Introduction

• Author: Ernesto Sanchez
• Pages: 271-271

271

THE F SIA A ND PE RSON A L

JURI SDIC TI ON

INTRODUCTION

Personal jurisdiction refers to a court’s jurisdiction over the actual parties to a dispute, as opposed

to subject matter jurisdiction, which entails a court’s authority to make determinations of law

and fact with respect to a certain case or controversy. e FSIA provides for personal jurisdiction

whenever courts can exercise subject matter jurisdiction under the statute (i.e., when an action

falls under an exception to immunity), as does specied bankruptcy law, and service of process

has been made under guidelines in 28 U.S.C. § 1608.1 Chapter 24 describes those guidelines

and how to comply with them, while Chapter 25 examines the guidelines’ interplay with U.S.

law’s general personal jurisdiction provisions, especially in the area of due process requirements

that nonresident defendants have “minimum contacts” with a forum so that the exercise of

personal jurisdiction does not oend “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.”2

1. 28 U.S.C. § 1330(b).

2. International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945).

PART V

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