The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) has published the results on its Study “Cross-border restitution claims of looted works of art and cultural goods”. The objective of the Study is described as follows:

“Works of art and cultural goods looted in armed conflicts or wars usually travel across several borders when they are sold. The cross-border character of looted art creates legal challenges for restitution claims as they often concern various national jurisdictions, with differing rules, as well as fragmented and insufficiently defined legal requirements in international and European legal instruments. Against this background, this European Added Value Assessment identifies weaknesses in the existing EU legal system for restitution claims of works of art and cultural goods looted in armed conflicts and wars. Moreover, it outlines potential legislative measures that could be taken at the EU level and that could generate European added value through simplification and harmonisation of the legal system in this area.”

Against this background, the Study deals, inter alia, with

(i) shortcomings of Article 7 no. 4 Brussels Ibis Regulation;

(ii) possible improvements of choice of law in relation to cultural property such as the question of a “lex originis” as a potential variation to the lex rei sitae under certain circumstances;

(iii) potential amendments on the level of substantive law such as e.g. the accession of the remaining Member States to the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Goods or, alternatively, autonomous means of incorporating elements of this Convention or relevant provisions of the DCFR by extending Directive 2014/60/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State;

(iv) the special issue of Holocaust related claims for restitution, including options for developing an adequate sales law;

(v) accompanying measures on EU level such as increasing data exchange of results from provenance research or setting up a EU Agency for the Protection of Cultural Property.

The legal basis for this Study is the following: In accordance with Article 225 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the European Parliament has a right to ask the European Commission to take legislative action in a particular area. Such requests are based on a legislative initiative report by the parliamentary committee responsible. On 16 February 2016, the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament authorised its Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) to draft a legislative initiative report on cross-border restitution claims of looted works of art and cultural goods.

All legislative initiative reports must automatically be accompanied by a detailed European Added Value Assessment (EAVA). Accordingly, the JURI Committee asked the Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services (EPRS) to prepare an EAVA to support the legislative initiative report on the cross-border restitution claims of works of art and cultural goods looted in armed conflicts and wars. The Rapporteur is Pavel Svoboda (EPP, Czech Republic), Chairman of the JURI Committee. The author of the Study is Dr Christian Salm, Policy Analyst, European Added Value Unit. The Study is based on an externally commissioned scientific study (“Annex I”) by the author of these lines. Both texts are available here.

The new issue of “Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht  – The Rabels Journal of Comparative and International Private Law” (RabelsZ) has just been released. It contains the following articles:

Marc-Philippe Weller, Vom Staat zum Menschen: Die Methodentrias des Internationalen Privatrechts unserer Zeit (Referral, Recognition and Consideration: New Methodological Approaches in Private International Law):

This article draws attention to new methodological challenges posed by an increasingly globalized world: In modern European societies, individual interests are becoming more and more important, demanding private international law to no longer only determine the legal order closest connected to the respective case, but to consider individual interests and substantive arguments as well. To cope with these current developments, private international law must find a balance between individuals’ and states’ interests, while ensuring international consistency at the same time. This article aims at showing that these challenges can, however, be met if the existing system of referral was complemented by methods of recognition and consideration of local and moral data.

Dorothee Einsele, Kapitalmarktrecht und Internationales Privatrecht (Capital Market Law and Private International Law)

Claims for damages in the case of capital market offences not only grant compensation to market participants but also play an important role in the enforcement of market regulations. Hence, the question of which law is applicable to capital market offences becomes relevant. In this regard, one must make the following differentiation: If a (pre-)contractual relationship between the injuring party and the damaged person already exists at the time of the infringement, claims for damages are covered by the Rome I Regulation. Otherwise, the applicable law is determined by the Rome II Regulation. This means that the place of injury, which usually coincides with the place of habitual residence of the injured party, is, in principle, the decisive connecting factor (Art. 4(1)). However, this connecting factor, by focusing on the individual injured party, does not correspond with the character of capital market law as market organisation law. With regard to competition law, another set of rules regulating the organisation of markets, Art. 6 of the Rome II Regulation provides for the application of the law of the affected market. Since Recital 23 of the Rome II Regulation qualifies Art. 6 as a mere clarification of the general rule of Art. 4(1), the place of injury may be clarified accordingly for capital market offences and be interpreted as the law of the affected market. Capital market rules of conduct, however, are mostly overriding mandatory rules. Therefore, they are not covered by the general conflict-of-law rule for torts but are governed by special provisions, especially Art. 17 of the Rome II Regulation. The rationale of Art. 17 is to protect the legitimate expectations of the injuring party that the rules of conduct he had to comply with at the time the harmful act was committed will also be relevant to whether he has to pay damages. Therefore, the rules of conduct of the country in which the harmful act was committed, while often coinciding with the law of the affected market, may be taken into account when applying the substantive law. The rationale of Art. 17 even allows for primarily the rules of the affected market to be taken into account when market participants could expect this law and not the rules of the country where the harmful act was committed to be relevant for damage claims. Ultimately, this means that the rules of conduct of the affected market will usually be relevant, albeit not automatically but rather taking into account their nature as overriding mandatory rules. The differentiation between the applicable tort law and the relevant rules of conduct is already necessary for those rules that follow the country-of-origin principle. By contrast, it would not be consistent with the principles of the Rome I and Rome II Regulations to apply the tort law of the violated rule of conduct, as this would mean that overriding mandatory rules would determine the applicable tort law.

Hannes Wais, Einseitige Gerichtsstandvereinbarungen und die Schranken der Parteiautonomie (Unilateral Jurisdiction Agreements and the Limits of Party Autonomy)

1. Unilateral jurisdiction agreements may seem unfair when viewed from a purely procedural perspective. However, the mere imbalance of jurisdictional options between the parties may be counterbalanced by a financial or other benefit for the (procedurally) disadvantaged party. The regulation does not provide for a standard of review against which the implied unfairness can be measured.

2. Unilateral jurisdiction agreements may constitute an abuse of law. Such an abuse of law is generally prohibited under the Brussels I Regulation. Thus, where an abuse of law is ascertained, the unilateral jurisdiction agreement is void. An abuse of law exists where the sole purpose of the unilateral jurisdiction agreement is to render it impossible for the disadvantaged party to file a lawsuit or to appear in court.

3. Unilateral jurisdiction agreements may infringe substantive national law. Article 25(1) Brussels I Regulation provides for the application of the law of the prorogated forum for questions concerning the agreement’s substantive validity. Notwithstanding the still unclear definitive scope of Art. 25(1) Brussels I Regulation, the rules of lex fori prorogatiwill, in any case, apply where their purpose is to safeguard the existence of real party autonomy.

4. With regard to German substantive law, the provisions on the admissibility of standard contract terms (Secs. 305 ff. German Civil Code (BGB)) mostly fulfil these requirements. Due to the inherent imbalance in the procedural options, unilateral jurisdiction agreements differ from the conceptual approach to jurisdiction underlying the Brussels I Regulation. For this reason, where Secs. 305 ff. BGB are applicable, unilateral jurisdiction agreements are generally presumed to be void.

5. Article 31(2) Brussels I Regulation does not apply to unilateral jurisdiction agreements. Hence, these types of agreements are not immune to so-called “torpedo claims” that are filed with the sole purpose of delaying trial in the chosen court.

Johan Meeusen, Fieke van Overbeeke, Lore Verhaert, The Link Between Access to Justice and European Conflict of Laws after Lisbon, Much Ado About Nothing?

Since the Treaty of Lisbon, the access to justice principle has become “serious business”. Its insertion in the Treaty implies a certain gravity. The inclusion of conflict of laws within that realm provokes many questions. As has been explained in this paper, access to justice is not easy to define within the framework of the EU Treaty and is primarily understood in a procedural sense. It is therefore rather odd that European conflict of laws harmonisation should be approached in its light, as a procedural concept of access to justice does not seem apt to impose a substantive, policy-inspired direction upon conflict of laws, apart then from promoting the benefits served by harmonisation as such. Also, one could read in the strong emphasis by Articles 67(4) and 81(1) TFEU on mutual recognition of judicial and extrajudicial decisions in civil matters another confirmation of this procedural approach towards conflict of laws in the EU, which could eventually result in its completely auxiliary position.

From a conflict of laws perspective, yet paradoxically even more so from a broader EU perspective, such limited understanding of the purpose which choice-of-law rules can serve, would be unfortunate as some specific and valuable features of conflict of laws might remain unused. Appropriate choice-of-law rules may in their way contribute to the attainment of substantive policy goals. It should be noted however that not only this ability to incorporate policy objectives in choice-of-law rules pleads for a well-balanced approach between mutual recognition and European conflict of laws as developed by the EU legislature. Harmonised choice-of-law rules in important or delicate fields tend to create more legal certainty as well as inspire more political and judicial acceptance, one must assume, than a system solely based on mutual recognition. The Rome I, II and III Regulations and those on Maintenance and Succession illustrate the advantages of an elaborated, legislative system of conflict of laws very well. The AFSJ, however broad and vague this concept still may be, can certainly serve as an appropriate framework for the elaboration of private international law within the EU with ample space for the establishment of such a well-balanced system. The prominent place of the AFSJ, enhanced by the Treaty of Lisbon and paralleled with the clear categorisation of conflict of laws in this area, can be very instrumental in both preventing an isolated approach to conflict of laws and providing a framework which would fit its proper characteristics. Possibly, the somewhat enigmatic link with access to justice, in a modern understanding which includes substantive policies, could even stimulate this process.

The information below has been kindly provided by the European Commission

The European Commission (Directorate General for Justice and Consumers) is establishing a new expert group which shall assist the Commission in the revision and the preparation of a possible initiative with regard to Regulation (EC) 1393/2007 on service of documents and Regulation (EC) 1206/2001 on taking of evidence. The group shall be composed of 20 members appointed in a personal capacity who are experts in the area of cross-border judicial co-operation in civil and commercial matters. The call for members is open until 27 November 2017. More information is available here and here.

On 2 and 3 November 2017, the Radboud University at Nijmegen hosted the 9^th Transnational Commercial Law Teachers’ Meeting. In these meetings, teachers of transnational commercial law from all over the world gather to discuss fundamental issues and core instruments of unified or harmonized commercial law as laid down in the “bible” of transnational commercial law by Roy Goode, Herbert Kronke and Ewan McKendrick (see here), but also current trends and teaching methods.

This time, the meeting focused on “Transnational Commercial Law and Natural Resources”. After the opening by the President of the University Daniel Wigboldus, Herbert Kronke (Iran-US Claims Tribunal, emeritus of Heidelberg University, former Secretary-General of UNIDROIT) and Thomas Keijser (Radboud University), in a first panel chaired by Charles Mooney, University of Pennsylvania Law School, several speakers addressed the latest developments of UNIDROIT’s Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and its latest Protocol on Mining, Agriculture and Construction Equipment (MAC Protocol) as well as further potential areas of application such as e.g. renewable energy machinery but also with a view to other types of cross-border secured transactions (Howard Rosen, Rail Working Group, Benjamin von Bodungen, German Graduate School of Management and Law, Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Ole Börger, Judge at the Oberlandesgericht at Bremen, Peter Winship, Southern Methodist University School of Law, Louise Gullifer, University of Oxford/Radboud University, Jeffrey Wool, Aviation Working Group, University of Washington School of Law, University of Oxford).

A second panel chaired by Anna Veneziano, Secretary-General of UNIDROIT ad interim, University of Teramo, dealt with UNIDROIT’s projects on contract farming, in particular its Legislative Guide, discussed by Henry Gabriel, Elon School of Law and Bruno Zeller, University of Western Australia.

In the following Athanassios Kaissis (Aristotle University and International Hellenic University of Thessaloniki) shortly presented the concept and the didactics of his LL.M. in Transnational and European Commercial Law, Mediation, Arbitration and Energy Law, and the author of these lines did likewise on the semester abroad program of EBS University in Wiesbaden “EBS Law Term: Transnational Commercial Law”.

Chaired by Herbert Kronke, Hector Tsamis (PhD student of the International Hellenic University), Hannah Buxbaum (Indiana, Maurer School of Law), and Charles Mooney presented legal and regulatory approaches towards sustainable finance and sustainability reporting and securities disclosure regimes. It became clear that sustainability is being more and more supported on all levels including capital markets regulation (financial disclosure requirements) and corporate governance (non-financial accounting standards). The first day closed with an inspiring dinner speech by Roy Goode.

The second day focused on private law in general in respect to responsibilities, liabilities and litigation. On the first panel chaired by Hannah Buxbaum, Hans van Loon (Former Secretary-General of the Hague Conference) presented principles and building blocks for a global legal framework for civil litigation in environmental matters. He referred to international instruments bringing about a shift of paradigm such as e.g. the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or the Ruggie Principles taken up more and more in strategic litigation such as the lawsuit against RWE in Germany by a Peruvian farmer at the city of Huaraz on the delictual responsibility for contributing to climate change and thus threatening the livelihood of the claimant. This case (see e.g. the report by the NGO Germanwatch) will be decided upon appeal by the Upper Regional Court of Hamm on 13 November 2017, a timely moment during the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn. Jaap Spier (retired Advocate-General in the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Universities of Amsterdam and Stellenbosch) continued the topic with a view on enterprise principles. Marc Loth (Tilburg University) drew some lessons from the Urgenda case, a Dutch case raising the issue of state liability for climate change (Urgenda Foundation v. The State of the Netherlands, see e.g. here) and Jan van Dunné, Erasmus University Rotterdam, analyzed liability issues in gas and coal mining for damages caused by soil subsidence, earthquake and subsoil water management under Dutch law. Finally, Tedd Moya Mose (PhD student of Queen Mary University of London), presented on international financing of renewable energy.

After a second interlude on didactics by Camilla Anderson (University of Western Australia) and Caslav Pejovic (Kyushu University), Athanassios Kaissis took the chair for the afternoon panel on dispute resolution. Pauline Ernst (Radboud University) and Gerard Meijer (NautaDutilh) presented on experiences from practice on arbitration and energy sector, both commercial and investor-state. Anna Marhold (Tilburg University) reported on dispute resolution mechanisms and the role of the industry in European regulatory agencies for energy. Vesna Lazic (Utrecht University) spoke about the “enforcement” of annulled arbitral awards in light of the Pemex and (one of the several) Yukos cases. Finally, the author of these lines presented on a recent type of cases in environmental litigation in which claimants seek to draw the foreign, in particular African, subsidiaries of European groups of companies into European courts in order not only to get damages but also to get injunctive relief against the subsidiary to stop them from further pollution or to have them taking measures immediately to protect the local population.

The primary example at the moment is Royal Dutch Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. In the UK, this is the case of Okpabi & Ors v Royal Dutch Shell Plc & Anor, [2017] EWHC 89 (TCC), 26 Jan 2017, appeal pending. Similar case against other UK parents are Lungowe & Ors v Vedanta Resources Plc & Anor, [2016] EWHC 975 (TCC), 27 May 2016, appeal dismissed 13 October 2017, [2017] EWCA Civ 1528, and AAA & Ors v Unilever Plc & Anor, [2017] EWHC 371 (QB), 27 February 2017. For the respective ligitation against Shell in the Netherlands see A.F. Akpan v. Royal Dutch Shell, plc, District Court of the Hague (Rechtbank), 30 January 2013, confirmed on the jurisdictional issues by the Court of Appeal (Gerechtshof) of the Hague, judgment of 17 December 2015). As opposed to most English decisions, the Dutch Court of Appeal signalled a willingness to further develop the applicable Nigerian tort law in light of (the similar) English law on the parent’s duties of care for its subsidiaries towards a liabililty, but the appeal on the merits is still pending. This evolving case law meets with legislative initiatives (e.g. France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, EU in respect to conflict minerals) that seek to establish more clearly a direct delictual liability of the parent company that in turn is the key requisite for establishing “annex” jurisdiction (“forum connexitatis”) under a “real case” or proximity analysis for the foreign subsidiary located in third states to which Article 8 no. 1 Brussels Ibis Regulation does not apply, but rather the respective for a connexitatis under national jurisdictional law. Such forum connexitatis does not exist under German national procedural law which might be the explanation why this type of case has not arisen in Germany, but one might of course think of delictual jurisdiction for both the parent and the foreign subsidiary by mutual attribution of delictual actions as joint tortfeasors, a concept that is interpreted broadly under section 32 German Code of Civil Procedure but of course again requires such a delictual claim against the parent under the applicable tort law in the first place.

After some input on space law by Frans van der Dunk (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, College of Law) the conference was closed by Dean Steven Bartels. The conference expressed its gratitude and appreciation to him and in particular to Thomas Keijser and his splendid team for inviting the 9^th TCL Teachers’ Meeting to Radboud University and for the great hospitality of one of the best universities of the country (at [one of?] the oldest cities in what is today the Netherlands and a Member of the Hanse, i.e. the Hanseatic League, as of 1402).

Hart Publishing Ltd. (UK) has just announced the release of Cross-Border Litigation in Europe, edited by Paul Beaumont, Mihail Danov, Katarina Trimmings and Burcu Yüksel (ISBN 9781782256762, £90.00). The following description is drawn from the publisher’s flyer:

“This substantial and original book examines how the EU Private International Law (PIL) framework is functioning and considers its impact on the administration of justice in cross-border cases within the EU. It grew out of a major project (ie EUPILLAR: European Union Private International Law: Legal Application in Reality) financially supported by the EU Civil Justice Programme. The research was led by the Centre for Private International Law at the University of Aberdeen and involved partners from the Universities of Freiburg, Antwerp, Wroclaw, Leeds, Milan and Madrid (Complutense).
The contributors address the specific features of cross-border disputes in the EU by undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and national case law on the Brussels I, Rome I and II, Brussels IIa and Maintenance Regulations. Part I discusses the development of the EU PIL framework. Part II contains the national reports from 26 EU Member States. Parts III (civil and commercial) and IV (family law) contain the CJEU case law analysis and several cross-cutting chapters. Part V briefly sets the agenda for an institutional reform which is necessary to improve the effectiveness of the EU PIL regime. This comprehensive research project book will be of interest to researchers, students, legal practitioners, judges and policy-makers who work, or are interested, in the field of private international law.”

For further details, please click here.