Conflictoflaws

Edited by Delphine Porcheron, Mélanie Schmitt and Juliette Lelieur

The University of Strasbourg is organizing workshop series on the protection of Human Rights in transnational situations. The research is conducted in criminal law, labour law, and private international law. After the first meeting which took place last January with the presence of Horatia Muir Watt, Dominique Ritleng and Patrick Wachsmann, the second one will be held in Strasbourg on June 5, focusing on civil and environmental liabilities and private international law.

 

Speakers include :

• Bénédicte Girard, University of Strasbourg
• Marie-Pierre Camproux, University of Strasbourg
• Pauline Abadie, University of Paris Sud
• Fabien Marchadier, University of Poitiers
• Patrick Kinsch, University of Luxembourg, Attorney at law Luxembourg
• Louis d’Avout, University of Paris II
• Jean-Sylvestre Bergé, University of Lyon III
• Caroline Kleiner, University of Strasbourg

For more information click here.

Both the English and French versions of the HCCH Draft Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments have been just uploaded onto the Hague Conference website (< www.hcch.net >). See News and Events here.

This text will form the basis of the discussions at the Diplomatic Session meeting in 2019.

David Restrepo Amariles (HEC Paris), Eva Mouial Bassilana (Université Côte d’Azur) and Matteo Winkler (HEC Paris) have posted on SSRN an article titled The Impact of the French Doctrine of Significant Imbalance on International Business Transactions. The paper is forthcoming on the Journal of Business Law.

The abstract reads as follows.

This article examines the concept of “significant imbalance” (SI) under French law and its impact on international business transactions. “Significant imbalance” is a legal standard meant to assess whether a contractual clause is unfair (abusive). Although initially restricted to consumer law, it has been extended to general contract law with the implementation of a reform entered into force on 1 October 2016. Previously, the Commercial Court of Paris in the ruling Ministry of Economy v Expedia, Inc (2015) had qualified SI as an “overriding mandatory provision” (“loi de police”) under Regulation 593/2008 on the applicable law to contractual obligations (Rome I). As a consequence, SI became operative in respect of international contracts despite an express choice of a foreign governing law made by the parties to the transaction. This article argues that, as a result of Expedia and the 2016 reform, French courts can interfere with international business transactions by striking down contractual terms that they deem unfair according to the SI standard. The analysis focuses on two key issues. On the one hand, notwithstanding recent judicial precedents, SI still fails to provide a reliable test for predicting which clauses or contracts are at risk of being deemed unfair. On the other hand, the legal arsenal supporting the French legislator’s disapproval of SI allocates great power to French courts and the French Government to pursue tort lawsuits against foreign companies allegedly oppressing their commercial partners with SI clauses. Empirical evidence shows that these actions are highly successful compared with those commenced by private actors. The article concludes that all these aspects, together with SI’s turbulent case law throughout the years, will give rise to uncertainty in international business transactions and may eventually disadvantage France in the global competition in such a field.

The programme of the 2018 edition of the International Seminar on Private International Law organized by Prof. Fernández Rozas and Prof. De Miguel Asensio, has been released and is available here. In this occasion, the Seminar is jointly organized with Prof. Moura Vicente and is to be held at the Law Faculty of the University of Lisbonne on 13-14 September 2018. The Seminar, which is closely connected to the legal journal Anuario Español de Derecho internacional privado, will be structured in five sections: Family and Successions; International Commercial Arbitration: International Business Law; Private International Law and IT Law; and Codification of PIL with a special focus on Latin America. The Conference will bring together around fifty speakers from more than twelve countries. Additional information about the seminar is available here.

Thanks to Héloïse Meur, Lilia Aït Ahmed and Estelle Gallant for this post.

On June 21, 2018 a full-day colloquium will take place in Paris on the protection of unaccompanied minors at the former Courthouse.

The colloquium will see the participation of high-hand speakers from institutions facing the issue of unaccompanied minors :

• French public authorities (French authority to protect human rights and civil liberties, French national consultative committee on human rights), • French Supreme Court, • The Paris Bar, • Major civil associations (GISTI, ECPAT, La Cabane juridique), • French and Belgian professors and Phd candidates in law and geography.

The speakers will discuss the root causes of the migration flows of unaccompanied minors, the limits of their treatment by French authorities, the difficulties to coordinate with other EU member States, and envisage the possible room for improvements, notably vis-à-vis what is done abroad, and especially in Belgium.

The program is available here. For registration send an email to colloquemna@gmail.com.

 

Today the fourth meeting of the Special Commission on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments concluded in The Hague. Further information (incl. a revised Draft Convention text) will be uploaded on the Hague Conference website soon (< www.hcch.net >). Please check this website for the latest updates.

A background document related to the Treatment of Intellectual Property-Related Judgments under the November 2017 draft Convention was published this month by the Hague Conference (HCCH). It was drafted by the co-Rapporteurs of the draft Convention (Professors Francisco J. Garcimartín Alférez, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain and Geneviève Saumier, McGill University, Canada) and the Permanent Bureau. This document will be discussed at the Diplomatic Session (a high-level negotiation meeting with a view to adopting a final text – envisaged to take place in mid-2019) and was not meant to be discussed at this Special Commission.

For those of you who are interested in the interaction between intellectual property rights and the Judgments Project, please refer to the above-mentioned background document (instead of the Revised Preliminary Explanatory Report as this will be further revised to reflect the content of this document).

The School of Law of the University of Bologna is organizing the III Edition of the Summer School on European and Comparative Environmental Law, to be held in Ravenna, July 9-13, 2018.

For more information click here.

You can also get directly in touch with Prof. Lupoi [micheleangelo.lupoi@unibo.it].

 

Thanks to Horatia Muir Watt and Hélène van Lith (Sciences Po) for this post

Moving from Paris to The Hague for the PAX MOOT Finals – Moot Court Conflict of Laws/Droit International Privé – 6th Edition
Sciences Po – Law School / école de droit

The PAX Moot Eliminatory Round took place last Tuesday in Paris with 8 universities mooting the cross border climate change moot case which addressed a number of complex transnational legal questions in Private International Law and was generously hosted by the ICC (see also our previous post).
The four winning teams who made it to the finals are Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Heidelberg, Paris I Sorbonne and Sciences Po.
The Panel of the PAX Moot Court Judges consisted of the following members:

Hans van Loon – Former Secretary General of the HCCH (The Hague)
Agnès Maitrepierre – Cour de cassation (Paris)
Daan Lunsingh Scheurleer –Nauta Dutilh (Amsterdam)/ Christine Lecuyer- Thieffry (Paris)
Clément Dupoirier – Herbert Smith Freehills (Paris)
Patrick Thieffry – Environmental Lawyer and Associate Professor. (Paris)
Alexis Foucard – Clifford Chance (Paris)
Michal Chajdukowski and Vasili Rotaru (PAX moot winning team 2017)
The PAX Moot Finals will be held on 1 June at the Peace Palace – hence the name – in The Hague, paying tribute to the city as the “legal capital of the world” and home of The Hague Conference of Private International Law, which also marks its 125th anniversary.

The winning Mooters and best pleaders will be rewarded with an internship at international commercial litigation departments of renowned law firms Nauta Dutilh in Amsterdam and Herbert Smith in Paris.
The concept and goal of the PAX Moot is to study and apply private international law for the resolution of cross border disputes through a concrete problem “the Case” and to train law students and practitioners of tomorrow in arguing and analysing complex global legal questions in international litigation.

The inter-university PAX Moot organized by Sciences Po Law School is a pleading competition addressing issues of Private International Law and this year’s 6th edition has gone global to include teams from universities in Europe and beyond. The organizers thank the following institutions for their support and willingness to open the competition to their students: Sorbonne University Paris I, London School of Economics, HEC, Heidelberg University, Luxembourg University, Cambridge University, University College London (UCL), King’s College London, University of Antwerp, Erasmus University, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Sciences Po Law School and Statale University of Milan. Participation was also open to US exchange students from Harvard, Columbia, Duke, Northwestern, Northeastern, Duke and Penn law schools.

Inquiries can be addressed to Dr. Hélène van Lith by email at helene.vanlith@sciencespo.fr

The 2017 Hague Lecture of Professor Burkhard Hess has been published in Recueil des Cours, vol. 388, pg. 49-266.

The Lecture addresses dispute resolution in international cases from the classical perspective of the private-public divide. This distinction is known in almost all legal systems of the world, and it operates in both domestic and in international settings. The main focus of the Lecture relates to overlapping remedies available under private international and public international law; it maps out the growing landscape of modern dispute resolution, where a multitude of courts and arbitral tribunals operating at different levels (domestic, international and transnational) is accessible to litigants in cross-border settings. Today, a comprehensive study of these developments is still missing. This Lecture does not aim to provide the whole picture, but focusses instead on some basic structures, revealing three main areas where the distinction between private and public disputes remains applicable today:

First, the divide delimitates the jurisdiction of domestic courts in cases against foreign states and international organisations (immunities); it equally limits the possibilities of foreign and international public entities to enforce public law claims in cross-border settings. As a matter of principle, public law claims cannot be brought before civil domestic courts of other states. However, this rule has been challenged by recent developments, especially by the private enforcement of (public) claims and by the cross-border cooperation of public authorities. Moreover, the protection of human rights and the implementation of the rule of law in cross-border constellations entail a growing need for a judicial control of acta iure imperii – even if only by the courts of the defendant state.

The second area of application of the divide relates to the delineation between domestic and international remedies. In this field, the distinction has lost much of its previous significance because nowadays individual commercial actors may bring their claims directly (often assisted by experienced actors like litigation funders) before international arbitral tribunals, claims commissions and human rights courts. In this area of law, individuals’ access to international dispute resolution mechanisms has been considerably reinforced. Here, Prof. Hess argues that it would be misleading to qualify parts of the current dispute resolution system as purely “commercial” and other parts as purely “public or administrative”. There are revolving doors between the systems and the same procedures are often applied; what really matters is the proper delineation of  different remedies which functionally protect the same interests and rights.

The third area relates to the privatization of dispute settlement, especially in the context of private ordering. At present, powerful stakeholders often regulate their activities vis à vis third parties (including public actors) by globalized standard terms. Pertinent examples in this respect are financial law (i.e. ISDA), the organization of the internet (i.e. ICANN) and sports law (i.e. CAS). In this context, there is a considerable danger that the privatization of law-making and of the corresponding dispute settlement schemes does not sufficiently respect general interests and the rights of third parties. A residual judicial control by independent (state) courts is therefore needed. Data protection in cyberspace is an interesting example where the European Union and other state actors are regaining control in order to protect the interests of affected individuals.

Finally, the Lecture argues that the private-public divide still exists today and – contrary to some scholarly opinions – cannot be given up. At the same time, one must be aware that private and public international law have complementary functions in order to address adequately the multitude of disputes at both the cross-border and the international level. In this context the private-public divide should be understood as an appropriate tool to explain the complementarity of private and public international law in the modern multilevel legal structure of a globalized world.

A pocket book of the Hague Lecture will be available in the coming months.

The International Conference “Pluralism or Universalism in International Copyright Law” is to be held in May 31-June 1, 2018 at the University of Cyprus. The conference is organized by Associate Professor Tatiana Eleni Synodinou.

You can check the programme and the speakers here and here. More information available here.

 

This call for papers can also be found on the TDM website here
https://www.transnational-dispute-management.com/news.asp?key=1707

We are pleased to announce a forthcoming Transnational Dispute Management (TDM, ISSN 1875-4120, www.transnational-dispute-management.com) Special Issue on “Cybersecurity in International Arbitration.”

International arbitration has the advantage over litigation of allowing parties to resolve their disputes privately and confidentially if desired.  In our increasingly digitized world, attention to cybersecurity in individual arbitration matters is required in order to maintain that advantage and the confidence of parties in the integrity of the arbitral process.

International arbitration typically involves multiple participants in multiple locations, the storage and transmission of significant amounts of confidential, sensitive and commercially valuable digital data and numerous electronic communications.   Even where the proceeding is public or non-confidential in part, certain aspects, such as arbitrator deliberations and party internal communications and work product, almost always must remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.

In a world where businesses, law firms, government entities, educational institutions and other large data custodians are under threat or already have been breached, international arbitration obviously is not immune.  There are already a few documented instances where the process has been compromised and anecdotal evidence of attempted intrusion into proceedings and data held by various participants.

There is a manifest need for the international arbitration community to begin to develop a shared understanding of the scope of the threat and the appropriate response.  There is an emerging consensus that cybersecurity is an important consideration that should be addressed early in the international arbitration process and that reasonable cybersecurity measures should be adopted.  Nonetheless, questions abound, including, to cite just a few examples, the specific responsibilities of the various participants in the process, the scope of measures that should be adopted, the scope of party autonomy to determine such measures, the availability of resources and concerns that cybersecurity requirements may increase the expense of arbitration and create a resource gap that could disadvantage less-resourced participants.

It is hoped that papers submitted for the Special Issue will advance the conversation by addressing some of the questions described here and potentially identifying issues the international arbitration community will need to consider.

Suggestions for possible paper topics include:

• Commentary on the Draft ICCA-CPR-New York City Bar Association Protocol for Cybersecurity in Arbitration (available here)
• Cybersecurity best practices for different participants in the arbitral process, including institutions, counsel, arbitrators, parties, and experts, and suggestions as to model language to be used in procedural orders, stipulations, expert engagement letters, etc. For example, what factors should parties considering using a third-party platform to share and store arbitration-related information take into account? An article on the arbitrator’s responsibility to protect the integrity of the process is linked here and here.
• What can and should be done on a systemic basis to address cybersecurity in international arbitration? Should cybersecurity be the subject of soft law, for instance? If so, in what form and who should lead?
• How should tribunals resolve party conflicts about reasonable security measures, breach notification obligations, and related costs?
• How should cybersecurity breaches or failures to implement required cybersecurity measures in the arbitral process be addressed? For example, should there be a default presumption regarding the admissibility of evidence attained from a data breach? Should arbitrators entertain applications for damages and/or sanctions?
• Are there limits to party autonomy to determine the cybersecurity measures to be applied in individual matters?  Are there institutional or tribunal interests that may in some circumstances override the parties’ agreement? If so, how are these interests defined and where does the power derive to apply them?
• What is the correct liability standard for cybersecurity breaches? Should there be a safe harbor?
• What is the correct standard to test the adequacy of cybersecurity measures? Is a reasonableness standard adequate to protect the process?
• Comparative analysis of ethical rules and obligations governing the conduct of lawyers around the globe in relation to cybersecurity and conclusions as to implications for international arbitration proceedings and the existence of either transnational norms or conflicts
• How do considerations of fairness and equality relate to the implementation of cybersecurity measures in international arbitrations? For instance, how should differences in infrastructure and party resources be taken into account in assessing the appropriate level of cybersecurity measures in individual matters?  Is there a minimum level of security required to protect the integrity of arbitration process that should be implemented in all arbitrations?
• How do data privacy regimes relate to cybersecurity and what are the implications for international arbitration proceedings?
• Arbitration of business-to-business data breaches

This special issue will be edited by independent arbitrators Stephanie Cohen and Mark Morril.

The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) will be hosting its XLI Seminar entitled “Towards the Unification of Private International Law Principles in Mexican Procedural Law” at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (Mexico) from 14 to 16 November 2018.

The seminar will focus in particular on the New National Code of Civil and Family Procedure, which will contain PIL provisions. This is a significant development given that at present each Mexican state (32) has its own procedural law.

Potential speakers are invited to submit a paper in Spanish, English, or Portuguese by 17 September 2018. Papers must comply with the criteria established by AMEDIP and will be evaluated accordingly. Selected speakers will be required to give their presentations preferably in Spanish as there will be no interpretation services but some exceptions may be made by the organisers upon request.

The final programme of the seminar will be made available at the end of October.

For more detailed information (incl. convocation), see www.amedip.org.  Any queries, as well as registration requests, may be directed to asistencia@amedip.org.

 

The 60th Seminar of Comparative and European Law in Urbino (Italy) has already been announced. It will take place from August 20, to September 1. The program includes presentations on many different topics, some of them of direct interest for private international lawyers and scholars.  The whole program is available here, together with information on  enrollment, accommodation, and how to get to Urbino.

 

The latest issue of the Zeitschrift für Europäische Privatrecht has just been released. It contains the following articles:

Dagmar Coester-Waltjen, Die Einführung der gleichgeschlechtlichen Ehe in ausgewählten Rechtsordnungen

The introduction of same-sex marriage in German law has given rise to many discussions in society and politics. However, since the beginning of this millennium many states have accepted marriage as a union of two persons of different or of the same sex. Frequently these reforms have caused discussion on constitutional issues, especially on the prominent features of marriage and on the avoidance of any discrimination.

Juan Pablo Murga Fernández, Payment of descedents´ debts in succession law: “effects” and “defects” of the German and Spanish legal systems

The transfer of the deceased’s debts is a common consequence that arises from the phenomenon of succession in both Civil and Common Law legal systems. In this respect, a number of conflicting interests are at stake: namely, the interest of the heir that needs to be balanced against the interest of the different groups of creditors. This paper analyses the legal solutions given to these matters under the Spanish and German legal systems, pointing out their common and particular effects and defects.

Dirk Heirbaut, The sleeping beauty awakens: Belgium’s new law of inheritance as a first step in the greatest recent recodification program in Western Europe

In the summer of 2017 the Belgian parliament voted a new law of inheritance, which is only a small part of larger program of recodification, announced on 6 December 2016 by minister of justice Koen Geens, and which includes, inter alia, a new civil code. This article explains why, after Napoleon, drafts of new codes failed in Belgium and why this may actually be one of the reasons, which make it possible that the recent recodification efforts may bear fruit very soon.

Martin Zwickel, Die Einführung der obligatorischen Schlichtung in Frankreich

In the context of the major judicial reform, France introduced mandatory conciliation as of 18 November 2016. In certain cases, it is now necessary to undertake a prior effort at finding agreement with a court-ordered conciliator. This article explains and evaluates this requirement

 

 

By Guillaume Croisant (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

In October 2017, as already reported in a previous post, the Belgian Government announced its intention to set up a specialised English-speaking court with jurisdiction over international commercial disputes, the Brussels International Business Court (“BIBC”). An update versionof the text has finally been submitted to Parliament on 15 May 2018, after that the Government’s initial draft faced criticisms from the High Council of Justice (relating to the BIBC’s independence and impartiality, its source of funding and its impact on the ordinary courts) and was subject to the review of the Conseil d’Etat.

In the wake of Brexit, the Belgian Government aims at establishing a specialised business court able to position Brussels as a new hub for international commercial disputes, in line with its international status as de factocapital of the EU and seat of many international institutions and companies. Similar projects are ongoing in several jurisdictions throughout the EU, including France, the Netherlands and Germany (see previous post).

The BIBC will have jurisdiction over disputes:

• which are international in nature, i.e. where (i) the parties have their establishment in different jurisdictions, (ii) a substantial part of the commercial relationship must be performed in a third country, or (iii) the applicable law to the dispute is a foreign law. In addition, another language than French, Dutch or German (Belgium’s official languages, which are already used before ordinary courts) must have been used frequently by the parties during their commercial relationship;
• among “enterprises” (i.e. every entity pursuing an economic purpose, including public enterprises which provide goods and services on a market basis); and
• provided that the parties have agreed to the BIBC’s jurisdiction before or after the crystallisation of their dispute.

Subject to potential amendments in Parliament, the main procedural hallmarks of the BIBC can be summarised as follows:

• the procedure will be conducted in English (notices and submissions, evidence, hearings, judgments, etc.);
• while the BIBC remains a State court, the procedure will be based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on international arbitration, which means that the parties will be offered greater flexibility and room to organise the conduct of the proceedings;
• the cases will be heard by ad hocchambers of three judges, one professional and two lay judges (appointed by the president of the BIBC on the basis of a panel of Belgian and international experts in international business law), with the assistance of the Registrar of the Brussels Court of Appeal;
• the BIBC will be granted the power to issue provisional and protective measures (including upon ex parterequests);
• no appeal will be open against the BIBC’s decision (with the exception of an opposition/tierce opposition before the BIBC for absent parties/interested third parties, and a pourvoi en cassation on points of law before the Supreme Court);
• the BIBC should be self-financing and the court fees are therefore going to be significantly increased (to around € 20,000/case).

The Belgian Government aims to have the BIBC up and running by 1 January 2020.

 

The most recent issue of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal (available here) is a special issue, guest edited by Janet Walker, Gerard Kennedy and Sagi Peari, considering the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act.  This statute governs the taking of jurisdiction and both staying and transferring proceedings in civil and commercial matters in three Canadian provinces: British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

The abstract to the introductory article states: “In 2016, the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act (“CJPTA”) marked its tenth year in force.  Promulgated by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, and adopted in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, the CJPTA was developed to clarify and advance the law of judicial jurisdiction.  In a symposium hosted by Osgoode Hall Law School, ten leading scholars were invited to present papers on specific questions in order to assess the promise of the CJPTA to meet the needs of Canadians in the years ahead and to provide leadership for the law in other parts of Canada.  This article provides an overview of the issues discussed in the symposium; it places the papers that were presented in the larger context of developments in the law of judicial jurisdiction in Canada and internationally; and it summarizes in an appendix the drafting reforms that might be made to the Act.”

The articles about the CJPTA are:

Judicial Jurisdiction in Canada: The CJPTA—A Decade of Progress (Janet Walker)

Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other? Jurisdiction in Common Law Canada (Stephen G.A. Pitel)

Jurisdiction Motions and Access to Justice: An Ontario Tale (Gerard J. Kennedy)

Has the CJPTA readied Canada for the Hague Choice of Court Convention? (Geneviève Saumier)

General Jurisdiction over Corporate Defendants under the CJPTA: Consistent with International Standards? (Catherine Walsh)

Residual Discretion: The Concept of Forum of Necessity under the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act (Michael Sobkin)

Three Objections to Forum of Necessity: Global Access to Justice, International Criminal Law, and Proper Party (Sagi Peari)

Cross-Border Transfers of Court Proceedings (Vaughan Black)

The Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act and the Hague Conference’s Judgments and Jurisdiction Projects (Joost Blom)

The workshop Cross-Border Debt Recovery in the EU. Application of the “second generation” regulations in France and Luxembourg, taking place at the MPI Luxembourg on June 8th, is organised in the framework of the IC2BE research project “Informed Choices in Cross-Border Enforcement” (JUST-AG-2016-02). Funded by the Justice Programme (2014-2020) of the European Commission, this project aims at assessing the working in practice of the “second generation” of EU regulations on procedural law for cross-border cases – the European Enforcement Order, Order for Payment, Small Claims (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2015/2421) and the Account Preservation Order Regulations. The project is carried out by a European consortium comprising the MPI Luxembourg and the universities of Antwerp, Complutense of Madrid, Milan, Rotterdam and Wroclaw, under the coordination of Prof. Jan von Hein, from the University of Freiburg.

Experts and practitioners from different countries, mainly France and Luxembourg, will get together on the 8th of June to address the application in practice of the above-mentioned regulations in both Member States. Presentations will be given by Prof. Cyril Nourissat, Mr. Marc Cagniart, Prof. Agnieszka Frackowiak-Adamska, Mr. Max Mailliet, Dr. Alina Ontanu, Ms. Julie Jasson, Dr. Katharina Raffelsieper, Ms. Katrien Baetens, Ms. Alice Canet, Mr. Grégory Minne and Ms. Clara Mara-Marhuenda. A panel discussion will follow, with the presence of, i.a., Prof. Gilles Cuniberti, Dr. Justus Froehlich, Mr. Patrick Gielen, Prof. Olivier Hance, Mr. Jona van Leeuwen, Dr. Stephan Lesage-Mathieu, Dr. Carl Friedrich Nordmeier, Dr. Herbert Woopen. The program is available here.

The spoken languages will be English and French.

The workshop is conceived as a closed event. However, people having a special interest on the topic are invited to apply for admission upon condition they provide a short explanation for their interest.

Contact address: veerle.vandeneeckhout@mpi.lu

 

The conference titled Pride and Prejudice in Cross-Border Cases will take place at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law on Tuesday 22 May 2018. It is intended to serve as an open forum for scholars and practitioners to address current issues pertaining to private international law. The programme offers selection of topics by speakers from both sides of the Atlantic. Conference fee is not charged, but prior registration is required at zeup@pravri.hr.

Sebastian Mock (University of Hamburg), Kristian Csach (Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice) and Bohumil Havel (Institute of Law, Czech Academy of Science, Prague) have published an “International Handbook on Shareholders’ Agreements – Regulation, Practice and Comparative Analysis” addressing various issues of shareholders’ agreements. The book includes general remarks on specific topics related to shareholders’ agreements and numerous country reports. One chapter also specifically deals with cross-border shareholders’ agreements and private international law. More information is available on the website of the publisher (here).

This post has been written by Cristián Giménez Corte, Editor of the ASIL Commentaries on PIL.

We are pleased to present the third issue of Commentaries on Private International Law, the newsletter of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Private International Law Interest Group (PILIG). As readers of the newsletter know, the name of our newsletter, Commentaries, represents a modest tribute to one of the founding fathers of modern PIL, Joseph Story, by borrowing the name of his seminal book “Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws, foreign and domestic,” and only replacing “Conflict of Laws” with “Private International Law” to better reflect the broader object of our discipline today.

The primary purpose of our newsletter is to communicate news on PIL. Accordingly, the newsletter attempts to transmit information on new developments on PIL rather than provide substantive analysis, with a view to providing specific and concise raw information that our readers can then use in their daily work. These new developments on PIL may include information on new laws, rules and regulations; new judicial and arbitral decisions; new treaties and conventions; new scholarly work; new conferences; proposed new pieces of legislation; and the like.

Commentaries aims to be a truly global newsletter, by reporting news from all major legal systems of the world, which may have different conceptions of PIL. Thus, the PILIG newsletter is framed in a rather broad sense, comprising all types of situations generating potential conflicts of laws and/or jurisdictions, regardless of the “international” or “internal,” or “public” or “private” nature of those conflicting regulations.

To achieve what is perhaps the first comprehensive global approach to PIL, Commentaries includes five sections dealing with regional issues, edited by specialists on the field: Africa, edited by Richard Frimpong Oppong and Justin Monsenepwo Joost; Asia, by Chi Chung, Yao-Ming Hsu and Béligh Elbalti; the Americas by Cristian Giménez Corte and Jeannette Tramhel (Central and South America), and Freddy Sourgens and Mayra Cavazos Calvillo (North America); Europe, by Massimo Benedettelli, Marina Castellaneta, and Antonio Leandro; and Oceania, by Jeanne Huang. We would like to highlight the efforts made by our global editorial team in translating, both linguistically and legally, into English and for a global audience information that was originally in Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Italian, French, German, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

This third issue of Commentaries covers more countries and includes in greater detail recent developments in our field. Each regional section includes a brief introductory note, and a special chapter devoted to new scholarly work, which is of particular importance for those areas of the world where the dissemination of information on PIL is more difficult. The main developments covered by Commentaries occurred during 2016, including only a few developments occurred in late 2015 and early 2017.

In this third issue, Commentaries continues to develop a section introduced last year. This section is called “Global Conflict of Laws,” edited by Cristián Giménez Corte and Javier Toniollo, presents new developments on PIL that are not necessarily linked to one particular region or country in the world, but that are truly transnational or global.

Commentaries would not have been possible without the tireless support of the PILIG co-chairs, Freddy Sourgens and Kabir Duggal, and the hard and smart work of the section editors mentioned above. In addition, I would like to express our gratitude for the comments, suggestions and help provided by Sheila Ward, Matthew Gomez, and Mitsue Steiner. And I would like also to express our gratitude to Adriana Chiuchquievich, Emilia Gonzalez Cian y Martin Cammarata, for their assistance in the research and edition of the new section “Global Conflict of Laws.”

 

We would appreciate receiving your suggestions, comments and critiques. We welcome your feedback and participation. Please send me an e-mail at cristiangimenezcorte@gmail.com.