IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 

EASTERN DIVISION 

VOLKSWAGEN GROUP OF AMERICA, 

INC., 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

BRANDCAR STORE, et al., 

Defendants. 

Case No. 20-cv-03131 

Judge Thomas M. Durkin 

Magistrate Judge Sheila M. Finnegan

Declaration of Justin R. Gaudio 

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DECLARATION OF JUSTIN R. GAUDIO 

I, Justin R. Gaudio, of the City of Chicago, in the State of Illinois, declare as follows: 

1. I am an attorney at law, duly admitted to practice before the Courts of the State of Illinois 

and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. I am one of the 

attorneys for Plaintiff Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (“Plaintiff”). Except as otherwise 

expressly stated to the contrary, I have personal knowledge of the following facts and, if 

called as a witness, I could and would competently testify as follows: 

2. Offshore e-commerce store operators offering for sale products using counterfeit trademarks 

typically: (1) provide false, misleading and/or incomplete names and physical address 

information to conceal their locations and avoid liability for their unlawful conduct; and (2) 

rely primarily on electronic communications to communicate with their third-party service 

providers and customers. In my over ten years of experience in anti-counterfeiting 

investigations, even if a purported address is provided on an e-commerce store, it is unlikely 

to be legitimate. E-mail has proved to be a reliable mechanism for quickly providing notice 

to e-commerce store operators in similar cases. Indeed, thousands of defendants in cases I 

have overseen have confirmed receipt of actual notice via e-mail. 

3. An investigation of the e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases identified in 

Schedule A to the Amended Complaint shows that few, if any, provide a physical address on 

the e-commerce store. In most instances, Defendants must provide an e-mail address and 

physical address to third-party online marketplace platforms such as eBay, AliExpress, 

Alibaba, Amazon, Wish.com, and Dhgate when registering their account. However, unlike 

an e-mail address, which is typically verified by the third-party online marketplace platforms, 

no verification typically occurs for physical addresses. Since an e-commerce store operator 

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can input any physical address, such addresses are usually false and/or are not where the ecommerce store operator is located. As such, even if a physical address is available, it is not 

a reliable means for identifying and locating Defendants. 

4. I have reviewed the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra-Judicial 

Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters (“Hague Convention”), to which China is a 

signatory. The Hague Convention does not preclude service by e-mail. Additionally, 

according to Article 1 of the Hague Convention, the “convention shall not apply where the 

address of the person to be served with the document is not known.” A true and correct copy 

of the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra-Judicial Documents in 

Civil and Commercial Matters, and a list of signatory members, are collectively attached 

hereto as Exhibit 1. 

5. Exhibit 2 attached hereto is a true and correct copy of the unpublished decisions cited in 

Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Support of the Motion for Electronic Service of Process Pursuant 

to Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(f)(3). 

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the 

foregoing is true and correct. 

Executed on this the 28th day of May 2020 at Chicago, Illinois. 

 /s/ Justin R. Gaudio 

Justin R. Gaudio 

Counsel for Plaintiff Volkswagen Group of 

America, Inc. 

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