French Plaintiffs Drop Jewish or Not Jewish App Lawsuit
French Jewish and anti-racism organizations have dropped the proceedings that they initiated in France against Apple.
The French plaintiffs sought an injunction enjoining Apple from selling its application “Jewish or not Jewish” anywhere in the world. Earlier this fall, at the outset of the proceedings, Apple had already stopped making available the App not only in France, but also in Europe. The plaintiffs did not consider it to be enough and had sought a worldwide injunction.
The French press reports that the French plaintiffs have dropped the case after Apple informed them that it would stop selling the App elsewhere in the world.
From a conflict perspective, the outcome of the case is truly remarkable. The allegation that the App violated the law of one (small) market has led one of the biggest corporations in the world to withdraw the product worldwide.
Although France might be considered a “small market”, its laws are similar from this point of view to those of other civilized (European) countries. It stood to reason that failure to withdraw the App would lead to a series of costly lawsuits in those jurisdictions, not to mention a lot of bad press. A quick cost/benefit analysis shows that this hassle and expense would far outweigh Apple’s limited profits from the App. Thus the decision of “one of the biggest corporations in the world to withdraw the product worldwide” is an obvious commercial one, and neither this decision, nor (to the best of my knowledge) any national hearing leading up to it, mentioned PIL matters.
So with all due respect to the eminent author of this article and to the need to draw readers to this excellent website (even through sensationalist headlines), I am still searching for the “conflict perspective” (i.e. what this has to do with PIL). The sources of PIL are few and far between and do not traditionally include a company’s decisions to draw general conclusions from a localized reaction…
You seem to have a rather formalistic understanding of the concept of law. Law does not only impact society insofar as it is applied by courts. It influences rational economic actors who want to save litigation costs. It would be naive to consider that this settlement was reached irrespective of the applicable legal background.
As far as the conflict of laws is concerned, it is enough to look at the remedy the plaintiffs sought: a world wide injunction.