well as questions of jurisdiction, and these questions are not within the purposes of the present discussion. Edward Quinton Keasbey. Newark, N. J., March, 1898. 1 Thomp., Corp., §§ 4479, 801 r ; New Haven Horse Nail Co. v. Linden Spring Co., 142 Mass. 349; Wilkins v. Thome, 60 Md. 253 ; Moore v. Silver Valley Min. Co., 104 N. C. 354 ; 10 S. E. Rep. 679-683. 2 Mining Co. v. Field, 64 Md. 151 ; 20 Atl. Rep. 1039; Republican Mountain Silver Mines v. Brown, 58 Fed. Rep. 644; 7 C. C. A. 412. On the question in what cases courts will exercise jurisdiction over causes of action arising in foreign countries, or beyond their own territories, see the notes to MostjTi v. Fabrigas, i Smith's Leading Cases, 652, and the opinion of Judge Bradley In re The Belgenland, 114 U. S. 355.