TAIWAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Peng-Kwang Chen, Pamela Huang, Claudia Huang and Ching-Tzu (Katie) Chang, Formosa Transnational Attorneys At Law
After service of the complaint, amendments to the parties, the subject matter of the lawsuit, and the statement of claim are prohibited, except with the consent of the defendant, or under other exceptional circumstances. These circumstanc- es include: • where the amendment or addition to the claim is based on the same facts; • when there is an expansion or reduction of the claims made regarding the relief sought. For example, a claim for USD500,000 is reduced to USD100,000; • where the change of circumstances neces- sitates the replacement of the original claim with another claim; and • where it would neither severely obstruct the defendant’s defence nor delay the litigation. 3.5 Rules of Service The rules of service are generally as follows: • service authority – service is typically per- formed by court clerks; • party to be served – service is usually direct- ed to the parties involved themselves. How- ever, there are exceptions, such as serving their legal representatives or attorneys; • place of service – service is made to the recipient’s residence or place of business; and • method of service – the court clerk will, in principle, send the documents to the parties through postal service. The plaintiff must submit an initial complaint along with identical copies to the court. The court will serve the same on the defendants. For documents other than the initial complaint, judges may request that both parties send them directly to the other party without the court’s assistance.
To serve a foreign defendant, the plaintiff must provide the defendant’s foreign address to the court. The court will then request service through competent authorities in the foreign jurisdiction or through Taiwan’s embassies, or other official organisations or agencies abroad. If the foreign address is unknown or the service at the pro- vided address fails, the plaintiff may petition for If the defendant has been lawfully served with a subpoena and fails to appear before the court without proper reasons, the court may, upon the plaintiff’s request, or ex officio after successive failures to respond, enter a default judgment based on the appearing party’s arguments. 3.7 Representative or Collective Actions In Taiwan, collective or representative actions are permitted in various scenarios, including the following. • A specific group may bring a class action on behalf of an unspecified number of individu- als in the case of harm arising from public nuisance, product defects, or environmental pollution where the victim or consumer may not be aware of or is unable to exclude the infringement on their own. • The statutory Securities and Futures Inves- tors Protection Centre may initiate a lawsuit in its own name with respect to a securities or futures matter arising from a single cause that is injurious to multiple securities investors or futures traders, after having been so empow- ered by not less than 20 securities investors or futures traders. service by public notice. 3.6 Failure to Respond In the first scenario, an individual who opts in becomes the plaintiff and thus becomes bound by the judgment.
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