What Happens When A Seller Located Outside of the United States Gets Sued on Amazon?
Amazon sellers, I try and use these videos to answer questions that we get from other sellers every single day so that you have the information that you need to thrive on Amazon.
I received a call from a seller who’s located outside the United States, but he was sued in Chicago in federal court and he wanted to know what his rights were.
The United States court system is a bit unusual in that it doesn’t matter where you are located. If you are outside the United States and you get sued, you have the same rights to defend yourself as anybody here in America.
If you are located outside the United States and you need to use the courts to sue someone, maybe you need to sue a big brand who made a false counterfeit complaint against you, or a seller who’s using dirty tricks to harm your business.
Whether you are located in the United States or outside the United States, it doesn’t matter. You have the same exact rights to our court system as any American citizen.
The one difference I think you should know about is that if your Amazon-based business is owned by a corporation or some other artificial entity like an LLC, an LLP, a Hong Kong corporation, or anything else, then you must have a lawyer represent you because artificial entities like corporations are not allowed to represent themselves.
If your business is owned by natural persons, whether it’s one person or partners, but it’s owned by people, then you actually can represent yourselves, although I don’t recommend it.
So the bottom line to answer the question is: whether you are located in the United States or outside the United States, you have the same rights as an American citizen when it comes to defending yourself in a US court or bringing claims in a US court.
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