OC Global Partners, LLC v. Lirdes S.A.

Background

OC Global Partners, LLC asked the court for permission to serve the summons and complaint on Luis Felipe Adaime and Lirdes S.A. by alternative service. In a January 20, 2022 memorandum and order, the court granted that request. The defendants then moved for reconsideration of that order.

The opinion states that Lirdes S.A. is a Uruguay joint stock company with its principal place of business in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and that Adaime is Lirdes’s founder and chief executive officer and resides in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Before the lawsuit began, OC Global Partners regularly communicated with Adaime by email. In November 2021, OC Global Partners’s counsel emailed Adaime a demand for payment for services, and received a response from his counsel in Brazil.

OC Global Partners’s counsel also emailed the defendants’ Brazilian counsel on December 15, 2021, with notice of the lawsuit, the complaint, and a request that the defendants waive service or provide an address where Adaime could be served. The Brazilian counsel responded that counsel was not authorized to accept service or waive service, and did not provide Adaime’s address.

Defendants’ arguments

The defendants sought reconsideration on two grounds: first, that alternative service should not have been allowed because OC Global Partners had not attempted service in Brazil under the Hague Convention; and second, that OC Global Partners had not made reasonable attempts to serve the defendants in Uruguay.

Court’s analysis

The court explained that reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy. It is generally available only when the moving party identifies a change in controlling law, new evidence, or a clear error or need to prevent serious unfairness. It is not a way to relitigate issues already decided or present the case under a new theory.

The court held that it had expressly considered both of the defendants’ arguments in its earlier order. Although OC Global Partners had not begun service under either the Hague Convention or the Inter-American Convention, the court had found that requiring it to begin those processes before allowing alternative service would be an unnecessary formality.

The court relied on OC Global Partners’s unsuccessful effort to obtain a waiver of service or Adaime’s address. It also considered evidence that service through the international conventions would be delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The court noted that service under the Hague Convention, which had previously taken about six months, was expected to take at least eight months during the pandemic. It further noted that OC Global Partners lacked an address for Adaime, which the Hague Convention required, and that service under the Inter-American Convention would be more complicated and delayed.

Disposition

Judge Lewis J. Liman denied the defendants’ motion for reconsideration. The court concluded that the motion identified no new facts or new law warranting a change to the prior order permitting alternative service. The Clerk of Court was directed to close Docket No. 18.