The Applicability of Arbitration Agreements to A Non-Signatory Guarantor—A Perspective from the Chinese Judicial Practice

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(authored by Chen Zhi, Wangjing & GH Law Firm, PhD Candidate at the University of Macau)

It is axiomatic that an arbitration agreement is generally not binding on a non-signatory unless some exceptional conditions are satisfied or appear, while it could even be more controversial in cases relating to guarantee where a non-signatory third person provides guarantee to the master agreement in which an arbitration clause has been incorporated. Due to the close connection between guarantee contract and master agreement in their contents, parties or even some legal practitioners may take it for granted that the arbitration agreement in master agreement can be automatically extended to the guarantor albeit it is not a signatory, which can be a grave misunderstanding from judicial perspective and results in great loss thereby.  Read more...

CSDD and PIL: Some Remarks on the Directive Proposal

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by Rui Dias

 

On 23 February 2022, the European Commission published its proposal of a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD) in respect to human rights and the environment. For those interested, there are many contributions available online, namely in the Oxford Business Law Blog, which dedicates a whole series to it (here). As to the private international law aspects, apart from earlier contributions on the previous European Parliament resolution of March 2021 (info and other links here), some first thoughts have been shared e.g. by Geert von Calster and Marion Ho-Dac.

Building on that, here are some more brief remarks for further thought:

Article 2 defines the personal scope of application. European companies are covered by Article 2(1), as the ones «formed in accordance with the legislation of a Member-State», whereas those of a «third country» are covered by Article 2(2). While other options could have been taken, this criterium of incorporation is not unknown in the context of the freedom of establishment of companies, as we can see in Article 54 TFEU (basis for EU legal action is here Article 50(1) and (2)(g), along with Article 114 TFEU).

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German Judges Travel to Peru in Climate-Change Trial

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In a widely reported trip, members of the 5th Civil Chamber of the Higher Regional Court of Hamm, Germany, together with two court-appointed experts, travelled to Peru to collect evidence in one of Germany’s first climate-change lawsuits. The highly symbolic case has been brought by Saúl Luciano Lliuyas, a Peruvian farmer, who claims that man-made climate change and the resulting increased flood risk threatens his house in the Andes, which is located right below a glacial lake. Supported by two German NGOs, he seeks compensation from RWE, Europe’s single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, for the equivalent of its contribution to worldwide human carbon dioxide emissions, i.e. 0.47 percent, of the additional protective measures he had to take to flood-prove his house.

The trip had already been scheduled in 2019 but was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Its main purpose appears to have been the proper instruction of the two experts, who are charged with assessing the climate-change-related risk for the claimant and the extent of RWE’s potential contribution to it.  Read more...

Conflicting Views on the Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws

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The American Law Institute is currently drafting the Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws. Lea Brilmayer (an eminent scholar of conflict of laws and a professor at Yale Law School) and Kim Roosevelt (the Reporter for the Restatement (Third) and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School) recently engaged in a spirited debate about the current state of that project. Brilmayer and Daniel Listwa argued here that the current draft needs less theory and more blackletter rules. Roosevelt argued in response that the critics identify a problem that does not exist and propose a solution that would make things worse.

This exchange — the latest back-and-forth in a conversation between these interlocutors — is likely to prove illuminating to anyone curious about the status of the Restatement (Third) in the United States.

Can Blockchain Arbitration become a proper ‘International Arbitration’? Jurors vs. arbitrators

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Written by Pedro Lacasa, Legal Consultant, Universidad Nacional de Asunción

There is no doubt that the use of emerging technologies has impacted the international arbitration arena. This tech revolution was unprecedently accelerated by the 2020 pandemic whilst national States’ borders were closed, and travel activity diminished (if not directly forbidden by some States).

The increase of the application of the Blockchain technology in commercial contracts and the proliferation of smart contracts (even though some think they are in essence merely a piece of software code[1]) have reached the point of being a relevant part of international commerce and suddenly they demand more attention than before (see the overview of these new technologies and its impact in arbitration here http://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2019/01/27/2018-in-review-blockchain-technology-and-arbitration/).

The omnipresence of technology in arbitration and the application of the blockchain technology to dispute resolution mechanisms in the international arena led to the naissance of the ‘blockchain arbitration’.  Read more...

Conference Report: EAPIL YRN Conference on National Rules on Jurisdiction and the Possible Extension of the Brussels Ia Regulation

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The following conference report has been provided by Benjamin Saunier, Research Assistant at the Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas and Doctoral Candidate at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

The EAPIL Young Research Network held a conference on the topic Jurisdiction over non-EU defendants – Should the Brussels Ia Regulation be extended? on Saturday 14 and Sunday morning 15 May. The conference took place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, at the International University Centre operated by the University of Zagreb, which had co-funded the event together with the EU Commission. It gathered specialists from all over the world, including the non-EU Member States.

The conference was part of an ongoing research project directed by Drs Tobias Lutzi (Cologne/Augsburg), Ennio Piovesani (Torino) and Dora Zgrabljic Rotar (Zagreb). As explained by the organisers at the outset of the conference, the project, launched in June 2021, was inspired by Article 79 of the Brussels Ia Regulation, which provides for the EU Commission to come up with a report on the application of the Regulation, addressing in particular the need to extend its rules to defendants not domiciled in a member state. While the report has yet to be released, the organisers rightly felt it was of great interest to compare the practice of Member States for those cases where the defendant is not subject to rules of direct jurisdiction in the Regulation.  Read more...

The Chinese Court Recognizes an English Commercial Judgment for the First Time

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The Chinese Court Recognizes an English Commercial Judgment for the First Time
Written by Zilin Hao, Anjie Law Firm, Beijing, China

Introduction
On 17 March 2022, Shanghai Maritime Court of PRC issued a ruling of recognizing and enforcing a commercial judgment made by the English High Court, with the approval of Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”). This is the first time that Chinese court recognizes an English commercial judgment based on the principle of reciprocity, which is undoubtfully a milestone where the English court has not recognized the Chinese judgment before.  Read more...

Conflict of Laws of Freedom of Speech on Elon Musk’s Twitter

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Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has been a divisive event. Commenting on the response on Twitter and elsewhere, Musk tweeted:

The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all

>

By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.

I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.

If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.

Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.

Ralf Michaels quote-tweeted perceptively: ‘But which law?’

Twitter and the conflict of laws

By their very nature, digital platforms like Twitter present a variety of conflict of laws issues.  Read more...

The CISG Applies to Hong Kong and Mainland China Now: Shall Macau Follow Suit?

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(This post is provided by Zeyu Huang & Wenhui Chi. Mr. Huang practises law as a Shenzhen-based associate at Hui Zhong Law Firm. He holds LLB (Renmin U.), LLM & PhD (Macau U.). Ms. Chi is now working as a legal counsel at the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA) and the South China International Arbitration Center (Hong Kong) (SCIAHK). She holds BA (PKU), LLM & JD (PKU School of Transnational Law). The authors may be contacted at huangzeyu@huizhonglaw.com or chiwenhui@scia.com.cn.)

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Sierd J. Schaafsma, Intellectual Property in the Conflict of Laws; The Hidden Conflict-of-law Rule in the Principle of National Treatment

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This book presents a new explanation as to the conflict-of-law rule in the field of intellectual property. In addition, it also provides new insights into the history of the conflict-of-laws, aliens law and their relationship.

The book focusses on the difficult question whether the Berne Convention (on copyright) and the Paris Convention (on industrial property) contain a conflict-of-law rule. Opinions differ widely on this matter today. However, in the past, for the nineteenth-century authors of these treaties, it was perfectly self-evident that these treaties contain a conflict-of-law rule, namely in the ‘principle of national treatment’ as it is called. How is that possible? These are the fundamental questions at the heart of this book: does the principle of national treatment in the Berne Convention (article 5(1)) and the Paris Convention (Article 2(1)) contain a conflict-of-law rule? And if so, why do we no longer understand this conflict-of-law rule today?  Read more...