Madison Pacific Trust Limited v. Groza

Background

Madison Pacific Trust Limited petitioned under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards and chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act to have the court recognize and enforce a January 6, 2025 final arbitral award against Sergiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko. The award was 94 pages long and was issued by three arbitrators seated in London under the rules of the London Court of International Arbitration. The opinion states that the award favored Madison, but this order did not decide the petition for recognition and enforcement.

During the arbitration, the respondents were represented by Fortior Law S.A. and, for the final hearing, by counsel from Twenty Essex Street in London. In related proceedings in England and Wales, the respondents later notified the court that they would represent themselves. They provided email addresses and a London address for Fortior Law S.A. as an address for service.

Madison presented evidence that it did not know where either respondent was currently located and could not determine their locations through reasonable efforts. Addresses associated with the respondents included locations in Dubai and Odesa, while other information placed one respondent at different times in Nice, France, and possibly Cyprus. In the English proceedings, Madison had sent a contempt application to the respondents by email and to the Fortior address, and the respondents filed jurisdictional objections afterward.

Legal standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f) governs service on individuals in a foreign country. Rule 4(f)(3) permits a court to authorize another method of service if it is not prohibited by an international agreement and satisfies constitutional due process.

Due process requires a method reasonably calculated, under the circumstances, to inform the people involved about the case and give them an opportunity to object. The court explained that email service can satisfy this standard when the evidence indicates that the email is likely to reach the person being served. The court also stated that a party need not first exhaust the other service methods listed in Rule 4(f) before seeking an order under Rule 4(f)(3).

Ruling

The court concluded that its intervention was necessary because the respondents’ physical locations, including the countries where they might be located, were unknown and could not be learned through reasonable diligence. It also concluded that sending the summons, the petition for recognition and enforcement, and supporting submissions to the email addresses in the respondents’ October 15, 2024 notice of change of legal representative was reasonably calculated to inform them and give them an opportunity to respond.

The court granted Madison’s application for an order directing alternative service. It authorized service by email and directed that the documents also be delivered in person or by overnight courier to Sergiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko through Fortior S.A. at the listed address, at Chancery House in London, and at Cours de Rive 4 in Geneva, Switzerland. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion at ECF 13. The order addressed service only; it did not rule on whether the arbitration award should be recognized or enforced.