Agrégateur de flux

In re B.C.I Fins. Pty Ltd. (In Liquidation) (thank you Daniel Lowenthal for flagging) illustrates to and fro exercise, hopping between laws, and the use of choice of law rules to establish (or not) jurisdiction. This method is often called the ‘conflicts method’ or ‘looking over the fence’: to establish whether one has jurisdiction a judge has to qualify his /her district as a place of performance of an obligation, or the situs of a property, requires the identification of a lex causae for the underlying obligation, application of which will in turn determine the situs of the obligation, property etc.

As Daniel points out, Bankruptcy Code section 109(a), says that “only a person that resides or has a domicile, a place of business, or property in the United States, or a municipality may be a debtor under this title.” Lane J considers the issue in Heading B and concludes that the Debtors’ Fiduciary Duty Claims against Andrew and Michael Binetter constitute property in the United States to satisfy Section 109(a).

There is no federal conflicts rule that pre-empts.  New York conflict of law rules therefore apply. New York’s “greatest interest test” pointed to Australian substantive law to determine the situs of the fiduciary duties claims: “[t]he Liquidators were appointed by an Australian court, and are governed by Australian law, and Andrew Binetter is an Australian citizen.  Perhaps even more importantly, the Fiduciary Duty Claims arose from acts committed in Australia and exist under Australian law, and any recovery will be distributed to foreign creditors through the Australian proceeding.’

Lane J then applies Australian substantive law eventually to hold on the situs of the fiduciary duty: considering the (competing) Australian law experts, he is most swayed by the point of view that under Australian law ‘not only debts, but also other choses in action, are for legal purposes localised and are situated where they are properly recoverable and are properly recoverable where the debtor resides.’ The Binetters reside in New York.

In summary: New York conflict of law rules look over the fence to locate the situs of a fiduciary debt to be in New York, consequently giving New york courts jurisdiction. A neat illustration of the conflicts method.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, Chapter 3, Heading

 

The title of this piece almost reads like an encyclical. C-250/17 Esprito Santo (in full: Virgílio Tarragó da Silveira Massa v Insolvente da Espírito Santo Financial GroupSA – readers will appreciate my suggestion of shortening), held last week, concerns the scope of Article 15 juncto 4(2)(f) of the EU’s Insolvency Regulation 1346/2000 (materially unchanged in Regulation 2015/848).

In many jurisdictions lawsuits pending are subject to vis attractiva concursus: all suits pending or not, relevant to the estate of the insolvent company are centralised within one and the same court. In the context of cross-border insolvency however this would deprive the courts and the law of the Member State other than the State of opening of proceedings, of hearing cq applying to, pending suits.

The Court has now held along the lines what is suggested in the Virgos-Schmit report: only enforcement actions are subject to Article 15. Lawsuits pending which merely aim to establish the merits of a claim without actually exercising it (in the judgment: ‘Substantive proceedings for the recognition of the existence of a debt’), remain subject to the ongoing proceedings in the other Member State.

The judgment evidently has more detail but this is the gist of it. Of note is that yet again, linguistic analysis assists the court in its reasoning.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 5.

 

The videos of the opening speeches, the keynote speech and the sessions of the global Conference “HCCH 125 – Ways Forward: Challenges and Opportunities in an Increasingly Connected World” (which took place in Hong Kong on 18-20 April) have been uploaded onto the HCCH YouTube channel.

Non-lieu à renvoi

Scotch Whisky Association
Agriculture
La juridiction de renvoi doit vérifier si un consommateur a directement à l’esprit l’indication géographique enregistrée « Scotch Whisky » en présence d’un produit comparable portant la désignation « Glen » afin de déterminer l’existence d’une « évocation » interdite par le droit de l’Union

Louboutin et Christian Louboutin
Propriété intellectuelle et industrielle
Une marque consistant en une couleur appliquée sur la semelle d’une chaussure ne relève pas de l’interdiction d’enregistrement des formes

Louboutin et Christian Louboutin
Propriété intellectuelle et industrielle
Une marque consistant en une couleur appliquée sur la semelle d’une chaussure ne relève pas de l’interdiction d’enregistrement des formes

Des années trente à la chute de l’Union soviétique, Nikolaï Starostin et ses frères ont profondément marqué le football russe. Avec un incident de parcours notable : leur condamnation au goulag.

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Confirmation de la mise en accusation, pour le meurtre d’une Française, d’un Anglais résidant en Irlande, intervenant après que les autorités de cet État ont, à deux reprises, refusé d’exécuter un mandat d’arrêt européen et du rejet de l’application du principe non bis in idem, la décision du procureur général irlandais de renoncer aux poursuites n’étant pas définitive.

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Riga Graduate School of Law (RGSL) will be hosting the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet conference titled “Consumer Protection and Fundamental Rights” on 18-19 June.

The idea of the RGSL Jean Monnet Project is to conduct a multidisciplinary exploration of Fundamental Rights including their philosophical, geographic, technological, political, cultural, societal and economic dimensions. The project is designed for researchers, public administrators, professional groups and civil society representatives. There are four conferences envisaged with the first conference focusing on consumer protection.

The conference programme is available here.

For more info on the project click here.