Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-07-07046/USCOURTS-caDC-07-07046-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 22, 2007 Decided November 27, 2007 

No. 07-7045 

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO,

APPELLANT

V. 

FG HEMISPHERE ASSOCIATES, LLC, 

APPELLEE

Consolidated with 

07-7046 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 03cv01314) 

(No. 03cv01315) 

Jonathan A. Nockels, pro hac vice, argued the cause for 

appellant. With him on the brief were Stephen F. Malouf and 

Steven D. Cundra. 

 Eric A. Shumsky argued the cause for appellee. With him 

on the brief was Bradford A. Berenson. Neil H. Koslowe

entered an appearance. 

USCA Case #07-7046 Document #1082473 Filed: 11/27/2007 Page 1 of 7
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 Before: RANDOLPH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: FG Hemisphere’s 

predecessor-in-interest, which for simplicity’s sake we call 

FG Hemisphere, brought two suits in district court under 28 

U.S.C. § 1605(a)(6)(B), a provision of the Foreign Sovereign 

Immunities Act. In the suits FG Hemisphere sought to 

confirm arbitration awards it had secured against the 

Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”). The DRC did not 

appear, and the district court entered default judgments 

against it in September 2004 and January 2005. In June 2006, 

after some 13 months of conflict over an attempted execution 

by FG Hemisphere on the DRC’s diplomatic properties and 

over discovery matters, the DRC sought to vacate the 

judgment, claiming that service of process had not been in full 

compliance with 28 U.S.C. § 1608(a) and that therefore the 

district court had no personal jurisdiction over the DRC when 

it entered the default judgments. The district court denied the 

motions to vacate. Because we find that the DRC waived its 

objection to the service of process by proceeding at length 

with post-default litigation, some of which had no emergency 

character, we affirm. 

* * * 

28 U.S.C. § 1608(a) provides for service in courts of the 

United States upon a foreign state by four alternative means, 

each (after that of subsection (a)(1)) available only if the 

previously enumerated options are in some way foreclosed. 

Here it is undisputed that subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) were 

unavailable. FG Hemisphere therefore initially invoked 

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subsection (a)(3), which provides for service “by any form of 

mail requiring a signed receipt, to be addressed and 

dispatched by the clerk of the court to the head of the ministry 

of foreign affairs of the foreign state concerned.” Although 

subsection (a)(3) seems not to require the name of the head of 

the ministry of foreign affairs, both the mailings were 

addressed to “The Democratic Republic of Congo, Leonard 

She Okitundu, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” at the correct 

address in Kinshasa. Unfortunately, Okitundu had resigned as 

foreign minister six weeks before FG Hemisphere launched 

the process and thus, obviously, by the time the two mailings 

arrived in Kinshasa. The exact fate of this attempted service 

under § 1608(a)(3) is unknown. 

There being no response within 30 days, FG Hemisphere 

moved to § 1608(a)(4), which provides that if “service cannot 

be made within 30 days under paragraph (3),” it may be 

obtained by sending the necessary documents to the Secretary 

of State in Washington, to the attention of the Director of 

Special Consular Services; the Secretary of State is then to 

transmit the papers to the foreign state by diplomatic channels 

and to send the clerk of the court a certified copy of the 

diplomatic note indicating when the papers were transmitted. 

This method of service was effected by early 2004. 

For some time, however, the DRC did not appear in the 

litigation, and FG Hemisphere secured default judgments in 

September 2004 and January 2005. In May 2005 the DRC at 

last appeared, seeking to vacate writs of execution issued by 

the district court against two DRC properties in the District of 

Columbia; the DRC argued that the properties were 

diplomatic ones exempt from execution under 28 U.S.C. 

§§ 1609-1611. The district court rejected the DRC’s claims 

without explanation; on appeal, in May 2006, we reversed and 

remanded for further proceedings. See FG Hemisphere 

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Associates, LLC v. Democratic Republic of Congo, 447 F.3d 

835 (D.C. Cir. 2006). 

Only then did the DRC raise an issue about service of 

process. In June 2006 it filed motions to vacate the default 

judgments for want of personal jurisdiction, arguing that, 

because of the misidentification of the foreign minister, 

service under § 1608(a)(3) had been defective, so that FG 

Hemisphere had failed to establish the predicate for service 

under subsection (a)(4), namely, that “service cannot be made 

within 30 days under paragraph (3).” The district court denied 

the motions without explanation, and the DRC filed a timely 

appeal. 

FG Hemisphere asserts both substantive and procedural 

defenses for the district court rulings. It argues that inclusion 

of the erroneous name was not inconsistent with § 1608(a)(3), 

and that even if it was, the defect was not such as to 

undermine the contingency of § 1608(a)(4)—that service 

“cannot be made under paragraph (3).” It also asserts 

that the DRC’s long silence on the matter, from its first 

appearance and participation in this litigation in May 2005 

until its June 2006 motion to vacate, waived any objection to 

the district court’s personal jurisdiction over the DRC. 

Agreeing with the waiver argument, we do not reach the 

substantive one. 

Rule 12(g) and Rule 12(h)(1) of the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure provide that the defense of lack of personal 

jurisdiction, among others, is waived by its omission from 

motions asserting defenses under Rule 12 or a responsive 

pleading. In a case such as this, where the defendant’s default 

has removed any occasion for these conventional opening 

defensive moves, the rule obviously cannot be applied 

literally. But courts have applied its rationale—that 

defendants should raise such preliminary matters before the 

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court’s and parties’ time is consumed in struggle over the 

substance of the suit—where a defendant has engaged in 

extensive post-default litigation without suggesting an 

infirmity in personal jurisdiction. Thus, in Trustees of Central 

Laborers’ Welfare Fund v. Lowery, 924 F.2d 731 (7th Cir. 

1991), the court held that the defendant’s participation in six 

years of post-default judgment litigation over asset discovery 

was sufficient to waive its right to challenge the service of 

process underlying the original judgment, id. at 733-34. See 

also Bally Export Corp. v. Balicar, Ltd., 804 F.2d 398, 404 

(7th Cir. 1986). And the First Circuit has found waiver of a 

personal jurisdiction defense where the defendant, though 

filing neither a Rule 12 motion nor a responsive pleading, 

filed an appearance and participated in multiple depositions. 

Marcial Ucin, S.A. v. SS Galicia, 723 F.2d 994, 996-97 (1st 

Cir. 1983). 

Here the litigation proceeded for 13 months between the 

DRC’s initial appearance and its claim that service of process 

had been inadequate. Most of the litigation, to be sure, 

revolved around the DRC’s efforts to hold off execution 

against two properties the DRC claimed were immune under 

28 U.S.C. §§ 1609-1611, the subject of our earlier opinion. 

The DRC’s efforts to protect those properties of course had a 

certain emergency character, and we note that after our prior 

decision FG Hemisphere abandoned its request to execute 

against them. But of course an emergency loses some of its 

edge when it lasts for 13 months. Cf. Manchester Knitted 

Fashions, Inc. v. Amalgamated Cotton Garment & Allied 

Industries Fund, 967 F.2d 688, 691-93 (1st Cir. 1992) (finding 

waiver through nine weeks’ delay, mostly spent resisting a 

temporary restraining order, despite the litigation’s emergency 

character and although defendant had not filed a Rule 12 

motion or an answer). 

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Here, however, we need not rest a waiver finding solely

on the DRC’s omission of the service-of-process claim in the 

midst of these emergency efforts. The struggle to protect its 

diplomatic properties was not the only litigation of the DRC 

between its appearance in this action and its June 2006 

assertion of its personal jurisdiction defense. FG Hemisphere 

sought discovery against the DRC in July of 2005, apparently 

for the first time. In September 2005, the DRC having failed 

to produce a single one of the requested documents, FG 

Hemisphere moved for an order directing compliance with its 

requests; next month the DRC filed an opposition to that 

motion to compel. Even in opposing FG Hemisphere’s 

request for documents, the DRC made no mention of the nowalleged lack of personal jurisdiction; rather, it waited another 

eight months before flagging the problem. We find that the 

cumulative delay, encompassing disputes over both the 

properties and discovery, effected a waiver. 

One final note: Litigation over the production of 

documents took place in only one of the two suits yielding the 

default judgments at issue here. But the documents sought 

were lists of all the DRC’s assets and would have been 

equally useful to FG Hemisphere in seeking enforcement of 

either default judgment. Further, shortly after filing motions 

to vacate in both actions, the DRC joined FG Hemisphere in 

moving to consolidate the two cases in district court, the joint 

motion noting that “discovery issues will be common in both 

actions.” Indeed, since consolidation, discovery has 

proceeded in both actions. Finally, in this appeal the DRC 

has made no argument that litigation activity in one suit 

should not be counted with respect to waiver in the other. 

Under these circumstances, we find that the pursuit of a 

discovery dispute in one action served to waive defendant’s 

service-of-process objection in both actions. 

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Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is 

Affirmed. 

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