The Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory and Additional Protocol (IACAP) is an additional international agreement designed to facilitate judicial assistance between countries listed below. This particular agreement is limited to serving legal documents filed in the United States in either State or Federal Court. One of the differences between the Inter-American Convention and the Hague Convention is that the application for the Inter-American Convention needs to be executed by the Judge in the USA and also the Central Authority to the United States. In addition, this application and package is sent directly to the foreign Court. The Judge in the foreign Court will need to review and approve the service before the actual service of process is done. This process can generally take from 4-6 months if not longer depending on the country involved.

Countries part of the treaty as of 2019: ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, CHILE, COLOMBIA, ECUADOR, GUATEMALA, MEXICO, PANAMA, PARAGUAY, PERU, UNITED STATES, URUGUAY and VENEZUELA; It’s important to note, that you always need to check updated list since countries can be added.

The Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters is a multilateral treaty designed to simplify the methods for serving process abroad to assure that defendants sued in foreign jurisdictions receive actual and timely notice of suit and to facilitate proof of service abroad.

This convention is used to serve legal documents filed in the United States to be served in foreign countries that have signed as a signatory.
For example, if you need to serve a Summons and Complaint to a company in China, Germany, Italy, France, Albania, Egypt, and England you would use this method. There are many other countries part of this convention and every year new countries are added.

This method is much simpler and faster than the Letters of Rogatory method. Also, another differentiating factor is that under the Hague Convention the attorney can sign the application versus the Letters of Rogatory that is signed by the Judge presiding over the matter.

Letters of Rogatory are formal requests from a court in one country to “the appropriate judicial authorities” in another country that can request service of judicial documents.

Letter of Rogatory is also known as “Letter of Request”. For example, we use Letters of Rogatory when trying to serve defendants in countries that are neither parties to the Hague or Inter-American Conventions. In the case that you were trying to serve a defendant in either a State or Federal matter in the United States that was going to Cuba or New Zealand, you would use this process.

Letters of Rogatory are received and executed by foreign authorities on the basis of comity and reciprocity. This process will generally take from 9 to 12 months to process and the cost involved is much more expensive. As of 2019, the fee to the U.S. Embassy is $2,275– this fee goes directly to the U.S. Embassy in that country.