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This one is next: the Netherlands Commercial Court!

By Georgia Antonopoulou, Erlis Themeli, and Xandra Kramer, Erasmus University Rotterdam (PhD candidate, postdoc researcher and PI ERC project Building EU Civil Justice)

Following up on our previous post, asking which international commercial court would be established next, the adoption of the proposal for the Netherlands Commercial Court by the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) today answers the question. It will still have to pass the Senate (Eerste Kamer), but this should only be a matter of time. The Netherlands Commercial Court (NCC) is expected to open its doors on 1 July 2018 or shortly after. Read more

A European Law Reading of Achmea

Written by Prof. Burkhard Hess, Max Planck Institute Luxembourg.

An interesting perspective concerning the Achmea judgment of the ECJ[1] relates to the way how the Court addresses investment arbitration from the perspective of European Union law. This paper takes up the judgment from this perspective. There is no doubt that Achmea will disappoint many in the arbitration world who might read it paragraph by paragraph while looking for a comprehensive line of arguments. Obviously, some paragraphs of the judgment are short (maybe because they were shortened during the deliberations) and it is much more the outcome than the line of arguments that counts. However, as many judgments of the ECJ, it is important to read the decision in context. In this respect, there are several issues to be highlighted here: Read more

CJEU on the compatibility with EU law of an arbitration clause in an Intra-EU BIT – Case C-284/16 (Slovak Republic v Achmea BV)

Written by Stephan Walter, Research Fellow at the Research Center for Transnational Commercial Dispute Resolution (TCDR), EBS Law School, Wiesbaden, Germany

Today, the CJEU has rendered its judgement in Slovak Republic v Achmea BV (Case C-284/16). The case concerned the compatibility with EU law of a dispute clause in an Intra-EU Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic which grants an investor the right to bring proceedings against the host state (in casu: the Slovak Republic) before an arbitration tribunal. In concrete terms, the German Federal Court of Justice referred the following three questions to the CJEU (reported here): Read more

News

AMEDIP’s upcoming webinar: child support cases between Mexico and the United States of America – 23 February 2023 (at 14:30 Mexico City time)

The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) is holding a webinar on Thursday 23 February 2023 at 14:30 (Mexico City time – CST), 21:30 (CET time). The topic of the webinar is the Right to Child Support within the international framework – Mexico and the United States of America and will be presented by Claudia Sierra Martínez of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) (in Spanish).

By way of context, please note that Mexico is not yet a party to the 2007 HCCH Child Support Convention but the United States is. On the other hand, Mexico is a party to the Inter-American Convention on Support Obligations and the United Nations Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance but the United States is not. Faced with this conundrum and given the great number of Child Support cases between these two countries, other solutions have been made available (think for example of US domestic law / bilateral practices).

The details of the webinar are:

Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87996362538?pwd=QjNuZThqNUpTVHQ3cFZaZ1BXZ0YzQT09

Meeting ID: 879 9636 2538

Password: AMEDIP

Participation is free of charge.

This event will also be streamed live: https://www.facebook.com/AmedipMX

Lex & Forum, Volume 4/2022 – A special on cross border family law

Family disputes constitute the majority of cases of cross-border nature. The free movement of people within the European judicial space and the integration of third-country nationals has created a considerable number of multinational family structures, that give rise to a significant number of legal disputes, leading to complex conflict of law issues. It is no coincidence that in the area of family disputes one could identify the most extended number of EU legislative initiatives, from Regulation 1347/2000 (Brussels II Regulation) on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and in matters of parental responsibility for children of both spouses, followed by the “successors”, i.e., Regulation No 2201/2003 (Brussels IIa Regulation) and Regulation 2019/1111 (Brussels IIb Regulation), Regulation 4/2009 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and cooperation in matters relating to maintenance obligations, Regulation 1259/2010 (Rome III Regulation) on the applicable law to divorce and legal separation, as well as and Regulations 2016/1103 and 2016/1104 on international jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions in matters of matrimonial property regimes and, registered partners, respectively, covering the maximum scope of personal or property family disputes. It is also notable that, as concluded after examining the data kindly brought to our attention by the Thessaloniki Court of First Instance Department of Publications, out of one hundred court judgments related to international law issued in the year 2022 by the above mentioned Court, approximately 70% of them concerned family disputes in a broader sense, either within the EU, or related to third countries, demonstrating the importance of the matter in practice.

Cross-border family disputes are the Focus of the current issue and were examined in an online conference of Lex and Forum (8.12.2022), under the Presidency of the Supreme Court Judge, Ms. Evdoxia Kiouptsidou-Stratoudaki. The topics of the conference concern the international jurisdiction on matrimonial and child custody disputes according to Regulation No 2019/1111, by Ioannis Delikostopoulos, Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Athens; the practical problems of the application of the Regulations for family disputes and parental custody disputes, by Ms. Aikaterini Karaindrou, Judge at the First Instance Court; the agreements on the exercise of parental care according to Regulation No 2019/1111 and their relationship with Greek law, by Aikaterini Fundedaki, Professor at the Law Faculty of the University of Thessaloniki; Law No 4800/2021 and the harmonization of the Greek legal provisions with international law, by Ioannis Valmantonis, Judge at the Court of Appeal, and the new Hague Convention for the protection of adults, by Dr. Vasileios Sarigiannidis, Head of the Private International Law Department at the Hellenic Ministry of Justice.

The present issue also contains case comments on the CJEU judgment, 15.11.2022, Senatsverwaltung/TB, on the recognition of dissolution of marriage from another member state, by Dr. Apostolos Anthimos; the CJEU judgments, 15.11 .2021, ??/FA and 10.2.2022, OE/VY, on the concept of habitual residence and, respectively, the importance of the length of residence of the claimant in a member state for the establishment of international jurisdiction under the Brussels IIa/b Regulation, by Paris Arvanitakis, Professor at the University of Thessaloniki, and . Stefania Kapaktsi, Judge at the Court of First Instance; the Greek Supreme Court judgment No 30/2021 on the declaration of enforceability of a foreign decision on the distribution of the spouses’ common property, by Dr. Apostolos Anthimos; the Greek Supreme Court cases No 48/2021 and 54/2021 on international child abduction, by Ioannis Valmantonis, Judge at the Court of Appeal; the judgment of the Thessaloniki First Instance Court No 1285/2022, on the temporary regulation of contact rights according to the Brussels IIb Regulation and the 1996 HAGUE Convention, by Professor Delikostopoulos, and the German Supreme Court judgment dated from 29.9. 2021, on the non-opposition to public order of a marriage performed by a proxy, with a note by Dr. Anthimos. The jurisprudence section also contains the CJEU decisions, 22.4.2022, Volvo/RM, regarding the temporal scope of the Directive No 2014/104 and their incorporation into substantive or procedural EU law, accompanied by the Opinion of the Advocate General, Mr. Athanassios Rantos, with a case comment by Dr. Stefanos Karameros, PhD, and the Court of First Instance case No 13535/2019, on the possibility of implicit prorogation of jurisdiction in case of provisional measures in the Brussels Ia Regulation, despite a contrary agreement, with a case comment by Ioanna Pissina, PhD Candidate.

The issue is completed with the Praefatio by Vassilios Christianos, Emeritus Professor at University of Athens, and former Director of the Center of International and European Economic Law, regarding the contribution of the comparative method to EU procedural law; the expert opinion by Dimitrios Tsikrikas, Professor at the Athens Faculty of Law, on the scope of application of choice-of-court agreements in bond loans and interest rate contracts; and finally, the analysis of practical issues on the recognition of foreign divorce decrees, focusing on the difficulties of the applicants to prove the finality of the foreign decision (L&F Praxis), by Dr. Anthimos.

[editorial prepared by Professor Paris Arvanitakis, scientific director of Lex & Forum]

Virtual Workshop on March 7: Dário Moura Vicente on Investment Arbitration

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its 31st monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00 a.m.  12:30 p.m. (CET). Dário Moura Vicente (University of Lisbon) will speak, in English, about the topic

Investment Arbitration Lost in the Bermuda Triangle of EU Law, Public International Law and Private International Law?

The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.

If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.