Yangtze Memory Technologies, Inc. v. Strand Consult

Background

Yangtze Memory Technologies Company, Ltd. (YMTC) and Yangtze Memory Technologies, Inc. (YMT–USA) sued Strand Consult and Roslyn Layton. The amended complaint asserted claims under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), and added DCI Group AZ, L.L.C. as a defendant. The plaintiffs’ earlier state-law claims were dropped.

In May 2025, the court dismissed DCI for lack of personal jurisdiction without leave to amend. The court also dismissed Strand Consult and Layton for lack of personal jurisdiction, but allowed the plaintiffs to amend to allege additional jurisdictional facts. The plaintiffs did not file a second amended complaint. Instead, they sought reconsideration of the ruling concerning Strand Consult and Layton.

The plaintiffs also moved to transfer the action to the District of Columbia. Strand Consult and Layton moved to dismiss based on forum non conveniens, a doctrine allowing a court to decline to hear a case when a foreign forum is more convenient.

Motion for Reconsideration

The court granted reconsideration. It concluded that Strand Consult and Layton waived the defense of lack of personal jurisdiction because they did not expressly raise that defense in their motion to dismiss. The court had previously considered the defendants’ filings as a whole, including the jurisdictional arguments made by DCI, but concluded on reconsideration that the analysis had to focus on whether Strand Consult and Layton individually raised the defense in their own motion.

The court therefore found that Strand Consult and Layton had acceded to personal jurisdiction in this case and vacated the relevant portion of the May 2025 order. The plaintiffs did not seek reconsideration of DCI’s dismissal.

Motion to Transfer

The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to transfer under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). Before transferring a case, the proposed receiving court must be a court where the action could have been brought, including a court with personal jurisdiction over the defendants.

The court found that the District of Columbia would not have personal jurisdiction over Strand Consult and Layton for this dispute. Applying the federal jurisdiction rule for certain defendants outside any state, the court considered the defendants’ contacts with the United States as a whole. It found that the defendants’ operation of a passive website, English-language content, use of United States content-delivery networks, and use of a “.com” domain were not enough to show that they purposefully targeted the forum.

The court also found that the plaintiffs had not shown that their claims arose from the defendants’ United States-related activities. The alleged harm was focused on YMTC, which is based in China, and the plaintiffs had not connected the alleged harm to YMT–USA or to the United States. The court additionally concluded that exercising jurisdiction in the District of Columbia would not be reasonable on the facts presented.

Forum Non Conveniens

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens. It found Denmark to be an adequate alternative forum because the defendants were subject to service there and Danish law offered at least some remedy for the alleged injuries, including remedies addressing misleading actions and omissions.

The private-interest factors strongly favored Denmark. The defendants were domiciled there, were likely to be key witnesses, and were likely to hold significant relevant evidence on company-owned computers there. The court also found that the cost and practical burden of litigating in the United States favored Denmark, and that a Danish judgment would be enforceable against the Denmark-based defendants.

The public-interest factors also favored Denmark. Denmark had an interest in regulating the conduct of its companies and citizens, and the dispute primarily concerned actions allegedly undertaken in Denmark by Denmark domiciliaries. The court found some factors neutral, but concluded that the overall balance favored Denmark despite the deference ordinarily owed to YMT–USA’s choice of a United States forum.

Disposition

The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration, denied the plaintiffs’ motion to transfer, and granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens. The dismissal was conditioned on the defendants accepting service in Denmark and waiving any statute-of-limitations defenses from June 7, 2024, forward.