A few takeaways from the Conclusions & Decisions of the HCCH governing body (CGAP – 2026 meeting): parentage/surrogacy, jurisdiction project, cross-border recognition and enforcement of protection orders and a Note on the Trusts Convention

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This week the Conclusions & Decisions (C&D) of the HCCH governing body, the Council on General Affairs and Policy (CGAP or Council), were published. Click the links below for the relevant language versions (English, French and Spanish).

Although a wide range of topics were discussed, I would like to focus on four items: parentage/surrogacy project, the cross-border recognition and enforcement of protection orders, the jurisdiction project and a Note on the Trusts Convention.

In my view, the C&D are significant for two reasons. First, the work related to a possible new instrument of a long-standing topic at the HCCH has been concluded (without a Convention) and secondly, a “new” topic has been inserted into the agenda of the HCCH. For more information, see below. Read more

Muscles from Munich? How German Courts Might Stop US Companies from Violating Copyright through AI Training

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Yesterday, the Regional Court of Munich (Landgericht München I) held a highly interesting oral hearing in a dispute brought by GEMA, a German collecting society representing composers, and Suno, a generative music AI company based in Cambridge, MA. The hearing was noteworthy, first, because it gave the public an opportunity to listen to numerous international hits, from Alphaville’s Forever Young to Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5 (and their alleged copies created by Suno) in a courtroom; and secondly, because the dispute raises some interesting questions of private international law.

After GEMA had already scored a famous victory against OpenAI in November 2025, when the same chamber of the Munich Court had held that the company had been violating the copyrights of several artists and composers by reproducing their song texts, the present proceedings differed not just in scope (focusing on the musical arrangement rather than texts) but also in its international dimension. For the first time, the claimant explicitly included the use of the protected works for training that had happened (according to both parties) exclusively in the US.

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German Federal Court of Justice on the Pegasus-Software Scandal: States do not have a general right of personality

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This case note is kindly provided by Dr. Samuel Vuattoux-Bock, LL.M. (Kiel), Freiburg University (Germany)

On February 24, 2026, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled on the Kingdom of Morocco’s claim against the German news portal “Zeit Online” (Case no. VI ZR 415/23). In 2021, the journal alleged that Morocco had spied on several lawyers, journalists, and high-ranking politicians, including French President Emmanuel Macron, using the surveillance software “Pegasus”. Morocco denied the allegations and sued the publication for damages, claiming an infringement of its general right of personality. The Federal Court of Justice of Germany, the highest court for civil and criminal matters, rejected Morocco’s claim, arguing that states do not have such a right. This decision is interesting because it lies at the intersection of private international law, national tort law, and public international law. The following article aims to present the main points of this decision in terms of both its international and substantive aspects.

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CC BY SA 3.0 ComQuat Wikimedia Commons

Climate Litigation Before the German Federal Court of Justice – “Too Complex” for Private Law instruments?

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Written by Marc-Philippe Weller, Carolina Radke, and Marianna Dänner (all Heidelberg University)

On 2 March 2026, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof; “BGH”) held an oral hearing in two proceedings concerning the civil liability of companies regarding climate change. The authors of this blog post attended the hearing as members of the audience.

The German NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) is suing the car manufacturers BMW and Mercedes Benz, requesting a legal order obliging both companies to refrain from placing combustion engine cars on the market beyond 2030. These two proceedings join the club of (strategic) climate change lawsuits in Germany. Crucially, they are the first of their kind based on tort law to reach the German Federal Court of Justice. Accordingly, the hearing was eagerly awaited by many. The decision, which will be rendered on 23 March 2026, will undoubtedly have an impact on future climate lawsuits.

While no issues of international jurisdiction or applicable law arose in the proceedings in question – as all Parties are seated in Germany –, the judgment of the BGH could further motivate foreign parties to bring claims against German companies, thereby giving rise to questions of international jurisdiction and the applicable law (see for more details Weller/Weiner, Corporate Climate Liability in Private International Law, in: Japanese Yearbook of Private International Law, Vol. 26 (2024), 2). In this context, one may refer to the deliberations of the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Hamm in Lliuya against RWE (OLG Hamm, 28. Mai 2025, 5 U 15/17).

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Brazilian Ruling Recognises US Name Change

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Written by Prof Dr João Costa-Neto, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Brasília
and Dr Pedro Pagano Payne, Academic Assistant, Faculty of Law, University of Brasília

 

In April 2025, the highest chamber (Corte Especial) of the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (STJ), under Justice Maria Isabel Gallotti as rapporteur, ruled on ‘Recognition of a Foreign Judgment’ (HDE) no. 7.091/EX. The case concerned the recognition of a United States ruling changing the last name of a Brazilian national who had acquired US nationality. The Plaintiff sought recognition of (i) his US naturalisation and (ii) a ruling of the Supreme Judicial Court of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which changed his name from ‘Ariosto Mateus de Menezes’ to ‘Matthew Windsor’. Read more

Anti-Arbitration Injunction in Foreign-Seated Arbitrations: The Delhi High Court’s Controversial Intervention in Engineering Projects (India) Limited v. MSA Global LLC (Oman)

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This post is posted on behalf of Arnav Sharma, Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat, India

 

Introduction

On 25th July 2025, a single judge bench of the Delhi High Court delivered a judgment in Engineering Projects (India) Limited v. MSA Global LLC (Oman) in CS (OS) 243 of 2025[1] that has stirred considerable discourse in international arbitration circles. The fundamental question at issue in the instant case was whether an Indian Court can grant an anti-arbitration injunction to stay proceedings in a foreign-seated arbitration on grounds of the proceedings turning oppressive and vexatious due to procedural impropriety, notwithstanding internationally well-settled principles of minimal judicial intervention, party autonomy, and lex arbitri that govern international commercial arbitration? The Delhi High Court answered in the affirmative, holding that Indian civil courts possess inherent power under Section 9 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (“CPC”) to intervene under exceptional circumstances where the arbitral process itself becomes a vehicle of abuse.

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Cross-Border Personal Data Transfers: The Remaining Issues Following the Indonesian Constitutional Court Decision

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Written by Dr Priskila Pratita Penasthika, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia

INTRODUCTION

The Indonesian Personal Data Protection Law, Law Number 27 of 2022 (Indonesian PDP Law), came into effect on 17 October 2022. Before its enactment, data protection rules in Indonesia were fragmented across different sector-specific laws and regulations. The Indonesian PDP Law aims to unify these laws and regulations, providing greater clarity and ensuring consistent personal data protection across all sectors in the country. The Indonesian PDP Law sets out normative provisions on personal data protection; however, detailed, practical rules have yet to be specified in the implementing regulations. As of now, the drafting of these implementing regulations is still underway. Read more

HUK-COBURG II: A Case on Mandatory Overriding Law or Jurisdiction?

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By Ross Pey, Western University, Canada

1. Introduction

In Case C-86/23 E.N.I. and Y.K.I. v HUK-COBURG-Allgemeine Versicherung AG II (‘HUK-COBURG II’), the principal issue that arose was whether a Bulgarian compensation provision may be interpreted as having mandatory effect. In suggesting that it does not, the Court required the facts to have sufficiently close links with the forum. (Hereinafter the ‘sufficient connexion test’) Ostensibly, a freestanding sufficient connexion test could be viewed as a disguised jurisdictional control of the forum rather than part of a mandatory law analysis. In doing so, parallels to renvoi and forum non conveniens are drawn. Read more

Book Review: L. d’Avout’s La Cohérence Mondiale Du Droit (Brill)

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The general course in private international law delivered at the Hague Academy of International Law by Louis d’Avout during the 2022 Summer Session was published in the Academy’s Pocket Books Series (1 032 pages). Louis d’Avout is Professor at Université Paris Panthéon-Assas. In addition to his numerous scholarly works, readers of this blog may recall that his special course on “L’entreprise et les conflits internationaux de lois” was also published in the Academy’s Pocket Books Series in 2019. The general course is title « La cohérence mondiale du droit » (“The Global Coherence of Law”). The publication of a general course in private international law—particularly in the Academy’s Pocket Books Series—deserves the attention of the readers of this blog. The aim of this review is, modestly, to offer a glimpse into this important work so readers who are sufficiently francophone may be encouraged to read it directly, while those who are not are offered a brief overview of the author’s approach.  Read more

Trial Supervision System No Longer Impediment in Hong Kong’s Recognition and Enforcement of Chinese Mainland Judgments

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1. Introduction

For more than 20 years after the handover, Hong Kong courts had regularly noted difficulties with the ‘trial supervision system’ (also known as ‘retrial procedure’ ) in the Chinese Mainland when attempting to recognise and enforce Mainland judgments under the common law, as the trial supervision system was thought to mean that these judgments fail to meet the ‘final and conclusive’ requirement. Such thinking was criticised by scholars as problematic.[1] To address the issue, statutory regimes on the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of judgments between the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong have been implemented. More recent studies documented changes in the judicial attitude of Hong Kong courts,[2] but there was a lack of definitive rulings to clarify the legal position. This article focuses on the most recent Hong Kong cases which confirmed that the trial supervision system in the Chinese Mainland has no automatic impact on the recognition and enforcement of Mainland judgments in Hong Kong. A party alleging that the trial supervision system has affected the finality and conclusiveness of a Mainland judgment must prove the likelihood of a retrial being ordered through factual and/or expert evidence.

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