Views
New Article on Non-Party Access to Court Documents and the Open Justice Principle
Written by Ana Koprivica Harvey
Ms Ana Koprivica Harvey (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law) recently posted a new paper in the MPILux Research Paper Series, titled Non-Party Access to Court Documents and the Open Justice Principle: The UK Supreme Court Judgment in Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd v Dring. Below is an overview provided by the Author.
This article analyses the eagerly awaited the UK Supreme Court judgment in Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd v Dring, unanimously delivered on 29th July 2019. Broadly speaking, the case concerned the scope and operation of the constitutional principle of open justice. More precisely, the questions before the Supreme Court were how much of the written material placed before a court in a civil action should be accessible to persons other than the parties to the proceedings, and how such access should be facilitated. Read more
Service of Process abroad: Lost in Translation
Written by Benedikt Windau
Benedikt Windau, Judge at the Oldenburg District Court (Landgericht Oldenburg), runs a very interesting blog (in German), focusing on German Civil Procedure. In one of his recent postings, he presented a very interesting judgment of the Frankfurt CoA, related to the Service Regulation. Upon my request, he prepared an English version of his post for our blog.
A recent ruling of the Frankfurt Court of Appeals (Docket No. 13 U 210/17) will potentially shake up the (German) law of cross-border service quite a bit, as it imposes new, hence unknown obligations on the plaintiff – and its legal counsel accordingly. Read more
First impressions from Kirchberg on the EAPO Regulation – Opinion of AG Szpunar in Case C-555/18
Written by Carlos Santaló Goris
Carlos Santaló Goris is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Luxembourg. He offers a summary and an analysis of AG Spuznar’s Opinion on the Case C-555/18, K.H.K. v. B.A.C., E.E.K.
I. Introduction
Less than three years after Regulation 655/2014 establishing a European Account Preservation Order (“the EAPO Regulation”) entered into force, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) released its first Opinion on this instrument. This regulation established a uniform provisional measure at the European level, which permits creditors the attachment of bank accounts in cross-border pecuniary claims. In many senses, the EAPO regulation represents a huge step forward, particularly in comparison to the ex-ante scenario regarding civil provisional measures in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. It is no accident that in the first line of the Opinion, AG Szpunar refers to the landmark case Denilauler. Besides the concrete assessment of the preliminary reference, he found a chance in this case to broadly analyse the EAPO Regulation as such, contextualizing it within the general framework of the Brussels system. Read more
News
Van Den Eeckhout on CJEU case law in PIL matters – Follow up and a recently published paper
Veerle Van Den Eeckhout (working at the CJEU) has published a short article on recent CJEU case law in Private International Law matters.
The paper is entitled “CJEU case law. A few observations on recent CJEU case law.” It has been published as a contribution to the fifth volume in the series of the Dialog Internationales Familienrecht. The article sets the scene and contextualizes the findings detailed in the presentation given by the author on April 29, 2023 at the Dialog Internationales Familienrecht 2023 at the University of Münster. See also previously here on the presentation.
In essence, while presenting case law of the CJEU in PIL matters, the Author explored selected methodological aspects of reasoning employed by the Court of Justice, including deductive arguments and those aiming to ensure “consistency” within the whole system.
German Federal Court of Justice rules on what constitutes a genuine international element within the meaning of Art. 3(3) of the Rome I-Regulation (BGH, judgment of 29 November 2023, No. VIII ZR 7/23)
by Patrick Ostendorf (HTW Berlin)
The principle of party autonomy gives the parties to a contract the opportunity to determine the applicable substantive (contract) law themselves by means of a choice-of-law clause – and thus to avoid (simple) mandatory rules that would otherwise bite. According to EU Private International law, however, the choice of the applicable contract law requires a genuine international element: in purely domestic situations, i.e. where “all other elements relevant to the situation at the time of the choice” are located in a single country, all the mandatory rules of this country remain applicable even if the parties have chosen a foreign law (Art. 3 (3) Rome I Regulation).
The Nigerian Supreme Court now has a Specialist in Conflict of Laws
The authors of this post are Chukwuma Okoli, Assistant Professor in Commercial Conflict of Laws at the University of Birmingham, and Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg; and Abubakri Yekini, Lecturer in Conflict of Laws at the University of Manchester.
On December 21, 2023, the Nigerian Senate in line with Section 231(2) of the 1999 Constitution, confirmed the appointment of Honourable Justice Habeeb A.O. Abiru (“Justice Abiru”), alongside ten other justices, to the Nigerian Supreme Court, following the recommendation of the National Judicial Council and the Nigerian President. This appointment fills the vacancy created by recent retirements or deaths of some justices.