How Litigation Imports Foreign Regulation

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Guest Post by Diego A. Zambrano, Assistant Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

For years now, the concept of a “Brussels Effect” on global companies has become widely accepted. A simple version of the story goes as follows: the European Union sets global standards across a range of areas simply by virtue of its large market size and willingness to construct systematic regulatory regimes. That is true, for instance, in technology where European privacy regulations force American companies (including Facebook, Google, and Apple) to comply worldwide, lest they segment their markets. As Anu Bradford has expertly argued, it is also true in environmental protection, food safety, antitrust, and other areas. When companies decide to comply with European regulations across markets, the European Union effectively “exports” its regulatory regimes abroad, even to the United States.

In a forthcoming article, How Litigation Imports Foreign Regulation, I argue that foreign regulators not only shape the behavior of American companies—they also influence American litigation. From the French Ministry of Health to the Japanese Fair Trade Commission and the European Commission, I uncover how foreign agencies can have a profound impact on U.S. litigation. In this sense, the “Brussels Effect” is a subset of broader foreign regulatory influence on the American legal system.
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Call for papers – New Zealand Yearbook of International Law

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The New Zealand Yearbook of International Law (Brill) is an annual, internationally refereed publication. The Editors call for both short notes and commentaries, and longer in-depth articles, for publication in Volume 18 of the Yearbook (2020), which will be published in early 2022.

Notes and commentaries should be between 3,000 to 7,000 words. Articles may be from 8,000 to 15,000 words.

The Editors seek contributions on any current topic in public or private international law. The Editors particularly encourage submissions that are relevant to the Pacific, the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, and New Zealand.

Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis. However, the closing date for submissions for Volume 18 is 15 July 2021.

Contributions must be original unpublished works and submission of contributions will be held to imply this. Manuscripts must be word-processed and in compliance with the fourth edition of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation. The Guide is available online at: http://law.unimelb.edu.au/mulr/aglc/about.

Submissions should be provided in English, using MS Word-compatible word processing software, and delivered by email to the General Editor at james.mehigan@canterbury.ac.nz.

International Commercial Arbitration in the European Union – Brussels I, Brexit and Beyond

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With a comprehensive and informative manuscript, in International Commercial Arbitration in the European Union – Brussels I, Brexit and Beyond (Edward Elgar, 2020, 320 pp.: see here a previous announcement of the publication) Chukwudi Ojiegbe provides a wide-ranging overview of the status quo of international commercial arbitration in the European Union, also duly taking into account the effects arising, in this specific area of the law, from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

By means of a detailed historical and policy-oriented reconstruction, the Author assesses the history of the Brussels I Recast as it pertains to the provision on the arbitration exclusion. With careful analysis, he considers the implications of the nuanced and debated interface between arbitration and litigation in accordance with the Brussels I Regime as well as the consequences of such interface for the EU exclusive external competence in aspects of international commercial arbitration. Against this background, and further contributing to this complex area of the law, he sets out the findings on the impact of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.

In anticipation of a possible future recast of the Brussels I Regime, the Author argues in favour of the inclusion of specific rules that will allow the Member State court with jurisdiction under the Brussels I Regime the possibility of staying the litigation in favour of the arbitral tribunal. As he observes, the coordination between the jurisdiction of the courts of the Member States and arbitral tribunals would increase legal certainty, alleviating the problem of parallel court/arbitration proceedings and the risk of conflicting decisions.

Overall, this volume contributes clarity and advances the academic debate on the EU arbitration/litigation interface. By offering clear historical reconstructions and putting forth solutions to this longstanding problem, it will undoubtedly prove to be of interest to scholars and practitioners but it will also be a useful source for students who wish to deepen their understanding of this area of the law.

1st Conference on Private International Law – University of São Paulo, 5-9 July 2021

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Under the coordination of Gustavo Ferraz de Campos Monaco, the Faculty of Law of the University of São Paulo is hosting its 1st Conference on Private International Law.

For all those interested in submitting papers or attending the conference, further information in English is available here.

Out now: Martin Gebauer / Stefan Huber, Politisches Kollisionsrecht, Tübingen 2021, pp. 133

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Another treat for German-reading friends and colleagues of CoL: On the occasion of Erik Jayme’s 85th birthday on 7th June 2019, Martin Gebauer and Stefan Huber, both at the University of Tübingen (one of the few „Universities of Excellence“ in Germany), convened the symposium “Politisches Kollisionsrecht: Sachnormzwecke, Hoheitsinteressen, Kultur”. Friends and colleagues, many of them originating academically from the University of Heidelberg (another one of the few „Universities of Excellence“) and its Institute for Comparative Law, Conflict of Laws and International Business Law, or with close ties to this place, gathered. The book that emerged from this inspiring event collects the prints of the presentations and includes fascinating contributions. Martin Gebauer, for example, deconstructs the myth of “classical” private international law in an eye-opening historical analysis, and Stefan Huber deals with the interplay, and symptomatic antinomies, of substantive law objectives and notions of procedural justice in relation to heads of jurisdiction for the protection of weaker parties under the Brussels regime. The volume is wrapped up by an introduction rich of insights and thoughts by Gebauer and Huber on “Politisches Kollisionsrecht” and by wonderful “news from the academic world” by Erik Jayme in which he shares memories and anecdotes from his rich life as one of the most renowned scholars of private international law worldwide. Highly recommended!

European and International Civil Procedural Law: Some views on new editions of two leading German textbooks

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For German-speaking conflict of law friends, especially those with a strong interest in its procedural perspective (and this seems to apply to almost all of them by now, I guess), the year 2021 has begun beautifully, as far as academic publications are concerned. Two fantastic textbooks were released, one on European civil procedural law, and one on international civil procedural law:

After more than ten years the second edition of Burkhard Hess’s 2nd edition of  his textbook on „Europäisches Zivilprozessrecht“ is now on the table, 1026 pages, a plus of nearly 300 pages and now part of the renowned series „Ius Communitatis“ by DeGruyter. It is a fascinating account of the foundations („Grundlegung“, Part 1, pp. 3 – 311) of European civil procedure as well as a sharp analysis of the instruments of EU law („Europäisches internationales Zivilprozessrecht“, Part 2, pp. 313 – 782). Part 3 focuses on the interplay between autonomous and European procedural law (pp. 783 – 976). Extensive tables of the cases by the ECJ and the ECtHR as well as a large subject index help to access directly the points in question. The foreword rightly points out that European civil procedural law has reached a new phase. Whereas 10 years ago, the execution of the agenda under the then still new competency in (now) Article 81 TFEU was at issue, today enthusiasm and speed have diminished. Indeed, the ECJ had to, and still has to, defend „the fundamental principles of EU law, namely mutual trust and mutual recognition, against populist attacks and growing breaks of taboos by right-wing populist governments in several Member States“ (Foreword, p. 1, translation here and all following ones by myself; see also pp. 93 et seq. on the struggle for securing independence of the national judge in Hungary and Poland as a matter of the EU‘s fundamental values, Article 2 TEU). At the same time, the EU legislator and the ECJ had shown tendencies towards overstreching the legitimatory potential of the principle of mutual trust before the EU returned to „recognition with open eyes“ (as is further spelled out at para. 3.34, at p. 119), as opposed to blind trust – tendencies that worried many observers in the interest of the rule of law and a convincing balancing of the freedom of movement for judgments and other juridical acts. The overall positive view by Hess on the EU’s dynamic patterns of judicial cooperation in civil matters, combined with the admirable clarity and comprehensiveness of his textbook, will certainly contribute considerably to address these challenges.

Equally admirable for its clarity and comprehensiveness is Haimo Schack’s 8th edition of his textbook on „Internationales Zivilverfahrensrecht“, including international insolvency and international arbitration, 646 pp., now elevated from the „short textbook series“ to the „large textbook series“ at C.H.Beck. The first part addresses foundations of the subject (pp. 1 – 68), the second part describes the limits of adjudicatory authority under public international law (pp. 69 – 90), the third part analyses all international aspects of the main proceedings (pp. 91 – 334), the fourth part recognition and enforcement (pp. 335 – 427), the fifth and sixth part deal with insolvency (pp. 428 – 472) and arbitration (pp. 473 – 544). Again, an extensive table of cases and a subject index are offered as valuable help to the user. Schack is known for rather sceptical positions when it comes to the narrative of mutual trust. In his sharp analysis of the foundations of international procedural law, he very aptly states that the principle of equality („Gleichheit“) is of fundamental relevance, including the assumption of a principal equivalence of the adminstrations of justice by foreign states, which allows trust in and integration of foreign judicial acts and foreign laws into one’s own administration of justice: „Auf die Anwendung eigenen Rechts und die Durchführung eines Verfahrens im Inland kann man verzichten, weil und soweit man darauf vertraut, dass das ausländische Recht bzw. Verfahren dem inländischen äquivalent ist“ (We may waive the application of our own law and domestic proceedings because and as far as we trust in the foreign law and the foreign proceedings are equivalent to one’s own, para. 39, at p. 12) – a fundamental insight based, inter alia, on conceptual thinking by Alois Mittermaier in the earlier parts of the 19th century (AcP 14 [1831], pp. 84 et seq., at pp. 95, justifying recognition of foreign judgments by the assumption that the foreign judge should, in principle, be considered „as honest and learned as one’s own“), but of course also on Friedrich Carl v. Sagigny, which I allowed myself to further substantiate and transcend elsewhere to the finding: to trust or not to trust – that is the question of private international law (M. Weller, RdC, forthcoming). In Schack’s view, „the ambitious and radical projects“ of the EU in this respect „fail to meet with reality“ (para. 126, at p. 50). Equally sceptical are his views on the HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention („Blütenträume“, para. 141, at p. 57, in translation something like „daydreams“).

Perhaps, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, namely in a solid „trust management“, as I tried to unfold elsewhere.

European Parliament Resolution on corporate due diligence and corporate accountability

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Our blog has reported earlier on the Proposal and Report by the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament for a Resolution on corporate due diligence and corporate accountability. That proposal contained recommendations to amend the EU Regulations Brussels Ia (1215/2015) and  Rome II (864/2007). The proposals were discussed and commented on by Jan von Hein, Chris Tomale, Giesela RühlEduardo Álvarez-Armas and Geert van Calster

On 10 March 2021 the European Parliament adopted the Resolution with a large majority. However, the annexes proposing to amend the Brussels Ia and Rome II Regulations did not survive. The Resolution calls upon the European Commission to draw up a directive to ensure that undertakings active in the EU respect human rights and the environment and that they operate good governance. The European Commission has already indicated that it will work on this.

Even if the private international law instruments are not amended, the Resolution touches private international law in several ways.

*  It specifies that the “Member States shall ensure that relevant provisions of this Directive are considered overriding mandatory provisions in line with Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 864/2007” (Art. 20). It is a bit strange that this is left to national law and not made an overriding mandatory provision of EU law in line with the CJEU’s Ingmar judgment (on the protection of commercial agents – also a Directive). Perhaps the legislator decides otherwise.

* It proposes a broad scope rule covering undertakings “operating in the internal market” and encompassing activities of these undertakings or “those directly linked to their operations, products or services by a business relationship or in their value chains” (Art 1(1)). It thus imposes duties on undertakings to have due diligence strategies and communicate these even if the undertakings do not have their seat in an EU Member State. In this way it moves away from traditional seat theories and place of activities tests.

 

 

ILA “Kyoto Guidelines on Intellectual Property and Private International Law” published with comments

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Written by Toshiyuki Kono, Pedro de Miguel Asensio and Axel Metzger

The International Law Association’s Committee on “Intellectual Property and Private International Law” has finished its work with the adoption and publication of the “Kyoto Guidelines on Intellectual Property and Private International Law”. The Guidelines are the outcome of an international cooperation of a group of 36 scholars from 19 jurisdictions lasting for ten years under the auspices of ILA. The Kyoto Guidelines have been approved by the plenary of the ILA 79th Biennial Conference, held (online) in Kyoto on December 13, 2020. The Guidelines provide soft-law principles on the private international law aspects of intellectual property, which may guide the interpretation and reform of national legislation and international instruments, and may be useful as source of inspiration for courts, arbitrators and further research in the field. Different from older regional projects, the Kyoto Guidelines have been prepared by experts from different world regions. The Guidelines have now been published with extended comments as a special issue of the Open Access journal JIPITEC: https://www.jipitec.eu.

The ILA Committee on “Intellectual Property and Private International Law” was created in November 2010. Its aim was to examine the legal framework concerning civil and commercial matters involving intellectual property rights that are connected to more than one State and to address the issues that had emerged after the adoption of several legislative proposals in this field in different regions of the world. The work of the Committee was built upon the earlier projects conducted by the Hague Conference of Private International Law as well as several academic initiatives intended to develop common standards on jurisdiction, choice of law and recognition and enforcement of judgments in intellectual property matters.

In the initial stages of the activities of the Committee it was agreed that its overall objective should be to draft a set of model provisions to promote a more efficient resolution of cross-border intellectual property disputes and provide a blueprint for national and international legislative initiatives in the field. Therefore, the focus of its activities has been the drafting of a set of guidelines with a view to provide a valuable instrument of progress concerning private international law aspects raised by intellectual property. Furthermore, the Committee conducted a number of comparative studies and monitored the developments in different jurisdictions around the world. The Committee also worked in collaboration with several international organizations, particularly the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

The final text of the Guidelines consists of 35 provisions, which are divided in four sections: General Provisions (Guidelines1-2), Jurisdiction (3-18), Applicable Law (19-31) and Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments (Guidelines 32-35). As suggested by the term “Guidelines”, this instrument contains a set of provisions intended to guide the application or reform of private international laws in this field. The Guidelines restate certain well-established foundational principles such as the lex loci protectionis rule and aspire to provide concrete solutions for pressing contemporary problems, in areas such as multi-state infringements and cross-border collective copyright management. In order to make explicit the influence of the previous projects in the field and to facilitate the comparison with them, the short comments are preceded by the reference to the similar provisions adopted previously in the ALI Principles[1], CLIP Principles[2], Transparency Proposal[3] and Joint Korean-Japanese Principles[4]. As an additional instrument to facilitate the uniform interpretation of the Guidelines, the Committee has prepared a set of extended comments to all the provisions.

The Guidelies have now been published together with extended comments written by members of the ILA Committee which explain the background and application of the Guidelines.

 

[1]  American Law Institute, Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law and Judgments in Transnational Disputes, ALI Publishers, 2008.

[2] European Max Planck Group on Conflict of Laws in Intellectual Property, Conflict of Laws in Intellectual Property (Text and Commentary), OUP, 2013.

[3] Japanese Transparency Proposal on Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Intellectual Property, see the English text in J. Basedow, T. Kono and A. Metzger (eds.), Intellectual Property in the Global Arena – Jurisdiction, Applicable  Law, and the Recognition of Judgments in Europe, Japan and the US, Mohr Siebeck, 2010, pp. 394-402.

[4]  Joint Proposal by Members of the Private International Law Association of Korea and Japan, see The Quarterly Review of Corporation Law and Society, 2011, pp. 112-163.

AMEDIP: Webinar by Professor Aline Beltrame de Moura on the Choice of the Law Applicable to International Contracts in the Brazilian Legal System – 15 April 2021 at 5 pm (Mexico time – CDT), 7 pm (BRT time), 12:00 am (CET time) – in Spanish

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The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) is holding a webinar on 15 April 2021 at 5:00 pm (Mexico City time – CDT), 7 pm (BRT time), 12:00 am (CET time). The topic of the webinar is the Choice of the Law Applicable to International Contracts in the Brazilian Legal System and will be presented by Professor Aline Beltrame de Moura (in Spanish).

The details of the webinar are:

Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86169347236?pwd=ZFVFSmtZYUJ0SHk0MSt0VXg4Rk5wdz09

Meeting ID: 861 6934 7236

Password: BMAAMEDIP

Participation is free of charge.

This event will also be streamed live: https://www.facebook.com/AmedipMX

 

First Issue of 2021’s Revue Critique de Droit International Privé

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The last issue of the Revue critique de droit international privé has been released. It contains several case notes and four articles.

The first article, by Didier Boden (University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne), proposes new names and definitions in order to enrich private international law. Pursuant to the author: “Private international law and the other sets of rules of a legal order which touch upon its relations with other legal orders are poorly named and poorly defined”. The article “proposes to remedy that lexical impropriety and that semantic deficiency by presenting a new collection of names and a new collection of definitions”.


The Second article, authored by Frederick T. Davis (Columbia Law School) and Charlotte Gunka (Attorney-at-law, New York Bar), discusses the possibilities offered by the American CLOUD Act, with regard to criminal and digital sovereignty. The abstract reads as follows: “At a time when the Covid-19 crisis has raised awareness over the urgent need for European Member States to enhance their national sovereignty through the European Union, it is essential to go back to the possibilities offered by the U.S. CLOUD Act with regard to criminal and digital sovereignty. The CLOUD Act proposes a reform of current mutual legal assistance mechanisms by establishing access to digital evidence as the benchmark authorizing computer searches outside state borders, regardless of the location of the relevant data. Although this benchmark allows for more extensive extraterritorial application of U.S. criminal proceedings, an analysis of European regulations and legislation currently in force in France and the United Kingdom confirms that the European approach is not so different from the one introduced by the U.S. government. The emergence of the computer world and the acceleration of new technologies have created a “criminal digital space”, ephemeral and borderless, which requires a fundamental transformation of criminal procedures allowing for faster and more efficient international cooperation against transnational crime. This should give an opportunity to Europe, in particular through its new European Public Prosecutor’s Office, to assert its digital sovereignty through the individual fundamental rights that it continues to promote without undermining the security and strategic interests of its Member States”.

The third article, by Vincent Richard (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg) presents the new Regulation (EU) no 2020/1783 adopted on 25 November 2020, which recasts Regulation (EC) no 1206/2001 on cooperation between the courts of the Member States in the taking of evidence in civil or commercial matters.


The fourth article, by Thibaut Fleury Graff (University of Rennes) deals with the issues of the rights of foreigners and international migrations.

A full table of contents is available here.