Agrégateur de flux

Gary Born (Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP) and Cem Kalelioglu (Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP) contributed an article on choice-of-law agreements in international contracts to Volume 50, Number 1, of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.

Choice-of-law agreements are widely used in international business transactions, with a substantial majority of all cross-border commercial and investment contracts containing a choice-of-law provision. Virtually all legal systems, and many treaties and other international legal instruments, recognize the presumptive validity of such agreements. Nonetheless, there are significant variations in the treatment of international choice-of-law provisions, including with respect to issues of validity, enforceability, and interpretation, which can lead to a degree of unpredictability in the application of such provisions. This uncertainty undermines the basic purposes of choice-of-law agreements and private international law more generally.

This Article examines the treatment of international choice-of-law agreements under both national and international law. In particular, the Article considers the rules governing the validity and enforceability of such agreements, the exceptions to their presumptive validity and enforceability, and the interpretation of international choice-of-law provisions.

The Article argues that the basic rule of presumptive validity of choice-of-law provisions in international commercial and investment contracts now has the status of a general principle of law and is therefore binding on states as a matter of international law and, in any event, should be adopted as a matter of national policy. This Article also argues that, although there are substantial similarities in the treatment of exceptions to the validity of international choice-of-law provisions in different national and other legal systems, important differences persist. These differences undermine the purposes of such agreements, and thereby impede international trade and investment. The Article examines these differences and proposes heightened uniformity in the rules governing the recognition of international choice-of-law agreements in commercial and investment contracts. Among other things, choice-of-law agreements (i) should not be subject to any “reasonable relationship” requirement, (ii) should be presumptively valid where a non- national legal system is selected and (iii) should be unenforceable on public policy grounds only in exceptional circumstances.

The Article also contends that similar differences exist with respect to the interpretation of international choice-of-law agreements in different legal systems, and that these differences frustrate the intentions of commercial parties. The Article proposes rules of interpretation of international choice-of-law provisions, including presumptions that choice-of-law agreements select only the “local law,” not the “whole law,” of a jurisdiction and that choice-of-law provisions be interpreted liberally, to include most issues of procedure and remedy, as well as non-contractual issues. These uniform rules of interpretation would better serve the objectives of commercial parties and purposes of private international law regimes and the international legal system than does existing treatment of international choice-of-law provisions.

The article is freely accessible here.

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan plans to invite young scholars to present the outcome of their doctoral research on any topic within the field of private international law, transnational law or the law of international arbitration, at a dedicated seminar that will be held annually in Milan (the MECSI Seminar). Each MECSI Seminar will revolve around one scholar, selected by a jury constituted for this purpose.

Exceptionally, two MECSI Seminars will take place in 2022. The first will be held on 9 March 2022 at 5 pm. The speaker will be Augustin Gridel, who is a teaching fellow at the Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas. He will deliver a presentation titled Financial Markets and Financial Instruments in Private International Law. Professor Francesca Villata, of the University of Milan, will act as a discussant.

Those interested in presenting their doctoral research at the second MECSI Seminar of 2022, scheduled to take place in November 2022, are encouraged to send an e-mail to Pietro Franzina (pietro.franzina@unicatt.it) by 15 July 2022.

Applicants must be aged less than 35 and may come from any country. They must have already discussed their PhD dissertation at the time when the application is submitted (however, no more than two years must have passed since the dissertation was discussed). Applications must include a copy of the dissertation, an abstract of the dissertation in English and a CV of the author in English.

Applications must also include a proposal for the seminar presentation consisting of a title followed by abstract of about 1.500 words. The subject matter of the presentation must relate to, but should not necessarily coincide with, the topic of the thesis: the applicant may choose, for instance, to concentrate on one aspect of his or her research, or discuss developments occurred after the dissertation was discussed.

All documents accompanying the application must be in pdf format. The selection process involves, for those shortlisted, a Zoom interview.

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart will cover the travel expenses of the selected scholar up to 600 Euros, and will take care of his or her accommodation at one of the guest houses of the University for up to two nights. During their stay in Milan, the selected scholar will also be invited to give a 45 minute lecture in English to the students attending the course of Private International Law on a topic unrelated to their PhD research.

Sea Watch
Transport
Selon l’avocat général Rantos, les navires privés exerçant une activité régulière de recherche et de sauvetage en mer peuvent faire l’objet d’un contrôle de conformité aux normes internationales assuré par l’État du port

Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides (Unité familiale - Protection déjà accordée)
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
Un État membre peut exercer sa faculté de déclarer une demande de protection internationale irrecevable au motif que le demandeur s’est déjà vu accorder le statut de réfugié par un autre État membre

Stichting Rookpreventie Jeugd e.a.
Liberté d'établissement
Cigarettes à filtre : la méthode établie par l’ISO pour déterminer les niveaux d’émission maximaux de goudron, de nicotine et de monoxyde de carbone, à laquelle renvoie le droit de l’Union, est valide et opposable aux producteurs de cigarettes

Openbaar Ministerie (Tribunal établi par la loi dans l’État membre d’émission)
DFON
Refus d’exécution d’un mandat d’arrêt européen : la Cour précise les critères permettant à une autorité judiciaire d’exécution d’apprécier le risque éventuel de violation du droit fondamental de la personne recherchée à un procès équitable

RS (Effet des arrêts d’une cour constitutionnelle)
Droit institutionnel
Le droit de l’Union s’oppose à une règle nationale en vertu de laquelle les juridictions nationales ne sont pas habilitées à examiner la conformité avec le droit de l’Union d’une législation nationale qui a été jugée constitutionnelle par un arrêt de la cour constitutionnelle de l’État membre

The French Committee of Private International Law is looking for a part-time assistant (35 hours per year). His/her main tasks will be to transcribe the debates of the Committee meetings, organise meetings and update the website of the Committee.

The main requirements are:  Master’s degree in private international law or PhD student in private international law; Good writing skills and command of the usual computer tools.

The remuneration is 2000 EUR per year and the expected work status is self-employed (auto-entrepreneur).

The position is to be filled as soon as possible and at the latest in May 2022.

Applications should be sent to the General Secretariat of the Committee: Sabine.corneloup@u-paris2.fr and Fabienne.jault@seseke.fr.

The Sydney Centre for International Law at Sydney Law School is delighted to present the 2022 International Law Year in Review Conference, to be held online on Friday 25 February 2022.

This annual ‘year in review’ conference brings together expert speakers from around the world to give participants insight into the latest developments in international law over the preceding year, especially those most salient for Australia.

Panel 3 will cover Developments in Private International Law in 2022.

Speakers

Martin Jarrett (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and University of Heidelberg), “Payment of Australian judgment debts as unlawful European state aid: international legal options for Australia against the European Union”. 

Dr Aida Othman (ZICO Shariah and Messrs. Zaid Ibrahim & Co.), “Arbitration of Shariah and Islamic finance disputes: are the Asian International Arbitration Centre’s i-arbitration rules a game-changer?”

Dr Sarah McKibbin (University of Southern Queensland), “Implementation of the Singapore Convention on Mediation in Australian Law”

Chair: Associate Professor Dr. Jeanne Huang (Sydney Law School)

Date/Time: 25 February, 1:30pm – 3:00 pm AEDT

View the program here. Register to attend here.

Professor Adeline Chong will be speaking on 25 Feb at 12:30
PM – 2:00 PM 9(HKT) on the The Asian Principles for the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgements.

The portability of foreign judgments across borders helps to faciliate cross-border transactions by lowering transaction costs and associated legal friction among countries. This is important for Asia given initiatives to establish greater economic integration in Asia such as the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community, the Belt and Road Initiative and free-trade agreements such as the CPTPP and RCEP.

The Asian Principles for the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (ABLI, 2020) is one of the publications resulting from a project conducted under the auspices of the Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI). The ABLI Foreign Judgments project considered the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgment rules in the ten ASEAN Member States and five of ASEAN’s major trade partners i.e. Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea. The Asian Principles is a statement of the laws on foreign judgments in the region. It sets out the common principles and differences in the laws and suggests ways in which harmonisation of the foreign judgment rules can occur.

This seminar discusses the Asian Principles and considers the extent to which harmonisation of the foreign judgment rules is possible in the region. Harmonisation would of course increase the portability of judgments across borders. The seminar also examines the Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters and the likelihood of the Convention being adopted by the Asian countries.

About the speaker:

Adeline Chong is an Associate Professor at the Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University. She was formerly a lecturer at the School of Law, University of Nottingham. She has published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as the Law Quarterly Review, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly and the Journal of Private International Law. She is the co-author of Hill and Chong, International Commercial Disputes: Commercial Conflict of Laws in English Courts (Oxford, Hart, 4th edn, 2010). She is the Project Lead of the Asian Business Law Institute’s project on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Asia. Her work has been cited by various courts including the Singapore, Hong Kong, New South Wales and New Zealand Court of Appeals, the UK Law Commission, as well as in leading texts on conflict of laws such as Dicey, Morris and Collins on the Conflict of Laws (15th edition). She has also been invited to present papers by the British Association of Canadian Studies, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Kyushu University and the University of Sydney. She has conducted courses for the Attorney-General Chambers of Malaysia and delivered Continuing Professional Development Talks for Singapore’s Attorney-General Chamber’s Academy and the Law Society of Singapore. She has appeared as an expert on Singapore law before a Finnish court and issued a declaration on Singapore law for a US class action.

Register here by 5pm, 24 February 2022 to attend the seminar.

The first issue of the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly for 2022 was just published. It features the following case notes and articles on private international law respectively:

SYC Leung and M Suen, The Extensive Jurisdiction in the Action on an Arbitral Award (case note)

D Foxton, The Jurisdictional Gateways – some (very) modest proposals:

This article reviews the history of the gateways for service out of the jurisdiction in England and Wales, and seeks to identify the rationales which underpin them. The case for abolishing the gateways altogether, and applying only a forum conveniens test for service out purposes, is examined, the article concluding that there are reasons of principle and policy for maintaining the gateway requirement. The article identifies a number of variations or amendments to the current gateways which are consistent with their rationales, and which would better give effect to them. A Kennedy, An Exploration of the Operation and Rebuttal of the Presumption in Enka v Chubb:

The Supreme Court in Enka v Chubb clarified the choice of law rules which help determine the governing law of an arbitration agreement when the law of the contract containing it differs from the law of the arbitral seat. According to that framework, where parties have chosen the law which governs the main contract, that law is presumed also to govern the arbitration agreement. This article identifies, and seeks to provide preliminary answers to, questions surrounding the operation of, and rebuttal of, that presumption, on the basis that such questions are most likely soon to require a judicial answer.

 

Applications are now open for three- to six-month legal internships at the Permanent Bureau’s headquarters in The Hague, for the period from July to December 2022!

Interns work with our legal teams in the areas of Family and Child Protection Law, Transnational Litigation, Legal Cooperation, and Commercial and Financial Law. Duties may include carrying out research on particular points of private international law and/or comparative law, taking part in the preparation of HCCH meetings and contributing to the promotion of the HCCH and its work.

Due to the current global situation and the associated travel limitations and restrictions, the Permanent Bureau may consider the possibility that internships be carried out remotely. Interns may also be eligible for a monthly stipend.

Applications should be submitted by 17 March 2022. For more information, please visit the Internships Section of the HCCH website.

This post is published by the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference of Private International Law (HCCH). 

The European Association of Private International Law learnt with great sadness the passing of Peter Mankowski. The editors of the EAPIL Blog are most grateful to Ulrich Magnus for contributing the in memoriam published earlier today.

While none of us knew Peter Mankowski as well as Ulrich Magnus, some of the Editors of this blog were on personal terms with him, while others were involved in projects he led and had planned. Peter Mankowski was a great scholar. Not only did he write a staggering amount of publications, but he was also an avid reader of everything published on private international law. in addition, he provided very useful feedback and encouraging comments to other authors.

The Editors of the Blog greatly appreciated his willingness to participate in the online symposia that they organised, often on a (very) short notice, on important decisions of the CJEU with scholars from other European jurisdictions. Peter was always enthusiastic about these online symposia.

One of the last in which he participated was about the CJEU decision in Hrvatske Šume at the start of 2022. He kicked off our online symposium on the case with a lucid analysis, perhaps one of the last works of his busy life.

Reading it again lets us remember why we loved Peter: His text is full of ideas, provides ample references, and testifies of his broad view of international law.

In retrospect, it was only logical that Peter Mankowski would be interested in sharing and debating with other European scholars.

He and Ulrich Magnus were instrumental in the development of a transeuropean dialogue on private international law. We are of course referring to the groundbreaking series of European commentaries on private international law. Magnus and Mankowski were the first to gather teams of European scholars to offer systematic commentaries of the most important European regulations on private international law.

Establishing a truly pan-European forum to discuss issues of private international law is the main goal of the European Association of Private International Law. Peter Mankowski (and Ulrich Magnus) were precursors in this respect. They blazed the trail on which we walk.

Written by Pilar Jiménez Blanco about her book:

Pilar Jiménez Blanco, Regímenes económicos matrimoniales transfronterizos [Un estudio del Reglamento (UE) nº 2016/1103], Tirant lo Blanch, 2021, 407 p., ISBN 978-84-1355-876-9

The Regulation (EU) No 2016/1103 is the reference Regulation in matters of cross-border matrimonial property regimes. This book carries out an exhaustive analysis of the Regulation, overcoming its complexity and technical difficulties.

The book is divided in two parts. The first is related to the applicable law, including the legal matrimonial regime and the matrimonial property agreement and the scope of the applicable law. The second part is related to litigation, including the rules of jurisdiction and the system for the recognition of decisions. The study of the jurisdiction rules is ordered according to the type of litigation and the moment in which it arises, depending on whether the marriage is in force or has been dissolved by divorce or death. Three guiding principles of the Regulation are identified: 1) The need of coordination with the EU Regulations on family matters (divorce and maintenance) and succession. This coordination can be achieved through the choice of law by the spouses to ensure the application of the same law to divorce, to the liquidation of the matrimonial regime, to maintenance and even to agreements as to succession. In addition, a broad interpretation of “maintenance” that includes figures such as compensatory pension (known, for example, in Spanish law) allows that one of the spouses objects to the application of the law of the habitual residence of the creditor and the law of another State has a closer connection with the marriage, based on art. 5 of the 2007 Hague Protocol. In such a case, the governing law of the matrimonial property regime could be considered as the closest law.

In the field of international jurisdiction, the coordination between EU Regulations is intended to be ensured with exclusive jurisdiction by ancillary linked to succession proceedings or linked to matrimonial proceedings pending before the courts of other Member States. Although the ancillary jurisdiction of the proceedings on the matrimonial property regime with respect to maintenance claims is not foreseen, the possibility of accumulation of these claims is possible through a choice of court to the competent court to matrimonial matters.

2) The unitary treatment of the matrimonial property regime. The general rule is that only one law is applicable and only one court is competent to matrimonial property regimes, regardless of the location of the assets. The exceptions derived from the registry rules of the real estate situation and the effect to third parties are analysed.

3) The legal certainty and predictability. The general criterion is the immutability and stability of the matrimonial property regime, so that the connections are fixed at the beginning of married life and mobile conflict does not operate, as a rule. The changes allowed will always be without opposition from any spouse and safe from the rights of third parties. The commitment to legal certainty and predictability of the matrimonial property regime governing law prevails over the proximity current relationship of the spouses with another State law.

 

Related to applicable law, the following contents can be highlighted:

-The importance of choosing the governing law of the matrimonial property regime. The choice of law has undoubted advantages for the spouses to coordinate the law applicable to the matrimonial property regime with the competent courts and with the governing law of related issues related to divorce, maintenance and succession law. The choice of law is especially recommended if matrimonial property agreements are granted in case of spouses’ different nationalities and different habitual residence, since it avoids uncertainty in determining the law of the closest connection established in art. 26.1.c). Of particular importance is the question of form and consent in the choice of law, given the ambiguity of the Regulation on the need for this consent to be express.

-The interest in conclude matrimonial property agreements and, specially, the prenuptial agreements. Its initial validity requires checking the content of each agreement to verify which is the applicable law and which is included within the scope of the Regulation (EU) No 2016/1103. The enforceability of these agreements poses problems when new unforeseeable circumstances have appeared for the spouses, which will require an assessment of the effectiveness of the agreements in a global manner – not fragmented according to each agreement – to verify the minimum necessary protection of each spouse.

-The singularities of the scope of application of the governing matrimonial property regime law. The issues included in the governing law require prior consultation with said law to identify any specialty in the matrimonial property regime relations between the spouses or in relation to third parties. This has consequences related to special capacity rules to conclude matrimonial property agreements, limitations to dispose of certain assets, limitations for contracts between spouses or with respect to third parties or the relationship between the matrimonial property regimes and the civil liability of the spouses. Of particular importance is the regime of the family home, which is analysed from the perspective of the limitations for its disposal and from the perspective of the rules of assignment of use to one of the spouses.

-The balance between the protection of spouses and the protection of third parties. From art. 28 of the Regulation, derives the recommendation for the spouses to register their matrimonial property regime, whenever possible, in the registry of their residence and in the property registry of the real estate situation. The recommendation for third parties is to consult the matrimonial property regime in the registries of their residence and real estate. As an alternative, it is recommended to choose – as the governing law of the contract – the same law that governs the matrimonial property regime.

– The effects on the registries law. Although the registration of rights falls outside the scope of the Regulation, for the purposes of guaranteeing correct publicity in the registry of the matrimonial property regimes of foreign spouses, it would be advisable to eventually adapt the registry law of the Member States to the Regulation (EU) No 2016/1103. A solution consistent with the Regulation would be to allow the matrimonial property regime registry access when the first habitual residence of the couple is established in that State.

 

Related to jurisdiction, the following contents can be highlighted:

-The keys of the rules of jurisdiction. The rules of jurisdiction only regulate international jurisdiction, respecting the organization of jurisdiction among the “courts” within each State. It will be the procedural rules of the Member States that determine the type of intervening authority (judicial or notarial), as well as the territorial and functional jurisdiction.

The rules of jurisdiction are classified into two groups: 1) litigation with a marriage in force, referred to in the general forums of arts. 6 et seq.); 2) litigation in case of dissolution of the marriage, due to death or marital crisis. These are subject to two types of rules: if the link (spatial, temporal and material) with the divorce or succession court is fulfilled, this court has exclusive jurisdiction, in accordance with arts. 4 and 5; failing that, it goes back to the general forums of the Regulation.

Jurisdiction related to succession proceedings (based on art. 4) poses a problem of lack of proximity of the court with the surviving spouse, especially when the criterion of jurisdiction for the succession established by Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 has little connection with that State. This will be the case especially when the jurisdiction for succession is based on the location of an asset in that State (art. 10.2) or on the forum necessitatis (art. 11).

Jurisdiction related to matrimonial proceedings (based on art. 5) poses some problems such as the one derived from a lack of temporary fixation of the incidental nature. The problem is to determine how long this court has jurisdiction.

-The interest of the choice of court. The choice of court is especially useful to reinforce the choice of law. Submission may also be convenient, especially to the State of the celebration, for marriages that are at risk of not being recognized in any Member State by virtue of art. 9 (for example, same-sex marriages).

The inclusion of a submission in a prenuptial agreement or in a matrimonial property agreement does not avoid the uncertainty of the competent court. There is a clear preference for the concentration of the jurisdiction of arts. 4 and 5 apart from the pact of submission made between the spouses. In any case, the choice of court can be operative if the proceedings on the matrimonial issue has been raised before courts with the minimum connection referred to in art. 5.2.

Problems arise due to the dependence of the jurisdiction on the applicable law established in art. 22 of the Regulation, since it requires anticipating the determination of the law applicable to the matrimonial property regime in order to control international jurisdiction.

 

Related to recognition, the following contents can be highlighted:

-The delimitation between court decision and authentic instrument does not depend on the intervening authority – judicial or notarial –, but on the exercise of the jurisdictional function, which implies the exercise of a decision-making activity by the intervening authority. This allows notarial divorces to be included and notoriety acts of the matrimonial property regime to be excluded.

The recognition system follows the classic model of the European Regulations, taking as a reference the Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on succession. Therefore, the need for exequatur to enforceability of court decisions is maintained.

The obligation to apply the grounds for refusal of recognition with respect to the fundamental rights recognised in the EU Charter and, in particular, in art. 21 thereof on the principle of non-discrimination. This supposes an express incorporation of the European public policy to the normative body of a Regulation. Specially, the prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation means the impossibility of using the public policy ground to deny recognition of a decision issued by the courts of another Member State relative to the matrimonial property regime of a marriage between spouses of the same sex.

 

The study merges the rigorous interpretation of EU rules with practical reality and includes case examples for each problem area. The book is completed with many references on comparative law, which show the different systems for dealing with matters of the matrimonial property regime applied in the Member States. It is, therefore, an essential reference book for judges, notaries, lawyers or any other professional who performs legal advice in matrimonial affairs.

 

On Tuesday, Mar 1, 2021, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its 20th monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 14:00-15:30 CET. Geneviève Saumier (McGill University) will speak, in English, about the topic

Security for Costs and Access to Justice in Cross-Border Dispute Resolution

Several multilateral instruments prohibit, directly or indirectly, security for costs based solely on the foreign status of a plaintiff. Regional examples can be found in Europe and Latin America; two multilateral examples are the 1954 and the 1980 HCCH Conventions. The justification is typically based on anti-discrimination and access-to-justice arguments. The 2019 HCCH Judgments Convention has taken a slightly different approach following a lack of consensus among the negotiating states. Moreover, several states continue to impose security for costs on foreign plaintiffs. In this workshop, Geneviève Saumier will present the current results of comparative research on security for costs and seek to identify remaining barriers to its elimination.

The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.

If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.

This memorial was contributed by Prof. Dr. Ulrich Magnus.

On 10 February 2022 Peter Mankowski passed away, entirely unexpected at the age of only 55. The European community of scholars of Private Law and in particular Private International Law lost one of its most brilliant and productive minds. He leaves behind the almost unbelievable number of about 1500 publications, not few of them counting 1000 and more pages. Even his annotations on court decisions were frequently longer and more intensely documented than many ordinary articles. And his footnotes! He truly used the entire legal materials (legislation, decisions, scholarly works and articles) accessible in Europe and he did not do it for ‘ornamenting’ his considerations but really delved into the sources and brought to the surface what was helpful for the solution of the concrete legal problem.

To this end, his education at the Johanneum, the renowned Hamburg Gelehrtenschule, laid the foundation with Greek and Latin. His study in at the law faculty in Hamburg, the two states exams there, a longer stay in London added to his abilities. Shortly after his habilitation at the University of Osnabrück with Prof. Dr. Christian von Bar he got his first chair: In 2001 he became professor for civil law, comparative law and private international and procedural law at the University of Hamburg. All he needed to become an outstanding scholar he brought with him: besides an excellent knowledge of law and procedure and the language skills the bright mind, the curiosity for new and complicated problems, the creativity and ability to solve them, his unbelievable spirit and endurance to work hard. And besides that, he was a wonderful colleague and friend, with wit and a very good sense of humour but also with great empathy if others faced serious problems. He himself had to undergo a heart-transplantation in 2012 and in 2014 a transplantation of a kidney which his mother sacrificed. I never heard him ever complain about his health problems. Not only in this respect he was incredibly brave and fearless. Peter leaves behind his parents. So many will miss him so much.

Many thanks Bruno Hardy, counsel at Liedekerke, for reconnecting me with a case I had seen in passing and then lost track off. Bruno also reports on the issues here; there is also a mainstream media report and a more specialised report.

On 18 January the Lithuanian Supreme Court held that the France-Lithuania BIT is no obstacle to Lithuania seizing the Lithuanian courts of a claim that Veolia and consorts unlawfully took over control of heating businesses in a dozen Lithuanian municipalities in 1993-2003, and excessively profited from same. The claim was initially formulated as a counterclaim in ongoing ICSID proceedings (note there are also ongoing commercial arbitration proceedings relating to the case under Stockholm Chamber of Commerce rules) and is now pursued in the courts in ordinary, using Article 7(2)’s locus damni gateway.

The SC first of all rejected Veolia’s claim that the case should at the least be stayed until the ICSID ruling has been issued. For the SC, CJEU Achmea (which declared dispute settlement via ISDS in intra-EU BITs incompatible with EU law) implies that the arbitration procedure under the BIT has now lapsed (and this ab initio, hence making the later entry into force of the EU Member States’ BIT termination agreement irrelevant) meaning Lithuania not merely may but indeed it must drop its claims in the ISDS procedure.

From what I understand, the SC did not hold on whether A7(2) BIa is a possible gateway, focusing instead on the fate of Lithuania’s involvement in the ISDS procedure. In a perhaps unexpected ruling, as Bruno reports, the Vilnius Regional Court subsequently found that it lacked international jurisdiction seeing as in its (prima facie unconvincing) view the Lithuanian claim falls under acta iure imperii, hence cancelling out Brussels Ia, instead making the claim subject to residual Lithuanian private international law rules. These seem to direct the suit to France, the domicile of the defendant.

This is where there is a final twist in the tail. What I assume to be the reason for the court to find acta iure imperii (that the claim’s origin and DNA are actions taken by a state in its sovereign capacity) may well result in the French court refusing to entertain the claim as well (potentially leading to the need for a Lithuanian forum necessitatis). Indeed as Bruno points out, under the French SC Guatemala rule, French courts do not rule on cases necessarily involving the application of foreign public law (this echoes some of the issues in Skatteforvaltningen, currently under appeal). The 1975 Institute of International Law’s Resolution on same comes to mind.

The judgment shows very clearly the urgency for a proper debate on the relationship between EU law, the CJEU, ISDS and other forms of international dispute settlement. I fear the rather unnuanced CJEU statements in cases like Komstroy do little to resolve many of the underlying issues.

Geert.

In Soriano v Forensic News LLC & Ors [2021] EWCA Civ 1952 the Court of Appeal end of December allowed the claimant’s cross-appeal on the territorial reach of the GDPR. I reported the decision at the time but had not yet gotten round to post on it. I reviewed the High Court’s judgment here and readers may want to refer to that post to help them appreciate the issues. Like in my review of the first instance judgment I focus here on the GDPR’s jurisdictional gateway ([75] ff), not the libel issue.

Claimant’s case on A3 (2)(a) GDPR is set out as arguing that Defendants, to the extent that they are data controllers, offer services to readers in the UK irrespective of payment. As for A3.2(b), it is contended that the website places cookies on readers’ devices and processes their personal data using Facebook and Google analytics for the purpose of targeting advertisements, with Facebook Ireland Ltd and Google Ireland Ltd operating as the registered joint data controller. Further, it is submitted that Defendants were collecting and obtaining data about the Claimant and were monitoring his behaviour within the UK and the EU with a view to making publishing decisions.

CJEU authority discussed, on the meaning of ‘establishment’, is Weltimmo, Google Spain and Verein fur Konsumerenteninformation. At [78] ff Warby LJ relies to my taste somewhat excessively on the European Data Protection Board’s Guidelines 3/2018 on the Territorial Scope of the GDPR, holding [97] that defendants’ offer and acceptance of subscriptions in local currencies (Sterling cq Euros) is a “real and effective” activity that is “oriented” towards the UK and EU – that the effort only yielded 6 UK and EU subscriptions in total is irrelevant: defendants did more than merely making their journalism accessible over the world wide web. 

The result is that jurisdiction in E&W under the GDPR gateway is upheld – as is therefore, the potential which I predicted for extensive splintering of private GDPR enforcement, in contrast with the EU’s stated intent to have one-stop shop public GDPR enforcement.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, Heading 2.2.9.2.5, para 2.258 ff.

Service out, 'establishment' and 'services', territorial reach of the #GDPR https://t.co/iyVsTQcUvo
For review of the High Court judgment see https://t.co/KBZ4s4VHVz https://t.co/cLi12uuFk7

— Geert Van Calster (@GAVClaw) December 21, 2021

Rhona Schuz (Bar-Ilan University) has published an article Comparative Law and the Work of The Hague Conference on Private International Law in relation to Family Law in Ius Comparatum 2022. Ius Comparatum is an open access research series published under the auspices of the International Academy of Comparative Law (IACL).

The paper is a written version of the inaugural lecture given by Rhona Schuz during the first day of the Online Week on Comparative Family Law Methodology organized by IACL and Bucerius Law School back in October 2021. The lecture may be watched here.

The abstract reads as follows:

This lecture highlights the importance of comparative law in the work of the Hague Conference on Private International Law in the field of family law, both in the process of drafting Conventions and in monitoring the implementation of Conventions after they have come into force. Examples are given of the ways in which different types of comparative law studies have been used to inform the work of preparing Conventions and the various comparative law tools which have been adopted in post-Convention efforts to promote uniform implementation. The significance of the post-Convention comparative work is underlined by a brief discussion of the importance of uniform application of Conventions and the real risks of lack of uniformity. Finally, attention is drawn to a few methodological issues which arise in connection with the comparative law work discussed.

A new issue of  Commentaries on Private International Law, (Vol 4. Issue 1), the newsletter of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Private International Law Interest Group (PILIG) has been released.

The primary purpose of the newsletter is to communicate new developments on PIL rather than provide substantive analysis, to provide specific and concise raw information that 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 includes sections dealing with regional issues, edited by specialists on the field: Africa, edited by Lamine Balde & Sedat Sirmen; Asia, by Yao-Ming Hsu & Charles Mak; the Americas by Juan Pablo Gomez (Central and South America and Mexico), and Carrie Shu Shang (North America); Europe, by Patricia Snell, Charles Mak & Christos Liakis; and Oceania, by Jeanne Huang.

This issue of Commentaries covers more countries and includes recent developments in PIL in each area of the world. Each regional section consists of a particular chapter devoted to new scholarly work, which is particularly important for those areas of the world. Those are not necessarily linked to a specific region or country in the world but are truly transnational or global. 

Commentaries would not have been possible without Cristian Gimenez Corte (Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina), Jeanne Huang (University of Sydney Law School), Sedat Sirmen (Ankara University Faculty of Law), Yao-Ming Hsu (National Cheng- Chi University), Patricia Snell (Covington & Burling LLP), Charles Mak (University of Glasgow), Juan Pablo Gómez- Moreno (Cartagena Refinery), Lamine Balde (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Christos Liakis (National & Kapodistrian University of Athens), and is coordinated by PILIG Co-Chairs Rekha Rangachari (New York International Arbitration Center) and Carrie Shu Shang (California State Polytechnic University, Pomona). In addition, PILIG is constantly looking forward to your suggestions to improve our services to our members.