Conflictoflaws

Following up on last week’s post on the Second Circuit’s comity decision in the Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation case, Professor Bill Dodge of UC Davis has the following thoughts (also cross-posted on Opinio Juris here)

American law has many doctrines based on international comity—doctrines that help mediate the relationship between the U.S. legal system and those of other nations. The Second Circuit’s decision last week in the Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation case correctly identified an international comity issue. But did it choose the right comity tool to address that issue?

Plaintiffs alleged that defendants, two Chinese companies, participated in a cartel to fix the price of vitamin C exported to the United States in violation of U.S. antitrust law. Defendants did not deny the allegations, but argued that Chinese law required them to coordinate export prices. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce backed the defendants in an amicus brief explaining Chinese law. The district court, however, declined to defer to the Ministry’s interpretation of Chinese law, awarding the plaintiffs $147 million in damages and permanently enjoining the defendants from further violations of U.S. antitrust laws.

On appeal, defendants argued that the district court should have dismissed on grounds of foreign state compulsion, international comity, act of state, and political question. While the political question doctrine rests on separation of powers, the other three grounds are all doctrines of prescriptive comity. As I have explained in a recent article, American law is full of international comity doctrines, each with its own specific requirements.

To avoid confusion, it is worth noting at the outset that although the Second Circuit repeatedly framed the question as whether the district court should “abstain from exercising jurisdiction,”Vitamin C was clearly not an international comity abstention case. International comity abstention is a doctrine of adjudicative comity, or deference to foreign courts. The Second Circuit has held that it is available only if parallel proceedings are pending in a foreign court. See Royal & Sun Alliance Ins. Co. of Canada v. Century Intern. Arms, Inc., 466 F.3d 88, 93-94 (2d Cir. 2006). The same is true in most other circuits that have adopted the doctrine (the cases are collected here at pp. 2112-14). The main exception is the Ninth Circuit, whose decision in Mujica v. Airscan Inc., 771 F.3d 580 (9th Cir. 2014), applied a broad and uncertain comity abstention doctrine that conflicts with its own precedents, those of other circuits, and even the Supreme Court’s. Because no parallel antitrust claims against these defendants were pending in Chinese courts, international comity abstention would not have been an appropriate ground on which to dismiss this case.

Instead, the Second Circuit properly viewed the Vitamin C case as raising questions of prescriptive comity—deference to foreign lawmakers—which U.S. law has developed a number of different doctrines to address (for discussion see here at pp. 2099-2105). The court relied particularly on an interest-balancing, comity doctrine commonly associated with Timberlane Lumber Co. v. Bank of America, 549 F.2d 597 (9th Cir. 1976), Mannington Mills, Inc. v. Congoleum Corp., 595 F.2d 1287 (3d Cir. 1979), and Section 403 of the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law. In the court’s view, this doctrine authorized it to “balance the interests in adjudicating antitrust violations alleged to have harmed those within our jurisdiction with the official acts and interests of a foreign sovereign in respect to economic regulation within its borders” (slip op. at 4). The idea that U.S. courts are institutionally capable of balancing the interests of foreign governments against our own has the subject of significant criticism over the past three decades.

Moreover, it is hard to see how this particular prescriptive comity doctrine survives the Supreme Court’s later decisions in Hartford Fire Insurance Co. v. California, 509 U.S. 764 (1993), and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. v. Empagran, S.A., 542 U.S. 155 (2004), both of which declined to apply a multi-factor balancing approach in antitrust cases. The Second Circuit read Hartford “narrowly” (slip op. at 20) not to preclude such an approach, particularly when compliance with both U.S. and foreign law was impossible. But the Second Circuit did not even mention Empagran, which expressly rejected case-by-case balancing as “too complex to prove workable.” Empagran recognized that ambiguous statutes should be construed “to avoid unreasonable interference with the sovereign authority of other nations,” but it also said in no uncertain terms that “application of our antitrust laws to foreign anticompetitive conduct is nonetheless reasonable, and hence consistent with principles of prescriptive comity, insofar as they reflect a legislative effort to redress domestic antitrust injury that foreign anticompetitive conduct has caused.” Plaintiffs unquestionably alleged domestic antitrust injury in Vitamin C, making the application of U.S. law reasonable and consistent with prescriptive comity, at least has the Supreme Court has understood these concepts in the antitrust context.

The act of state doctrine is a separate and distinct manifestation of international comity, requiring that the acts of foreign sovereigns performed within their own territories be deemed valid. But the Supreme Court has made clear that the act of state doctrine applies only when a U.S. court must “declare invalid, and thus ineffective as ‘a rule of decision for the courts of this country,’ the official act of a foreign sovereign.” W.S. Kirkpatrick & Co. v. Environmental Tectonics Corp., International, 493 U.S. 400, 405 (1990). To find that the defendants fixed the price of vitamin C, the district court did not have to find any part of Chinese law invalid or even to evaluate the conduct of the Chinese government. It only had to find that Chinese law did not immunize the defendants’ own conduct from liability under U.S. law.

The best fitting tool to address the prescriptive comity issue in Vitamin C would seem to be the doctrine of foreign state compulsion (also known as foreign sovereign compulsion), which sometimes allows a U.S. court to excuse violations of U.S. law on the ground that the violations were compelled by foreign law. That is precisely what defendants had argued in this case. Although the exact contours of this doctrine are uncertain, the U.S. government has recognized it as a defense in antitrust cases. See Antitrust Enforcement Guidelines for International Operations ¶ 3.32 (1995). China represented that its law compelled the defendants to coordinate export prices for vitamin C, and the Second Circuit considered itself bound by China’s interpretation of its own laws (slip op. at 30), which seems reasonable at least in these circumstances.

Unfortunately for the defendants, there are at least two potential problems with foreign state compulsion in this case. First, it appears that defendants may have asked the Chinese government to mandate their price fixing. See slip op. at 36-37. At least some authority suggests that a defendant wishing to claim foreign state compulsion as a defense must try in good faith to obtain relief from the compulsion from the foreign state. See, e.g., Societe Internationale v. Rogers, 357 U.S. 197, 208-09, 213 (1958). Second, it appears that defendants may have fixed prices at levels higher than those mandated by the Chinese government. See slip op. 38. The Second Circuit found this irrelevant to its “comity” analysis but seemed to acknowledge that such facts would preclude a foreign compulsion defense. See id.

U.S. courts have many tools at their disposal to address international comity issues. But sometimes no tool fits. “International comity” is not a universal wrench offering unlimited judicial discretion to dismiss cases that seem problematic. It is a principle underlying specific doctrines, with specific requirements, developed over many years to keep judicial discretion within bounds.

The German Notary Institute and the Chair of Civil Law, Private International Law and Comparative Law at the University of Regensburg are hosting a joint conference on the new Matrimonial Property Regulations for spouses and registered partners. The conference (in German language) will take place on 10 February 2017 in Würzburg. Speakers include:

• Professor Andrea Bonomi, Université de Lausanne
• Professor Michael Coester, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich
• Dr Christoph Döbereiner, Notary Public in Munich
• Professor Anatol Dutta, University of Regensburg
• Dr Andreas Köhler, University of Passau
• Professor Christian Kohler, Europa-Institut at the Saarland University
• Professor Stephan Lorenz, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich
• Professor Peter Mankowski, University of Hamburg
• Joanna Serdynska, European Commission, Brussels
• Dr Rembert Süß, German Notary Institute, Würzburg
• Dr Johannes Weber, German Notary Institute, Würzburg

The programme can be downloaded here.

During the months of October-December 2016, Professor Christian Kohler (Europa-Institut, University of Saarbrücken) will give a series of doctoral seminars on European Private International Law at the University of Padova, where he will be a Visiting Scientist during this period.

The programme can be found here.

Professor Bernardo Cortese, who has organized the series, warmly invites applications from PhD students with a focus on International and EU Law.

The University of Milan (Department of International, Legal, Historical and Political Studies) will host on Friday 14 October 2016 (14h00) a conference on “Cross border family litigation in Europe. The Brussels IIbis recast“.

Here is the programme (the sessions will be held in English and Italian):

Welcoming addresses

• Chiara Tonelli (Vice-Rector for Research, Univ. of Milan)
• Laura Ammannati (Director of the Department of International, Legal, Historical and Political Studies)

Chair: Stefania Bariatti (Univ. of Milan)

The Brussels IIbis recast

• Joanna Serdynska (Civil Justice Policy, DG Justice, European Commission): The Commission’s proposal
• Anatol Dutta (Universität Regensburg – MPI Hamburg): A comment on the Commission’s Proposal from a member of the Commission’s Expert Group

Round Table – The Commission’s Proposal: exchange of views among judges, practitioners and academics

• Giuseppe Buffone (Milan Court, Family Division)
• Monica Velletti (Rome Court, Family Division)
• Suzanne Todd (Whiters LPP, London)
• Cinzia Calabrese (President of AIAF Lombardia)
• Carlo Rimini (Univ. of Milan)
• Ilaria Viarengo (Univ. of Milan)

Closing remarks: Stefania Bariatti (Univ. of Milan)

Venue: Sala Lauree, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Economiche e Sociali, University of Milan.

(Many thanks to Prof. Ilaria Viarengo for the tip-off)

Many thanks to Alexia Pato, PhD candidate at the Universidad Autónoma, Madrid, for this piece of news. And my best wishes!

Today, blog droit européen officially celebrates the opening of its European and private international law section (hereafter, EU and PIL section), which is edited and coordinated by Karolina Antczak (Ph.D. candidate at Université de Lille), Basile Darmois (Ph.D. candidate at Université Paris Est Créteil) and Alexia Pato (Ph.D. candidate at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). In a recently published inaugural post (available here), they present their project in detail. In particular, they expose the positive interactions between PIL and European law, as well as their friction points. Undoubtedly, the increasingly tight links that are forged between these two disciplines encourage legal experts to collaborate and exchange their views. The creation of the mentioned section in blog droit européen contributes to the achievement of this objective.

The Content of the European and Private International Law Section

Although the EU and PIL section has just been inaugurated, more food for thought will be uploaded soon. Readers will find articles diving into PIL issues, and we will be covering additional areas such as international civil litigation, as well as the internal market and its four freedoms. Don’t miss our upcoming co-signed article on Brexit, highlighting its legal consequences from an international perspective. Also, on its way is a post discussing the EU’s competence to adopt minimum standards of civil procedure. Additionally, the team plans to upload interviews with professors and legal experts, who debate fundamental EU and PIL matters. These interviews will be available in video format. Lastly, readers will be able to stay updated by reading our posts on the latest legal news.

Contribute to the European and Private International Law Section

In order to foster constructive debates and extract the merits of collaborative learning, we welcome any Ph.D. candidate, professor, or legal professional to voice his/her opinion on the EU and PIL section. You may submit your ideas in the form of a post (approximately 1.000 words), which consists of a critical assessment on a particular topic. Working papers, video conferences and tutorials are equally welcome (for more information on how to contribute, click here). Articles can be written in either French or English.

What is blog droit européen?

Blog droit européen is a website that provides information with an interactive touch on a broad range of legal topics such as: digital single market, Economic and monetary Union, competition law, and so on. In particular, its purpose is to gather together students, investigators, professors, and legal experts who share a common and enhanced interest for European law at large (EU, ECHR, impact of European law on States’ public and private laws). The originality of blog droit européen lies in two essential features: firstly, the blog delivers high quality and varied contents, including interviews (of ECJ members and professors), call for papers and conferences, not to mention working papers and legal columns, which critically analyse EU law. Secondly, the use of e-techniques of information sharing, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube make this blog interactive and user friendly. From an organizational perspective, blog droit européeen is run and edited by young investigators from different legal backgrounds in different Universities across Europe (for an overview of our team, click here). Thanks to Olivia Tambou (Lecturer at Université Paris-Dauphine), our dedicated team leader and creator/editor of the blog, for connecting us and making this project possible.

See you soon on blog droit européen!

On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision reversing a $147.8 million price-fixing judgment against two Chinese manufacturers of Vitamin C. The plaintiffs alleged that the Chinese manufacturers engaged in price fixing and supply manipulation in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. In its first ever appearance as an amicus before a U.S. court, the Chinese government filed a formal statement asserting that Chinese law required the Chinese manufacturers to set prices and reduce the quantities of Vitamin C sold abroad. Relying on this statement, the Second Circuit held that because the Chinese manufacturers could not comply with both Chinese law and the U.S. antitrust laws, principles of international comity compelled dismissal of the case.

This case raises a host of interesting questions. First, did the Second Circuit reach the right result? Second, is this a comity case or a foreign sovereign compulsion case? Third, what level of deference is due to a foreign sovereign that appears in private litigation to explain their country’s laws? Fourth, should U.S. judges defer to such an explanation?

It will be interesting to see whether this case makes it to the United States Supreme Court.

The following information is provided by the conference organizers.  Given how rare conflict of laws conferences are in Canada, I am delighted to pass this along.

The CJPTA: A Decade of Progress

In 2016, the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act marks its tenth year in force.  Adopted in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, the CJPTA has clarified and advanced the law of judicial jurisdiction. This symposium will assess the progress made by the CJPTA across the range of issues addressed and critically evaluate the capacity of the CJPTA: to provide leadership for the law in other parts of Canada; to enable further development in the law; and to meet the needs of Canadians in the years ahead in a world of increasing cross-border dealings.

Details:

Friday, October 21, 2016 (expected to run from 9am to 4:30pm)

University Club of Toronto (380 University Avenue, just north of the American consulate)

Co-chaired by Professor Janet Walker (Osgoode) and Lisa Munro (Lerners LLP) with the assistance of Dr. Sagi Peari and Gerard Kennedy

We are excited to bring you a fantastic lineup of speakers and panelists discussing a wide range of topics pertaining to CJPTA and judicial jurisdiction.

Space is limited. Kindly RSVP to

Sagi Peari (SPeari@osgoode.yorku.ca)
or
Gerard Kennedy (GerardKennedy@osgoode.yorku.ca)

by October 3, 2016.

On the occasion of Hein Kötz’ 80th birthday in November 2015, a symposium in his honour was held at the Max-Planck-Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg/Germany. The presentations given at this event have now been published (in German) by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen: Zukunftsperspektiven der Rechtsvergleichung, ed. by Reinhard Zimmermann, 2016; XX, 267 pages.

Following an explanation by the editor as to why this is not a Festschrift, the volume contains contributions by Christiane Wendehorst (Vienna) on the comparison of legal systems, by Ralf Michaels (Duke) on religious laws and post-secular comparative law, by Giesela Rühl (Jena) on comparative law and European conflict of laws: the forgotten dimension, by Eva-Maria Kieninger (Würzburg) on principles and basic concepts of property law as objects of comparative law, by Gralf-Peter Calliess (Bremen) on the role of comparative law in the context of a competition between legal orders, by Marc-Philippe Weller (Heidelberg) on future prospects for comparative law in private international and corporate law, and by Jan von Hein (Freiburg/Br.) on market regulation by tort law from a comparative perspective. The book concludes with closing remarks by Hein Kötz.

Further information is available here.

This year does not only mark 30 years since the great reform of German private international law of 1986, but it is also the 35th anniversary of the foundation of the Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts (IPRax). Therefore, Professor Heinz-Peter Mansel, President of the German Council for Private International Law, and Professor Jan von Hein, chairman of the Council’s 2nd Commission, are pleased to announce that a celebratory conference will take place on 23-24 September 2016 at the University of Cologne (Germany) under the title: “Codification of Private International Law: German Experience and European Perspectives Thirty Years After the PIL-Reform of 1986”. The conference, which will be held in German, will look at how Private International Law has evolved in the past and provide an outlook for future responsibilities and challenges of the field.

The conference programme (in German) is available here.

The Faculty of Law of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” will host a German-Italian-Spanish conference on Thursday, 13th October 2016, on International Successions in Europe. The conference has been convened for the presentation of the volume “The EU Succession Regulation: a Commentary”, edited by Alfonso-Luís Calvo Caravaca (University “Carlos III” of Madrid), Angelo Davì (University of Rome “La Sapienza”) and Heinz-Peter Mansel (University of Cologne), published by Cambridge University Press, 2016. The volume is the product of a research project on “The Europeanization of Private International Law of Successions” financed through the European Commission’s Civil Justice Programme.

Here is the programme (available as .pdf):

Welcome addresses: Prof. Enrico del Prato (Director, Department of Legal Sciences, University “La Sapienza”); Prof. Paolo Ridola (Dean, Faculty of Law, University “La Sapienza”); Prof. Angelo Davì (University “La Sapienza”).

First Session

Chair: Prof. Ugo Villani (University of Bari, President of SIDI-ISIL – Italian Society for International Law)

• Prof. Javier Carrascosa González (University of Murcia): La residenza abituale e la clausola di eccezione (Habitual Residence and Exception Clause);
• Prof. Cristina Campiglio (University of Pavia): La facoltà di scelta del diritto applicabile (Choice of the Applicable Law by the Testator);
• Prof. Erik Jayme (University of Heidelberg): Metodi classici e nuove norme di conflitto: il regolamento relativo alle successioni (Traditional Methods and New Conflict Rules: the EU Regulation Concerning Succession);
• Prof. Claudio Consolo (University “La Sapienza”): Il coordinamento tra le giurisdizioni (Coordination between Jurisdictions).

Second Session

Chair: Prof. Sergio Maria Carbone (University of Genova)

• Prof. Peter Kindler (University of Munich): I patti successori (Agreements as to Succession);
• Round Table: The European Certificate of Succession
  Introduction: Prof. Claudio Consolo (University “La Sapienza”);
  Participants: Dr. Ana Fernández Tresguerres (Notary in Madrid); Dr. Paolo Pasqualis (Notary in Portogruaro); Dr. Fabian Wall (Notary in Ludwigshafen).

Concluding remarks: Prof. Sergio Maria Carbone (University of Genova).

(Many thanks to Prof. Fabrizio Marongiu Buonaiuti, University of Macerata, for the tip-off)

By Professor Zheng Sophia Tang (Newcastle University), Professor Yongping Xiao (Wuhan University, China) and Professor Zhengxin Huo (China University of Politics and Law) The area of conflict of laws in China has undergone fundamental development in the past three decades and the most recent changes in the 2010s, regarding both jurisdiction and choice of law rules, mark the establishment of a modern Chinese conflicts system. Jointly written by three professors from both China and the UK, this book provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of Chinese conflict of laws in civil and commercial matters, covering jurisdiction, choice of law, procedure, judgment and awards recognition and enforcement, and interregional conflicts in China.

Providing comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of current Chinese conflict of laws, the authors assess the actual judicial practice and case decisions. The book takes into account the historic, political and economic background of the subject matter, as well as relevant empirical evidence and data, especially recognizing the contribution of Chinese scholars in the field. It examined over 300 cases and over 130 legislative and judicial interpretive materials. It concludes that the Chinese conflicts system has entered into the stage of modernization and proposes policy to improve efficiency, prevent local protectionism, balance internationalization and nationalization, democratize legislative process and improve judicial training and judicial practice.

This timely book is an invaluable resource for academics and practitioners in private international law, conflict of laws, international law, international litigation, Chinese law and international civil and commercial matters involving China.

Contents   Part I Conflict of Laws in China—History and Concept  1. Conflict of Laws in China—A Historical Perspective  2. Concepts and Preliminary Questions  Part II Jurisdiction, Procedure, Foreign Judgments and Awards  3. Jurisdiction in Chinese Courts  4. Declining Jurisdiction in Chinese Courts  5. Selected Procedural Issues in Foreign-Related Litigation in China  6. Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Chinese Courts  7. Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards in Chinese Courts  Part III Choice of Law  8. Choice of Law in Contracts  9. Choice of Law in Tort  10. Choice of Law in Unjust Enrichment and Negotiorum Gestio  11. Choice of Law in Property  12. Choice of Law in Intellectual Property  Part IV Interregional Conflicts and Cooperation  13 Interregional Conflicts and Cooperation between Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan  Part V Final Remarks  14. Chinese Conflict of Laws: Past, Present and Future   Critical Acclaim ‘This is an excellent and up-to-date book that enables the English-speaking world to get an accurate and comprehensive understanding of private international law in mainland China. The Chinese system can be said to be a mixed system, in that it is only partially governed by statute and much of the law still emerges from case law and interpretations of the law given by the Supreme People’s Court. The authors point out that only in very few cases do the Chinese courts actually apply foreign law. This tendency of the judges to avoid the application of foreign law is one of several features of the Chinese system of private international law that shows the importance of judicial decisions to understanding how the system actually works. The writers rightly point out areas where Chinese private international law could be improved, with recommendations that China should liberalise its approach to recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments by adopting a de jure approach to reciprocity and by entering into multilateral treaties like the Hague Choice of Court Agreements Convention 2005.’  – Paul Beaumont, University of Aberdeen, UK For full information, see http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/conflict-of-laws-in-the-people-s-republic-of-china. 

The Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution at the University of Missouri School of Law and the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Dispute Resolution and Midwest Interest Groups, in association with Young ICSID, are pleased to announce two upcoming events: (1) a works-in-progress conference and (2) student writing competition. Both events focus on international dispute resolution, broadly defined.

More information on both events shows below and on the event website. Please feel free to forward this email to those who might be interested in either event.

Works in Progress Conference

The works-in-progress conference will take place on February 2 and 3, 2017, at the University of Missouri School of Law. The purpose of the conference is to help authors develop draft articles for publication, so authors will be required to submit a working draft before the conference takes place. Papers will be circulated in advance of the session, and all participants will be expected to provide detailed feedback on a limited number of other papers.

The works-in-progress conference will also feature various networking opportunities as well as several substantive presentations on issues relating to international dispute resolution. Presentations will be live or by video and include: Lady Justice Joyce Aluoch, Judge and First Vice-President of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, who will be speaking on matters of public international law; Ryan Reetz and Pedro Martinez-Fraga of Bryan Cave, who will be speaking on their recent book, Public Purpose in International Law: Rethinking Regulatory Sovereignty in the Global Era (Cambridge University Press 2015); and Paul-Jean Le Cannu, Legal Counsel at ICSID, who will speak on the future of investor-state dispute settlement systems.

Papers presented at the works-in-progress conference will be eligible for expedited review by the University of Missouri’s highly regarded Journal of Dispute Resolution as well as for consideration by the ICSID Review-Foreign Investment Law Journal. While submissions will have to go through the normal publication process and an offer of publication is not guaranteed, the editors of both journals are very interested in reviewing submissions from works-in-progress participants.

This is expected to be a very international event, and submissions are sought from academics and practitioners around the world. Junior professionals, including aspiring and untenured academics, are encouraged to submit proposals. To be considered, potential participants must submit a one-page abstract of their work on or before October 15, 2016. Details on how to submit a proposal for the works-in-progress conference can be found here.

Student Writing Competition

The University of Missouri is also sponsoring a student writing competition in conjunction with this event. The competition is open to current students at any institution in the world granting a degree in law. The competition carries a prize of $450 for first place and $125 for second place, and the winning paper is eligible to be considered for publication in the University of Missouri’s Journal of Dispute Resolution. The prize amounts may increase (funding is still being finalized), so be sure to check back for additional details. Students of all levels (J.D., LL.B., LL.M., S.J.D., and Ph.D.) are eligible to submit papers. Advanced degree students (LL.M., S.J.D. or Ph.D.) may submit the same paper for both the works-in-progress conference and the student writing competition. The deadline for the student writing competition is January 15, 2017. More details on the student writing competition are available here.

written by Veerle Van Den Eeckhout

On the blog section of the Dutch journal Nederlands Juristenblad, a new blog of Veerle Van Den Eeckhout on the Proposal for a revision of the Posting Directive has been published, see here.

Previous blogs on this theme can be found here and here.

This blog is entitled “Ipr en het verdergaande proces tot wijziging van de Detacheringsrichtlijn. Ipr in een politiek-juridisch krachtenveld (in English: “Private International Law and the ongoing process of revising the Posting Directive. PIL in a legal-political force field”). It is written in Dutch. An English version can be found here.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP are delighted to invite you to the launch of the special BREXIT issue of the Kluwer Journal of International Arbitration.
Professor Dr. Maxi Scherer, General Editor of the Journal of International Arbitration and Dr. Johannes Koepp, Special Issue Editor, will host a discussion with the authors on the content of the Special Issue.

Topics and speakers will include:
How Brexit Will Happen: A Brief Primer on EU Law and Constitutional Law Questions Raised by Brexit – Dr. Holger P. Hestermeyer
What Does Brexit Mean for the Brussels Regime? – Sara Masters QC & Belinda McRae
Brexit Consequences for London as a Premier Seat of International Dispute Resolution in Europe – Michael McIlwrath
Impact of Brexit on UK Competition Litigation and Arbitration –Gilbert Paul
Brexit and the Future of Intellectual Property Litigation and Arbitration – Annet van Hooft
Possible Ramifications of the UK’s EU Referendum on Intra- and Extra-EU BITs – Markus Burgstaller

The Special Issue journal launch will be followed by a champagne reception.

Roel Westrik, associate professor of private law at Erasmus School of Law, is the author of a noteworthy book that presents an original approach to the applicable European law in “Hidden Civil Law. How can you know what the applicable law is?’ (Paris, 2016). The abstract reads:

Lawyers are taught to work with applicable law and to be familiar with the applicable law, they should ‘keep up to date with their literature’. Here, in two sentences, the reality and ways of working of lawyers throughout the past century. Past because, in contemporary times, applicable law can no longer be easily ‘recognised’. There is a knowing problem related to applicable law of European origin. This problem consists in two main questions: How are lawyers to know what applicable law is? And, if there is a presumption of ‘other’ applicable law when practising ‘national law’, where is it to be found?

These questions must be posed in every case, every advice to be written as well as judgments and rulings that have to be pronounced. What, in a specific case, is the prevailing, applicable law irrespective of whether its origins are national or European?

The acknowledgement that these questions must be posed in advance, before ‘solving’ any case, will make great strides in the current ways of working and classification of legal areas. Also, it will pay scant attention to the existing approach where ‘European law’ is seen as corpus alienum, which influences national law from ‘outside’ and creates a ‘Hidden Civil Law’.

A message is sent to the legal world of civil law: Wake up! European law is part of national law and should be studied as applicable law. It should be recognised and implemented rather than being taken as a separate supplement under the flag of ‘IPL, European law or its impact’. It is applicable civil law!

More information is available here.

The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce will turn 100 years in 2017. As part of the celebrations in January, a book about the history of arbitration will be published, where lawyers and diplomats from all over the world each write about one particular dispute.

One of the contributions is written by the winner of a large competition initiated by the SCC and aimed at young lawyers. The competition inspired many highly qualified contributions and several were so well-written that they will now be published in a separate edition of Transnational Dispute Management Journal (TDM).

The four texts deal with four different arbitrations that affected international relations: from a border dispute between the United States and Great Britain in what is now Canada, via an early ISDS case from the year 1900 over a Portuguese railway project and a relatively recent arbitration between Singapore and Malaysia, which was concluded at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2014.

You can read more about the publication, including the foreword by SCC Secretary-General Annette Magnusson, clicking here.

The University of Milan will host a very interesting seminar on 15 September 2016 (15h00) on “New Trends in EU Private International Law”. Here is the programme:

Welcome address: Prof. Laura Ammannati (Univ. of Milan);

Chair: Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Fausto Pocar (Univ. of Milan);

• Prof. Paul Lagarde (Univ. of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne): Les règlements en matière de régimes matrimoniaux et d’effets patrimoniaux des partenariats enregistrés;
• Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Jürgen Basedow (MPI, Hamburg): Damages claims for anticompetitive conduct and the competition of legal services;
• Prof. Dr. Christian Kohler (Univ. des Saarlandes): Les dispositions de d.i.p. du règlement 2016/679 relatif à la protection des données à caractère personnel (et de la directive 2016/680);
• Prof. Francisco Garcimartín Alférez (Univ. Autónoma de Madrid): The GEDIP proposal on the law applicable to companies;
• Prof. Manlio Frigo (Univ. of Milan): Methods and techniques of dispute settlement in the international practice of restitution and return of cultural property;

Final remarks: Prof. Stefania Bariatti (Univ. of Milan).

Further information and the (mandatory) registration form can be found here.

(Many thanks to Prof. Francesca Villata for the tip-off)

The latest issue of the “Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts (IPRax)” features the following articles:

B. Hess: The impacts of the Brexit on European private international and procedural law
This article explores the consequences of the Brexit on European private international and procedural law. Although Article 50 TEU provides for a two year transitional period, the (adverse) consequences will affect the London judicial market immediately. Following this transitional period, the Brussels Ibis Regulation and all EU instruments in their area of law will no longer apply to the United Kingdom. A substitution by the Lugano Convention will be difficult, but the United Kingdom might ratify the Hague Choice of Court Convention and the (future) Hague Judgments Convention. In the course of the two-year period, parties should carefully consider whether choice of courts agreements in favour of London will lose their validity after Brexit. In international company law, United Kingdom companies operating on the Continent should verify whether their legal status will be recognized after the Brexit. In family matters, the legal status of EU (secondary) legislation should be respected even after the Brexit. All in all, European private international law will be affected by the cultural loss of the English law. And the same will apply vice versa to English law.

R. Freitag: Explicit and Implicit Limitations of the Scope of Application of Regulations Rome I and Rome II
Almost ten years after the enactment of Regulation “Rome II” on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations and nine years after the publication in the Official Journal of Regulation “Rome I” on the law applicable to contractual obligations, the fundamental question of the material scope of application of the uniform private international law of the EU remains unanswered: Are the aforementioned regulations limited to contracts in the strict sense of voluntarily incurred obligations (governed by Regulation “Rome I”) and to torts, unjust enrichment, negotiorum gestio and culpa in contrahendo (as defined in Regulation “Rome II”) or are both regulations to be seen as an ensemble forming a comprehensive regime for the law of obligations (with the exception of the matters explicitly mentioned in art. 1 par. (2) of Regulation Rome I and Rome II respectively)? The answer is of practical importance for a significant number of institutions of national substantive law that are characterized by their hybrid nature positioning them between contracts and legal obligations which cannot be qualified as torts, unjust enrichment etc. The aim of the article is to show that despite the fact that an all-encompassing European regime of conflict of laws is highly desirable, the existing Regulations “Rome I” and “Rome II” remain eclectic. They do not allow for a uniform treatment of all relevant institutions of substantive law and namely their rules on mandatory provisions (art. 9 Regulation “Rome I”, art. 16 Regulation “Rome II”) cannot be activated to this end.

K. Thorn/C. Lasthaus: The „CAS-Ruling“ of the German Federal Court of Justice – Carte Blanche for Sports Arbitration?
In its judgement, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on the legal validity of an arbitration agreement in favour of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) between an athlete and an international sports federation. Even though sports federations constitute a monopoly and as a result, athletes are not free to choose between arbitration and courts of law without losing their status as a professional, the agreement is legally effective according to the BGH, thus precluding the parties from settling their dispute before courts of law. In this legal review, the authors argue that – due to the athletes’ lack of freedom – arbitration agreements in sport can only be considered effective if they lead to a court of arbitration constituting a minimum rule of law. With regards to the CAS and considering the influence of sports federations in the establishment of the CAS’ list of arbitrators, they take the view that the CAS does not fulfil such minimum legal requirements. Furthermore, they criticise the fact that an arbitrator is not required to disclose previous appointments by one of the parties involved in the current arbitration procedure. This way, the right to refuse an arbitrator suffers devaluation. Notwithstanding the fact that the international sporting system requires consistent interpretation and application of sporting rules by an international arbitration court in order to establish equal opportunities among the athletes, this must not be achieved at the expense of the athletes’ constitutional rights. Due to the aforementioned legal deficits, the BGH should have ruled the agreement void.

C. Mayer: Judicial determination of paternity with regard to embryos: characterization, private international law, substantive law
The Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf had to decide on a motion to determine the legal paternity of a sperm donor with regard to nine embryos, who are currently deep frozen and stored in a fertility clinic in California. The hasty recourse to the German law of decent by the court overlooks the preceding issue whether assessing, as of when the judicial determination of paternity is possible, is to be qualified as a question of procedure or substantive law and is, thus, to be solved according to the lex fori or lex causae. Furthermore, the court’s considerations concerning the conflict-of-laws provisions, denying the analogous application of Art. 19 par. 1 s. 1 EGBGB (Introductory Act to the German Civil Code), are not convincing, the more so as it left the question unanswered which conflict-of-laws provision decides on the applicable law instead.

K. Siehr: Criminal Responsibility of the Father for Abduction of his own Daughter
A man of Syrian nationality and a woman married in Germany and had a daughter. The couple finally divorced and parental responsibility was given exclusively to the mother. In December 2006 the couple decided to visit the father’s relatives in Syria in order to spend Christmas vacation with them, to detract the daughter from bad influences in Germany and to change the daughter’s name. The daughter felt very uncomfortable in Syria, because she was not allowed to go to school and could not leave her relatives’ home without being accompanied by some elderly person of her relatives. She wanted to go back to Germany, but was not allowed to do so by her father. Her mother tried to enable her to leave Syria with the help of the German embassy, but this could not be realized. The daughter was beaten by her father and the mother was prohibited to have contact with her daughter. After having reached majority age, the daughter managed to go back to Germany, where the mother indicted the father for depriving a minor from the person having exclusive parental responsibility (§ 235 German Criminal Code). The County Court of Koblenz convicted the father of being guilty of dangerous bodily harm (§ 223a German Criminal Code) and of depriving a minor from her mother (§ 235 German Criminal Code). The Federal Court for Civil and Criminal Cases (Bundesgerichtshof = BGH) confirmed this decision and rejected the attorney general’s and the accused’s appeal against it. The Federal Court correctly decided that German criminal law applies, because the person, having exclusive parental responsibility, had her habitual residence in Germany, hence the result of deprivation was also felt in Germany. The Federal Court also correctly held that the private law question of parental responsibility has to be answered by German law, including German private international law.

C.F. Nordmeier: Acceptance and waiver of the succession and their avoidance according to the Introductory Act to the German Civil Code and to Regulation (EU) No. 650/2012
In matters of succession, a renvoi that results in the scission of the estate causes particular problems. The present contribution discusses acceptance and waiver of the succession and their avoidance in a case involving German and Thai law. The law applicable to the formal validity of such declarations is determined by art. 11 of the Introductory Act to the German Civil Code. It covers the question whether the declaration must be made before an authority or a court if this is provided for by the lex successionis without prescribing a review as to its content. In case of the avoidance of the acceptance of the succession based on a mistake about its over-indebtedness, the ignorance of the scission of the estate may serve as a base for voidability. The second part of the present contribution deals with Regulation (EU) No. 650/2012. Art. 13 of the Regulation applies in the case of the scission of the estate even if only a part of the estate is located in a Member State and the declaration at hand does not concern this part. Avoidance and revocation of the declarations mentioned in art. 13 and art. 28 of the Regulation are covered by these norms.

W. Wurmnest: The applicability of the German-Iranian Friendship and Settlement Treaty to inheritance disputes and the role of German public policy
Based on a judgment of the District Court Hamburg-St. Georg, the article discusses the conditions under which the applicable law in succession matters has to be determined in accordance with the German-Iranian Friendship and Settlement Treaty of 1929, which takes precedence over the German conflict rules and those of Regulation (EU) No. 650/2012. The article further elaborates on the scope of the German public policy threshold with regard to the application of Iranian succession law. It is argued that the disinheritance of an heir as a matter of law would be incompatible with German public policy if based on the heir either having a different religion than the testator or having the status of illegitimate child. However, these grounds will be upheld if the discrimination has been specifically approved by the testator.

C. Thole: Discharge under foreign law and German transaction avoidance
The judgment of the Federal Court of Justice deals with the question whether recognition of an automatic discharge obtained by the debtor in an English insolvency proceeding excludes a subsequent non-insolvency action based on German law on fraudulent transfers. The Court rightly negates this question, however, the court’s reasoning is not completely convincing. In particular, the judgment entails a bunch of follow-up questions with respect to the interdependency between a foreign insolvency or restructuring proceeding and German fraudulent transfer law (outside of insolvency proceedings).

F. Ferrari/F. Rosenfeld: Yukos revisited – A case comment on the set-aside decision in Yukos Universal Limited (Isle of Man) et al. v. Russia
In a decision of 20/4/2016, the District Court of The Hague set aside six arbitral awards that had been rendered in the proceedings Yukos Universal Limited (Isle of Man) et. al. against Russia. The arbitral tribunal had ordered Russia to pay compensation for its breach of the Energy Charta Treaty. According to the District Court of The Hague, the arbitral tribunal had erroneously found that the Energy Charta Treaty was provisionally applicable. For this reason, the arbitral tribunal could not base its jurisdiction on the arbitration clause set forth in Art. 26 Energy Charta Treaty. The present case note examines the set-aside decision of the District Court of The Hague as well as its implications for ongoing enforcement proceedings. Various approaches towards the enforceability of annulled arbitral awards will be presented.

P. Mankowski: Embargoes, Foreign Policy in PIL, Respecting Facts: Art. 9 (3) Rome I Regulation in Practice
Internationally mandatory rules of third states are a much discussed topic. But only rarely they produce court cases. Amongst the cases, foreign embargoes provide for the highlights. The USA has graced the world with their shades. Yet the Cour d’appel de Paris makes short shrift with the (then) US embargo against the Iran and simply invokes Art. 9 (3) of the Rome I Regulation – or rather the conclusio a contrario to be drawn from this rule – to such avail. It does not embark upon the intricacies of conflicting foreign policies but sticks with a technical and topical line of argument. Blocking statutes forming part of the law of the forum state explicitly adds the political dimension.

C. Thomale: On the recognition of Ukranian surrogacy-based Certificates of Paternity in Italy
The Italian Supreme Court denied recognition of a Ukrainian birth certificate stipulating intended parents of an alleged surrogacy arrangement as the legal parents of a newborn. The reasoning given by the Court covers fundamental questions regarding the notions of the public policy exception, the superior interest of the child as well as the relationship between surrogacy and adoption. The comment elaborates on those considerations and argues for adoption reform.

M. Zilinsky: The new conflict of laws in the Netherlands: The introduction of Boek 10 BW
On 1/1/2012, the 10th book of the Dutch Civil Code (Boek 10 (Internationaal Privaatrecht) Burgerlijk Wetboek) entered into force in the Netherlands. Herewith the Dutch Civil Code is supplemented by a new part by which the different Dutch Conflict of Laws Acts are replaced and are combined to form one legal instrument. The first aim of this legislative process was the consolidation of the Dutch Conflict of Laws. The second aim was the codification of certain developed in legal practice. This article is not a complete treatise on the Dutch Conflict of Laws. The article intends to give only a short explanation of the new part of the Civil Code.

Our co-editor Matthias Weller has written an article on jurisdiction clauses under the Brussels Ibis Regulation and the Hague Choice of Court Convention (Choice of Forum Agreements under the Brussels I Recast and under the Hague Convention: Coherences and Clashes). The full version is available here. The abstract reads as follows:

Choice of forum agreements are widely used. International uniform law has entered into force recently, namely the Hague Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements on 1 October 2015, the Brussels Ibis Regulation on 10 January 2015. Both instruments are formally independent but in the legislative process the drafters of the Convention took notice of the Brussels I Regulation, and the European legislator took notice of the Convention while working on the Recast of the Brussels I Regulation in order to “strengthen” choice of forum agreements and to bring about “coherence” of the Brussels regime with the Hague Convention. Against this background, the two instruments now in place are compared in respect to its most important policy decisions: the definition of the internationality of the case as a prerequisite of the applicability of the respective instrument, the understanding of the choice of law rule on the nullity of the agreement, the scope and mode of a public policy control of the agreement and, most extensively, the respective mechanisms for coordinating parallel proceedings, in particular the new mechanism under the Brussels Ibis Regulation granting priority for the designated court. This new mechanisms turns out to be too complex, leaving important points open. Therefore, de lege ferenda an alternative mechanism is suggested along the lines of the Hague Convention by making use of the recent judgment of the ECJ in Gothaer Versicherung. This alternative would not only be much easier and thus more predictable, it would also be able to coordinate each and every parallel proceedings, not only those involving a choice of court agreement.

 

Project “unalex – multilingual information for the uniform interpretation of the instruments of judicial cooperation in civil matters”

English or German native speaker with law degree and knowledge / experience in international private and procedural law, for writing, editing, and translating of legal texts. French or Italian or Spanish native speakers with good German knowledge can also apply.

The project is conducted in cooperation with a group of universities from various EU Member States. The project work consists, inter alia, in the selection of international case law in the various areas of judicial cooperation in civil matters and its preparation with case headnotes and the development of so-called ‘compendia’ which provide systematic explanations of how the European Regulations are applied by the CJEU and the courts of the Member States in the European practice.

Part time preferred.
Particularly suited for younger private international law researchers.
Project period: between 12 up to 18 months

IPR Verlag is located in the heart of Munich, close to the university. Occasional home office may be considered.

If interested to join our team, please send your application and CV to:
thomas.simons[at]unalex.eu

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