Whyenlee Indus. Ltd. v. Superior Court of San Mateo Cnty.

Whyenlee Industries Ltd. (Whyenlee), a defendant below, petitions for a writ of mandate directing the trial court to grant its motion to quash service of a summons. 1 Because plaintiffs used an agent to serve a summons on Whyenlee in Hong Kong *842 without first making a request to the Hong Kong government's Central Authority, Whyenlee now argues this attempt at service of process was ineffective under the Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters ( Nov. 15, 1965, 20 U.S.T. 361, T.I.A.S. No. 6638 ) ("Hague Service Convention" or "Convention"). We disagree and will deny writ relief.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Zhize Huang and Wuxi Luoshe Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd. ("plaintiffs") sued several defendants to, among other things, "set aside various fraudulent and voidable transactions." Defendants allegedly made these transactions to "hide millions of dollars in assets" after plaintiffs obtained a $ 68 million judgment in 2016 against one of the individual defendants, Anshan Li.

In April 2017, plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint in this action adding as a defendant Admiring Dawn International, Ltd. (Admiring…