Page:Republic of Sudan v. Rick Harrison.pdf/1

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Respondents, victims of the bombing of the U. S. S. Cole and their family members, sued the Republic of Sudan under the FSIA, alleging that Sudan provided material support to al Qaeda for the bombing. The court clerk, at respondents’ request, addressed the service packet to Sudan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Sudanese Embassy in the United States and later certified that a signed receipt had been returned. After Sudan failed to appear in the litigation, the District Court entered a default judgment for respondents and subsequently issued three orders requiring banks to turn over Sudanese assets to pay the judgment. Sudan challenged those orders, arguing that the judgment was invalid for lack of personal jurisdiction, because §1608(a)(3) required that the service packet be sent to its foreign minister at his principal office in Sudan, not to the Sudanese Embassy in the United States. The Second Circuit affirmed, reasoning that the statute was silent on where the mailing must be sent and that the method chosen was consistent with the statute’s language and could be reasonably expected to result in delivery to the foreign minister.