International Law Association: Biennial Conference in Sydney and Annual Meeting of the German Branch

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In 2018, the Australian Branch of the International Law Association (ILA) will be hosting the biennial ILA conference. The conference, which is being held in Sydney, Australia, from 19-24 August 2018, is a major international event that will bring together hundreds of judges, academics, practitioners and officials of governments and international organisations from all around the globe. To register please follow this link. Please note that he early bird rate is available until 31 May 2018. The draft conference programme is now available on the ILA website here.

The German branch of the ILA will hold its annual meeting on 22 June, 2018, in Frankfurt (Main). This year’s topic is „International Dispute Resolution in Times of Crisis”. The list of distinguished speakers will include the Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights, Professor Dr. Angelika Nußberger (Strasbourg/Cologne), Professor Dr. Giesela Rühl (University of Jena), and Professor Dr. Stephan Schill (University of Amsterdam). You may find the full programme and further information here.

The ILA was founded in Brussels in 1873. Its objectives, under its Constitution, are “the study, clarification and development of international law, both public and private, and the furtherance of international understanding and respect for international law”. The ILA has consultative status, as an international non-governmental organisation, with a number of the United Nations specialised agencies. For further information and a welcome address from ILA chairman Lord Mance, please click here.

The Hague Judgments Project & The EU: public hearing (24 April 2018)

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The European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs will hold a public hearing on «The Hague Judgments Convention» in Brussels, on 24 April 2018, from 15.00-16.30. The hearing is aimed at bringing together Members of the European Parliament, Commission representatives, the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference and stakeholders with a view to discussing the ongoing negotiations on a world-wide Convention on the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.

Since the recognition and enforcement of judgments is a matter of EU exclusive competence, the Commission represents all Member States (except Denmark) on the basis of the negotiating directives adopted by the Council in 2016. A third Special Commission was held in November 2017, which focused on intellectual property matters and general and final clauses, whereas the fourth and final Special Commission Meeting will take place in May 2018. This hearing will therefore provide the opportunity to get up to speed with the results of the three meetings of the Special Commission as well as with the next steps and future stages of the project.

Announcement: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/events-hearings.html?id=20180403CHE03681

Draft Programme: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/141460/juri-committee-hearing-hague-judgments-project.pdf

April 2018 JURI Study: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/604954/IPOL_STU(2018)604954_EN.pdf

Université de Lausanne/BIICL Conference on ‘The UK, Switzerland, Norway and the EU: Cross-border Business Relations after Brexit’

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On 17 May, the Centre de droit comparé, européen et international of the University of Lausanne will host a joint conference with the British Institute of International and Comparative Law on ‘The UK, Switzerland, Norway and the EU: Cross-border Business Relations after Brexit’. The flyer can be found here. The conference, organised by Professor Eva Lein, intends to provide a forum to discuss the legal uncertainties arising from Brexit with regard to cross-border commercial relations between British, EU, Norwegian and Swiss companies companies.

It will feature the following panels:

Welcome: Eva Lein (UNIL / BIICL)

Panel 1: Trade and Services
Chair: Spyros Maniatis (BIICL / Queen Mary University of London)

  • Andreas Ziegler (UNIL)
  • Thomas Sebastian (Monckton Chambers)
  • Kaja Sandvig (DLA Piper, Oslo)
  • Federico Ortino (King’s College London / Clifford Chance)

Panel 2: Company Law and Insolvencies
Chair: Adam Johnson QC (Herbert Smith Freehills)

  • Stefania Bariatti (University of Milan)
  • Rodrigo Rodriguez (University of Lucerne)
  • John Whiteoak (Herbert Smith Freehills, London)
  • Kern Alexander (University of Zurich)

Panel 3: Dispute Resolution
Chair: Andrea Bonomi (UNIL)

  • Diana Wallis (former vice-President of the European Parliament / ELI)
  • Trevor Hartley (London School of Economics)
  • Benoît Arthur Mauron (Lalive)
  • Peter Arnt Nielsen (Copenhagen Business School)
  • Eva Lein (UNIL / BIICL)

University of Glasgow Ph.D. Scholarship – ‘The Europeanisation of International Private Law: Implications of Brexit for Children and Families in Scotland’

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University of Glasgow has announced a PhD scholarship opportunity for the project entitled “The Europeanisation of International Private Law: Implications of Brexit for Children and Families in Scotland” supervised by Professor Janeen Carruthers. The project shall commence in Oct 2018 and will provide (1) a stipend at the RCUK rate (2018-19 rate is £14,777 Full-Time); (2) 100 % tuition fee waiver; (3) access to the Research Training Support Grant. UK/EU and International applicants are eligible to apply.

For more information, please visit the university website, or follow this link:  The Europeanisation of International Private Law – Implications of Brexi….

Dutch workshop on Cross-Border Enforcement in the EU (“IC²BE”)

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On Monday, 23 April 2018, the Erasmus School of Law of Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands) will host a national workshop that takes place within the framework of the research project “Informed Choices in Cross-Border Enforcement” (IC²BE). Funded by the Justice Programme (2014-2020) of the European Commission, the project aims to assess the working in practice of the “second generation” of EU regulations on procedural law for cross-border cases, the European Enforcement Order, European Order for Payment Procedure, the European Small Claims Procedure and the Account Preservation Order. The project has the objective to create a database of national case law. The project is led by the University of Freiburg (Prof. Jan von Hein), and partners are the MPI Luxembourg and the universities of Antwerp, Complutense, Milan, Rotterdam, and Wroclaw.

Four speakers will present the European procedures and share experiences on the application of the procedures in the Netherlands. The speakers are: Prof. C.H. (Remco) van Rhee (University of Maastricht), Kasper Krzeminski (Lawyer at Nauta Dutilh), Jeroen Nijenhuis (judicial officer, board member Royal Professional Organization of Judicial Officers), and Eva Calvelo Muiño (director European Consumer Centre Netherlands). The workshop and roundtable are chaired by Xandra Kramer (Erasmus University Rotterdam).

The language of the workshop is Dutch. Partcipation is free of charge, but requires registration. Further information on the program and on how to register is available here: Workshop IC2BE NL-Rotterdam

Evidence in Spanish and Greek Law on Civil Procedure

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Prof. Makridou and Prof. Diamantopoulos are hosting on 23/04/2018 a seminar on the law of evidence in Spain and Greece. The event starts at 09.00 and will take place in the conference room of the Central Library of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

The program of the seminar is the following:

CHAIRMAN

Prof. Konstantinos Polyzogopoulos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

SPEAKERS

Prof. Fernando Gascón Inchausti, Complutense University of Madrid

Prof. Enrique Vallines Garcia, Complutense University of Madrid

Prof. Kalliopi Makridou,  Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Ass. Prof. Ioannis Delikostopoulos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

CONCLUSIONS

Prof. Georgios Diamantopoulos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

 

This seminar forms part of a project initiated by Prof. Makridou and Prof. Diamantopoulos back in 2014. In the course of the past 5 years, the professors have edited three volumes, published in the series ‘Greek and Foreign Civil Procedural Systems’, Sakkoulas Publications.

Vol. 1: Issues of Estoppel and Res Judicata in Ango-American and Greek Law (2014)

Vol. 2: Civil trial of first and second instance according to Swiss and Greek Law (2014)

Vol. 3: Provisional measures in Italian and Greek Law  (2016)

Save the date: Seminar International Business Courts

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Innovating International Business Courts: A European Outlook

On 10 July 2018, a seminar will be held on the establishment of international business courts in a number of Member States. It aims to discuss these initiatives, in particular the novelties in the court administration and the procedural rules, to exchange views on the possible impact on international commercial and complex litigation, and to reflect on the challenges ahead.

The seminar is organised by Erasmus School of Law (ERC project ‘Building EU Civil Justice’) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Procedural Law Luxembourg, and the Montaigne Centre for Judicial Administration and Conflict Resolution (Utrecht University)

More information on the program and how to register will follow soon!

Seminar International Business Courts – 10 July 20…

Recent Scholarship on Article 5 of the Rome I Regulation

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Yehya Badr, Associate Professor at the Alexandria University, Egypt, published an article “A Cure From Rome for Montreal’s Illness: Article 5 of the Rome I Regulation and Filling the Void in the 1999 Montreal Convention’s Regulation of Carrier’s Liability for Personal Injury”, in (2018) 83 JOURNAL OF AIR LAW AND COMMERCE 83.  The abstract reads:

“An examination of the 1999 Montreal Convention shows that the drafters did not intend to lay down a comprehensive treaty that would organize a carrier’s liability for personal injury to passengers. They opted to achieve a certain level of uniformity through enacting a set of rules that tackled several key issues such as the grounds for a carrier’s liability, the available defenses, and the limits on the recoverable damages. Consequently, some unaddressed issues created a void in the Montreal Convention and were then left without a clear remedy. In this article, a distinction is made between two types of voids: first, the definitional void describes the lack of definition for several key terms used in the Montreal Convention, such as “accident” and “carrier.” Second, the regulatory void describes the lack of rules to address issues such as determining the effect of a passenger’s contributory negligence as a defense for liability and the right of action. This article demonstrates that national courts have resorted either to the forum’s law or the forum’s choice-of-law rules to fill the void in the Montreal Convention. As a result, international uniformity of results cannot be achieved nor is there any predictability. This article recommends the adoption of Article 5 of the Rome I Regulation as a solution to this problem. Doing so would give both parties the freedom to choose a law from a predetermined list, and fill the above mentioned voids, while providing alternative choice-of-law rules if the parties decided not to choose a law to govern their contract for air carriage.”

The full text can be downloaded here.

First Issue of 2018’s Revue Critique de Droit International Privé

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The last issue of the “Revue critique de droit international privé” will shortly be released. It contains several casenotes and three articles. Read more

On the way towards a representative action for the protection of the collective interests of consumers in the EU

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Today, the EU Commission presented its long awaited proposal for a directive on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers (COM (2018) 184/3). The proposal and other related documents are available here. The directive shall appply to domestic and cross-border infringements (Article 2(1), 2nd sentence). With regard to the latter group of cases, the directive “is without prejudice to the Union rules on private international law, in particular rules related to court jurisdiction and applicable law” (Article 2(3)). However, Article 16 sets out some rules relevant for cross-border representative actions. It ensures the mutual recognition of the legal standing of qualified entities designated in advance in one Member State to seek representative action in another Member State. Moreover, it enables qualified entities from different Member States to act jointly within a single representative action in front of a single forum competent under relevant Union and national rules. The pertinent provision reads as follows:

“Article 16
Cross-border representative actions

1. Member States shall take the measures necessary to ensure that any qualified entity designated in advance in one Member State in accordance with Article 4(1) may apply to the courts or administrative authorities of another Member State upon the presentation of the publicly available list referred to in that Article. The courts or administrative authorities shall accept this list as proof of the legal standing of the qualified entity without prejudice to their right to examine whether the purpose of the qualified entity justifies its taking action in a specific case.

2. Member States shall ensure that where the infringement affects or is likely to affect consumers from different Member States the representative action may be brought to the competent court or administrative authority of a Member State by several qualified entities from different Member States, acting jointly or represented by a single qualified entity, for the protection of the collective interest of consumers from different Member States.

3. For the purposes of cross-border representative actions, and without prejudice to the rights granted to other entities under national legislation, the Member States shall communicate to the Commission the list of qualified entities designated in advance. Member States shall inform the Commission of the name and purpose of these qualified entities. The Commission shall make this information publicly available and keep it up to date.

4. If a Member State or the Commission raises concerns regarding the compliance by a qualified entity with the criteria laid down in Article 4(1), the Member State that designated that entity shall investigate the concerns and, where appropriate, revoke the designation if one or more of the criteria are not complied with.”