Opinion
1:20-cv-06707 (SHS)
12-14-2021
In re QUTOUTIAO, INC. SECURITIES LITIGATION This Document Relates To ALL ACTIONS
ORDER
SIDNEY H. STEIN, U.S. District Judge.
On December 1, 2021, lead plaintiff James Pappas filed a motion for leave to serve certain unserved defendants in this action with the summons and complaint by alternate service, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(f)(3) upon the following defendants: Eric Siliang Tan, Lei Li, Jingbo Wang, Xiaolu Zhu, Shaoqing Jiang, Jianf ei, Dong, Yongbo Dai, James Jun Peng, Feng Li (the "Unserved Individual Defendants"), Haitong International Securities Company Limited, and Lighthouse Capital International Inc. (the "Unserved Corporate Defendants", and collectively with the Unserved Individual Defendants, the "Unserved Defendants".) (ECF No. 73.) No. party has opposed the motion.
Lead plaintiff's counsel, Constantine P. Economides, has represented under oath that he has undertaken exhaustive efforts to locate and serve the Unserved Defendants in the action and that his many efforts to effectuate service pursuant to the Hague Convention have gone without success to date. See Economides Decl. (ECF No. 75.)
In Pappas's Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Leave for Alternative Service, Pappas sets forth several means by which he plans to serve the Unserved Defendants. (ECF No. 74, at 17-20.) The Court finds that the methods proposed for each Unserved Defendant, in combination, are reasonably calculated to provide adequate notice and, as far as the Court can ascertain, are not prohibited by international agreements. Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(f)(3) ("Unless federal law provides otherwise, an individual-other than a minor, an incompetent person, or a person whose waiver has been filed-may be served at a place not within any judicial district of the United States:... by other means not prohibited by international agreement, as the court orders.").
Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:
1. Lead plaintiff's Motion for Leave for Alternative Service is granted, and
2. Lead plaintiff may effectuate service of the summons and complaint in this action pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(f)(3) by undertaking, for each of the 11 Unserved Defendants, each of the actions set forth on pages 17 through 20 of lead plaintiff's Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Leave for Alternative Service. (ECF No. 74.)
SO ORDERED: