Last year we posted about an upcoming conference at the University of Sydney Law School on Commercial Issues in Private International Law. The programme for the conference, which will take place on 16 February 2018, is now available here.

Professor Andrew Dickinson, University of Oxford, and Professor TM Yeo, Singapore Management University, will give the keynote addresses.

Conference registration can be carried out via this link.

Following the entry into force of the new Insolvency Regulation across the European Union in June 2017, the MPI Luxembourg has released a book guiding practitioners and national lawmakers through the implementation of the new rules. The title corresponds to volume 10 of the Studies of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law collection (320 pp., ISBN 978-3-8487-4448-0).

The book is the result of a 2-year research project, co-funded by the European Commission under the Specific Programme “Civil Justice” and co-led by the MPI Luxembourg together with the Universities of Vienna and Milano. The project aimed to evaluate the changes that were brought to the European Insolvency Regulation in order to keep pace with the substantial developments in domestic law.

Beyond providing an overview of these changes and expected problems that lay ahead, the book puts forth a series of guidelines and recommendations to facilitate the application and interpretation of the new Regulation. It covers the three primary advancements of the Regulation:

(1) pre-insolvency proceedings that discourage liquidation in favour of rescue and restructuring;

(2) procedural instruments which facilitate the administration of complex cross-border insolvencies and, thus, reduce the opening of inefficient parallel insolvency proceedings via the strengthening of procedural cooperation;

(3) a procedural mechanism designed to reinforce coordination of corporate group insolvencies.

The book bridges the gap between academia and practice. Judges and practitioners, including representatives of the German Ministry of Justice, were invited to actively contribute to the discussions and enhanced the academic dialogue. Some of their inputs are published as well in the Annex to the book.

The table of contents can be found here.

It is my pleasure to announce in this and the following entries the publication of three new volumes of the Studies of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, starting with volume 8, edited by Professors B. Hess and X. Kramer.

From common rules to best practices in European Civil Procedure

2017, 486 p., ISBN 978-3-8487-4219-6

Click here to access the table of contents

Abstract:

What road should procedural innovation take? Twenty years after the adoption of the extended competence in the area of judicial cooperation under the Amsterdam Treaty, numerous instruments on European civil procedure have been developed and enacted by the EU legislature, and applied by national courts. There is no doubt that these instruments have built a genuine Judicial Area where citizens and businesses can rely on operating justice systems and functioning cross-border cooperation. While it remains important to study these legislative instruments and, where necessary, to establish new instruments, civil procedure in the EU has entered a new era in which the development of common standards and best practices in the Member States and at the EU level are of the essence.

The theme of the present book is inspired by the shift in focus from the establishment of new legislation with common rules to a focus on the actual implementation, application, and operationalization of the rules on cooperation in civil justice. While the discussion of common rules continues to be important and has regained importance as a result of the “common minimum standards” initiative of the European Parliament, some papers in this book also focus on how to move beyond common rules and towards best practices. These “best practices” in applying European instruments, implementing new pathways to civil justice – including eJustice, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and collective redress — and the operationalizing of judicial cooperation, for instance through the European Consumer Centres and the European Judicial Network, give body to the principles of mutual trust and judicial cooperation. These can in turn feed the further development of the European civil procedure framework from the bottom up.

Part I is a general part dedicated to common standards of EU civil procedure, focusing on the harmonization of civil procedure and judicial cooperation in general. The central questions of this part concern whether there is a need for common standards of EU civil procedure, how to identify them, and whether we need harmonization to achieve harmonious cooperation.

The chapters included in Part II of the book are organized around the question as to whether and how innovative mechanisms for dispute resolution can enhance cooperation in the field of civil justice. E-Justice has been one of the spearheads of the European Commission to improve access to justice, with the establishment of the e-justice portal as the main achievement.

Part III is dedicated to alternative dispute resolution. Encouraging and improving Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms, in particular for consumers, is another focal point in EU policy to simplify access to justice in recent years, and has resulted in the Directive on Consumer ADR48 and the Regulation on Consumer Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) along with the establishment of the ODR platform.

Part IV includes a number of short chapters on best practices in the EU to operationalize judicial operation and to improve mutual trust.

With contributions from more than 20 experts from practice and academia this remarkable conference volume offers valuable blueprints for a reinvigorated judicial cooperation.

A compendium of country reports on the law on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in ASEAN, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea has been published by the Asian Business Law Institute, a research institute based in Singapore. The list of contributors reads as follows:

1. Professor Elizabeth Aguiling-Pangalangan of the University of the Philippines;
2. Dr Andrew Bell, SC of Eleven Wentworth Chambers, Australia;
3. Dr Bich Du Ngoc of Ho Chi Minh City Open University;
4. Mr Youdy Bun of Bun & Associates, Cambodia;
5. Xaynari Chanthala and Mr. Kongphanh Santivong of LS Horizon (Lao) Limited;
6. Associate Professor Adeline Chong of Singapore Management University;
7. Professor Choong Yeow Choy of the University of Malaya;
8. Professor Guo Yujun of Wuhan University, China;
9. Professor Toshiyuki Kono of Kyushu University;
10. Mr Minn Naing Oo of Allen & Gledhill (Myanmar) Co Ltd;
11. Dr Colin Ong, QC of Dr Colin Ong Legal Services, Brunei;
12. Dr Yu Un Oppusunggu of the University of Indonesia;
13. Mr Narinder Singh of the Indian Society of International Law;
14. Dr Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit of the University of Tasmania; and
15. Professor Suk Kwang Hyun of Seoul National University.

You can download the compendium at: http://abli.asia/PROJECTS/Foreign-Judgments-Project.

Further information may be found in the publisher’s blurb:

Out Now: Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Asia

The Asian Business Law Institute’s (ABLI)* first publication in its ABLI Legal Convergence Series has been released, a compendium of country reports entitled “Recognition & Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Asia”.  This new publication has been edited by Associate Professor Adeline Chong of the School of Law, Singapore Management University, who is leading ABLI’s Foreign Judgments Project.

The compendium is the output of the first part of ABLI’s project to promote the convergence of the law on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Asia.

The compendium consists of 15 short and concise country reports which provide lawyers and businesses with an overview of how foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters are recognised in different jurisdictions in Asia and the requirements which would need to be fulfilled for a foreign judgment to be enforced in these jurisdictions.

This is the first time such a study is made covering the laws of the ten ASEAN countries and the major Asian economies of Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea. The reports are written by legal academics and practitioners from the 15 countries covered by the project and the compendium is freely available on ABLI’s website at: http://abli.asia/PROJECTS/Foreign-Judgments-Project.

The compendium will also act as a springboard for the next phase of ABLI’s Foreign Judgments Project which will consider whether sufficient areas of commonality exist for convergence in this area of the law and how convergence may best be achieved. The convergence of the foreign judgment rules in Asia is essential as Asia moves rapidly towards a borderless trading environment, as the greater portability of judgments within Asia will facilitate cross-border transactions by lowering transaction costs and associated legal friction among jurisdictions.

* The Asian Business Law Institute was launched in January 2016. It is a permanent institute based in Singapore that initiates, conducts and facilitates research with a view to providing practical guidance in the field of Asian legal development and promoting the convergence of Asian business laws. Its mission is to remove unnecessary or undesirable differences between Asian legal systems that pose obstacles to free and seamless trade. ABLI’s long-term strategic direction in accordance with its aims is set by its Board of Governors chaired by The Honourable the Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon of the Supreme Court of Singapore. The Board comprises representatives from Australia, China, India and Singapore and other internationally renowned legal experts.

A quick reminder regarding the third International Association of Procedural Law (IAPL) – Max Planck Institute Luxembourg Summer-School, which will take place in Luxembourg from the 1st to the 4th of July 2018, on the topic of “Privatizing Dispute Resolution and its Limits”.

The School is mainly addressed to post-doc students at the beginning of their academic career; however PhD candidates may be admitted in case their dissertation is already at an advanced stage, and provided the applicant shows a degree of academic maturity guaranteeing that his/her attendance to the school will be fruitful both for him/her and the School itself.

The selection process entails a two-stage process, based on the written materials submitted by the applicants. A pre-selection is made within the MPI among the applications correctly completed and received in due time on the basis of the candidate’s CV, his/her topic of research and his/her explanation of it (interest, methodological approach, novelty). The final decision lies with the MPI and the IAPL Presidium.

Applicants are requested to apply via the website platform set up to this effect. The application form therein provided for must be filled in with the following information:

An application form therein provided for must be filled up and the following documents upload:

• A short curriculum vitae indicating the nationality of the candidate, age and home institution; PhD topic, date and place of submission, degree awarded, members of the jury/commission; recent publications; grants and awards; stays abroad; current position
• A short description of the project of research to be discussed at the School (no more than 1000 words)
• A letter of recommendation from a renowned Law Professor or Practitioner

Up to 20 places will be available for applicants having procedural law and/or dispute resolution mechanisms as their main field of academic interest. All nationalities are welcome to apply. A good level of English, both orally and in writing, is nevertheless of the essence.

Please follow this link for the online application. Deadline: January 29, 2018.