Originally Posted by
wphamilton
Plus actual business transactions of course, but without a physical point of presence or business relationship with a business in the jurisdiction it's problematic. I once successfully enforced personal jurisdiction over an internet based company based in California, but I could show an actual business office here, I believe I could have, with precedence based on just sales here, but that can go both ways. I'm just going by US law and I don't know anything about international trade law (beyond that it's supposed to be difficult to assert jurisdiction) but I don't imagine that local jurisdiction is easier than between the states. I suspect that just advertising with some intent to sell isn't the full standard and that some additional elements were needed.
Bottom line is, Colnago probably has good reason to try to sidetrack potential product liability claims. Their alleged attorney, who wrote to you, purports to specialize in that.
When my IRD fork collapsed no American lawyer would even talk to me. All I was looking for was medical bills which weren't that much - perhaps $10,000. But the fact is that I am permanently disabled. I have seizures and memory loss and have to take medicine with nasty side effects for the remainder of my life. The medication stops the seizures but the memory loss is a problem. Luckily it has little to do with my work which is almost entirely original thought. But I couldn't tell you even half of the places I worked.
Finally a friend of mine who owns a firm in Oakland volunteered while on a ride to look into it.
Since I had bought the fork from a Irish firm the response from IRD was that they had never had any intent to market to the USA and as proof had never advertised here even though the Internet could be construed as advertising over the entire world.
They quoted the chapter and verse of international law and the lawyer that my friend assigned to the case said that was pretty much bullet proof.