11th International Forum on the e-APP (electronic Apostille Program) will be held in Fortaleza, Brazil, from 16 to 18 October 2019

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The Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) has announced that the 11th International Forum on the e-APP (electronic Apostille Program) will be held in Fortaleza, Brazil, from 16 to 18 October 2019.

The e-APP promotes the use of technology to further enhance the secure and effective operation of the HCCH Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents Apostille Convention (Apostille Convention).  Among the technologies that will probably be discussed are the use of distributed ledger technologies (such as blockchain) in accordance with the Conclusion & Recommendation No 35 of the HCCH Council.

The working languages of the Forum will be English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Many Contracting Parties have already implemented one or both components of the e-APP. There are already 35 Contracting Parties with an e-Register, many of which are in the Americas. See here.

More information (incl. registration process) will be made available on the Apostille Section of the HCCH website. While the number of participants is limited, registration is free of charge and will be handled on a first come, first served basis.

The HCCH news item is available here. See also the information relating to the 10th e-APP Forum as it compiled all previous Conclusions & Recommendations.

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The book titled I Regolamenti europei sui regimi patrimoniali dei coniugi e delle unioni registrate: commento ai Regolamenti (UE) 24 giugno 2016, n.1103 e 1104 applicabili dal 29 gennaio 2019, authored by Paolo Bruno, was recently released by the Italian publisher Giuffrè.

The official description (translated from the Italian original) states:

With the adoption of Regulations (EU) Nos. 1103 and 1104 of 2016, applicable from 29 January 2019, the supranational legislator has completed – albeit in the form of enhanced cooperation – the framework of European family law, dictating common rules on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions in matters of matrimonial property regimes and property effects of registered partnerships. After intervening over the course of a decade in the matrimonial matters and parental responsibility, then in terms of maintenance obligations and succession, the Council of the European Union has therefore provided citizens and professionals with the necessary coordinates to reach a complete definition of the property relationships of spouses and partners (between them and third parties) deriving directly from the creation of the family bond or its dissolution. Retracing the structure of the two legislative acts, as supplemented by the Implementing Regulations (EU) No. 1935 and No. 1990 of 7 and 11 December 2018 which adopted the standard forms attached to them, and commenting on the discipline in the light of the most recent rulings of the European Courts, the author examines their compatibility with the relevant institutes of Italian substantive and procedural law – from the reflections on the discipline of legal communion and applicability to registered partnerships and de facto couples, to exploring their practical implications in terms of circulation of agreements on assisted negotiation – in a constantly evolving regulatory and social context.

This book follows Bruno’s former book Le controversie familiari dell’Unione Europea published with the same editor in 2018.

Procedural Harmonization and Private Enforcement in the Area of Personal Data Protection

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Marta Requejo  has published recently an article on the Procedural Harmonization and Private Enforcement in the Area of Personal Data Protection. The article is featured in the latest edition of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law Research Paper Series, and may be retrieved here. Read more

The 2019 edition of the Brussels Global Week

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This year’s edition of the Brussels Global Week, an annual forum open to academics, researchers, students, NGOs, legal practitioners, regulators and decision-makers to discuss issues of law and globalization, will take place from 20 to 23 May 2019 at the Solbosch Campus of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Speakers include Karim Benyekhlef (Montréal), Jean-Sylvestre Bergé (Nice Sophia Antipolis), Walter Mattli (Oxford), and Wolfgang Schulz (Hamburg).

The Chaïm Perelman Lecture will be delivered by Gunther Teubner (Goethe Univ.).

The full programme can be found here. For further information, see here.

Preparing for Brexit, part 3

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After April Fools’ Day in the House of Commons, stepping up preparations for a no-deal Brexit has become more important than ever. Insofar, it should be noted that not only the EU Commission has been active in this regard (see our earlier posts here and here), but that national legislators are bracing for the fallout from a hard Brexit as well. On 29 March 2019, the German law on Brexit-related measures in the field of taxation entered into force. In spite of its bland title, this law goes far beyond tax law and includes transitory provisions in a number of important areas of business law, ranging from banking to insurance and securities law. Most articles provide that German authorities may order that British companies will be treated like EU companies for a transition period no longer than 21 months in case of a hard Brexit. By such an extension, the German legislature hopes to buffer the economic shocks that may arise in the absence of a withdrawal agreement.

Applicable Law and Jurisdictional Agreement in European Union International Family and Succession Law

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Dr. Marlene Brosch (Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law) recently published a book on Choice of Law Agreements and Jurisdictional Agreements in EU International Family Law and Succession Law.

 

Here is a brief overview provided by the author:

 

Choice of Law Agreements and Choice of Court Agreements are fundamental legal instruments in Private International Law, expressing the parties’ autonomy to determine the applicable law and the competent court(s). In the field of Family Law and Succession Law, party autonomy has only recently taken root through the enactment of several EU Regulations that recognise limited party autonomy: Rome III, Brussels II-bis, Maintenance Regulation, Succession Regulation, as well as the Regulations on Matrimonial Property Regimes and Property Regimes of Registered Partnerships.

 

The book constitutes an in-depth comparison of the rules on party autonomy in the aforementioned legal instruments from a functional and systematic perspective. Special regard is given to the interrelations between applicable law and jurisdiction. This comparative analysis serves as the starting point for
assessing inconsistencies and deficiencies, which further lead to discussing reform proposals for a more coherent normative system.

 

More information can be found at https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/rechtswahl-und-gerichtsstandsvereinbarung-im-internationalen-familien-und-erbrecht-der-eu-9783161562730?no_cache=1 .

The United Kingdom: Suspension of the UK accession to the HCCH Choice of Court Convention and of the UK ratification to the HCCH Child Support Convention from 1 April 2019 until 13 April 2019 or until 23 May 2019

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The UK has suspended its accession to the HCCH Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements (Choice of Court Convention) and its ratification to the HCCH Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (Child Support Convention) until 13 April 2019 or 23 May 2019 as the case may be in accordance with the European Council Decision. This takes effect as of 1 April 2019 (the scheduled date of their entry into force).

In the meantime, and as a Member State of the European Union,  European Union law, including the above-mentioned HCCH Conventions, will remain applicable to and in the United Kingdom.

Moreover, the UK adds with regard to the Choice of Court Convention: “As stated in the Note Verbale, in the event that the Withdrawal Agreement is signed, ratified and approved by the United Kingdom and the European Union, the United Kingdom will withdraw the Instrument of Accession which it deposited on 28 December 2018.”

And with respect to the Child Support Convention: “As stated in the Note Verbale, in the event that the Withdrawal Agreement is signed, ratified and approved by the United Kingdom and the European Union, the United Kingdom will withdraw the Instrument of Ratification which it deposited on 28 December 2018.”

Please note that a different set of declarations would apply if the UK instruments do enter into force. See here.

For more information, see here for the Choice of Court Convention and here for the Child Support Convention (Depositary’s website in both French and English).

Preparing for Brexit, part 2

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The European Commission has just released some new factsheets and Q&A documents regarding the consequences of a no-deal Brexit here. Inter alia, the information given concerns the rights of consumers (including the applicable law and the enforcement of judgments), of EU citizens living in the UK, of UK citizens living in the EU, and the position of EU students enrolled at UK universities. However, the date for a hard Brexit mentioned in the documents is still 29 March 2019, which is in any event no longer accurate after last week’s summit (see our previous post here).

Preparing for Brexit

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At the moment this note is written, it is unclear whether there will be another vote in the House of Commons concerning Theresa May’s deal with the EU-27 at all (see here for the latest developments). Already on 18 January 2019, the European Commission recognized that “[i]n view of the uncertainties surrounding the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement, all interested parties are reminded of legal repercussions which need to be considered when the United Kingdom becomes a third country”. In order to clarify matters, the Commission has published a so-called Preparedness Notice which is meant to give guidance to stakeholders with regard to the implications of a no-deal Brexit in the field of judicial cooperation and private international law. The full text of this notice is available here.

Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional, Vol. 11, No 1 (2019)

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The latest issue of Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional, an open-access online journal focusing on private international law, is out.

It features some sixty papers (in Spanish, English and Italian) covering a broad range of topics, such as matrimonial property regimes, trade names, the legal framework of drones, child abduction, international data transfers, successions upon death and antitrust torts.

The current issue, like previous ones, can be accessed here.