Ningbo Jiaruisi E-Commerce Files Class Action Against Default Judgments

Ningbo Jiaruisi E-Commerce Co., Ltd., a cross-border e-commerce seller based in Ningbo, China, has filed a class action lawsuit against thousands of default judgments issued against mainland-China sellers in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The lawsuit aims to invalidate the thousands of “Schedule A” default judgments entered since 2012, which were issued after the court allowed service by email or electronic publication, methods deemed invalid by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The Seventh Circuit's ruling in Kangol LLC v. Hangzhou Chuanyue Silk Import & Export Co. on May 29, 2026, confirmed that service by email or electronic publication is not authorized under the Hague Service Convention. This decision has significant implications for thousands of cross-border sellers who were served by these unauthorized methods and subsequently faced default judgments.

The lawsuit, filed on September 3, 2026, seeks to void the judgments and requires the plaintiffs who obtained them to account for and return the money collected. Ningbo Jiaruisi E-Commerce, which operated under the storefront name GENISBULB on Amazon, is leading the class action.

According to the complaint, more than 8,900 Schedule A cases were filed in the Northern District of Illinois between 2012 and May 2026. These cases typically named dozens or hundreds of online sellers, with each case potentially resulting in a default judgment. WHAM-O Holding, Ltd., the owner of the FRISBEE trademarks, filed one such case, WHAM-O v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule "A," No. 1:22-cv-06802, on December 13, 2022. The court entered a temporary restraining order that allowed service by email and electronic publication, with GENISBULB being listed as defendant No. 44.

The court later entered a default judgment against GENISBULB, awarding WHAM-O statutory damages of $200,000 and directing third parties holding the defendants' funds to restrain those accounts and turn the money over. Amazon released $4,393.41 from GENISBULB's account to WHAM-O. The balance of the $200,000 judgment, along with a permanent injunction, remains outstanding against the company.

The lawsuit seeks to remedy the errors that have been repeated thousands of times in the Northern District of Illinois. Lead counsel Wesley E. Johnson of Cross-Border Counselor LLP stated, "Kangol corrected an error that was repeated thousands of times in the Northern District. This case seeks to remedy those errors. Spread across tens of thousands of sellers, it adds up to an enormous uncompensated transfer of value out of the Chinese cross-border e-commerce sector."

The complaint proposes a plaintiff class of mainland-China Schedule A defendants and a defendant class of the Schedule A plaintiffs who obtained non-Hague service authorization and then took default judgments. WHAM-O, which is named as the proposed representative of the defendant class, has filed at least 116 Schedule A cases. A subclass would cover sellers whose funds were actually turned over.

As of the filing date, no class has been certified, and the court has not ruled on any of the allegations in the complaint. Sellers who believe they may have been affected or are unsure whether a judgment was entered against them are encouraged to contact Cross-Border Counselor LLP for assistance.