Quite a few private international law case comments were published just before the New Year. We’ll start with Edwin Cheney’s “Communication Breakdown” in the Commercial Litigation Journal (Co. L.J. 2006, 10(Nov/Dec), 9-11). The note:

…examines the Commercial Court judgment in Newsat Holdings Ltd v Zani in which the court considered whether an alleged deceit in the form of a statement made by a defendant located abroad to claimants through their London based lawyers was an act committed within the jurisdiction for the purposes of the CPR Part 6 r.6.20(8)(b). Summarises the characteristics of the tort of deceit and considers earlier authorities on the conflict between the place where a statement is made and where it is received.

Available to those with a subscription to the Journal.

An article by Andrea Antonelli on “Applicable Law Aspects of Copyright Infringement on the Internet: What Principles Should Apply?“, which originally appeared in the Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, pp. 147-177, 2003, has been made available for download on SSRN for a small fee. Here’s the abstract:

Digital technology, and particularly the Internet, is reducing the cost of publishing works, but has also made the unauthorised copying and distributing of works virtually costless. Despite the level of harmonisation of copyright laws worldwide, achieved through the Berne Convention, the TRIPs Agreement and WIPO Copyright Treaty, such copyright infringements on the Internet still give rise to a number of relevant conflict of laws issues. This article focuses on the analysis of the applicable law rules provided under the Berne Convention in relation to economic and moral rights in the light of the various technical scenarios of copyright infringement in cyberspace. From this perspective, it also attempts to assess if and to what extent it is possible to attribute a new meaning to too often datable applicable law principles.

You can access the full article here for $5.