Quote:
Originally Posted by Ayla_AAA
humm. I thought this was interesting.
?The U.S. federal court system allows a plaintiff to sue a foreign entity in any U.S. district,? he said. ?We don?t care where you are or who you are; if you steal from us, we?re going to get you.?
Of course stealing is wrong but it's interesting that somehow the US courts have power over people or entities in other countries. If I'm a Japanese citizen, for example, and someone in the US sues me, and I say "fuck you, I'm not showing up to court" then how can they do anything? Are they going to show up in Japan and arrest me? I don't get it.
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United States Code (that's Federal Law, in case you didn't know) states "an alien may be sued in any district" 28 U.S.C. 1391(d). "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000 ... and is between ... citizens of a state and citizens or subjects of a foreign state." 28 U.S.C. 1332(a)(2). The United States has treaties with many foreign countries (including Canada and Japan) that allow citizens of one country who receives a court judgment against an entity in the other country to enter that judgment in a court of the defendant's county and get execution on the judgment in the country of the defendant. This is generally referred to as the "full faith and credit of judgments" provision in those treaties.