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The Justice Initiative Frankfurt am Main 2017
Written by Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. Burkhard Hess, Executive Director Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law
Against the backdrop of Brexit, an initiative has been launched to strengthen Frankfurt as a hot spot for commercial litigation in the European Judicial Area. On March 30, 2017, the Minister of Justice of the Federal State Hessen, Ms Kühne-Hörmann, organized a conference at which the Justice Initiative was presented. More than 120 stakeholders (lawyers, judges, businesses) attended the conference. The original paper was elaborated by Professors Burkhard Hess (Luxembourg), Thomas Pfeiffer (Heidelberg), Christian Duve (Heidelberg) and Roman Poseck (President of the Frankfurt Court of Appeal). Here, we are pleased to provide an English translation of the position paper with some additional information on German procedural law for an international audience. The proposal has, as a matter of principle, been endorsed by the Minister of Justice. Its proposals are now being discussed and shall be implemented in the next months to come. The paper reads as follows: Read more
Paris, the Jurisdiction of Choice?
On January 17th, the President of the Paris Commercial Court (Tribunal de commerce) inaugurated a new international division.
The new division, which is in fact the 3rd division of the court (3ème Chambre), is to be staffed with nine judges who speak foreign languages, and will therefore be able to assess evidence written in a foreign language. For now, the languages will be English, German and Spanish, as one juge speaking Spanish and two speaking German are currently on the court.
In an interview to the Fondation de droit continental (Civil law initiative), the President of the Court explained that the point was to make French justice more competitive and attract international cases. It also made clear that France was following Germany’s lead, where several international divisions were established in 2009 in Hamburg and Cologne.
French Commercial Courts
It should be pointed out to readers unfamiliar with the French legal system that French commercial courts are not staffed with professional judges, but with members of the business community working part-time at the court (and for free). In Paris, however, many of these judges work in the legal department of their company, and are thus fine lawyers.
Also, French commercial courts (and French civil courts generally) virtually never hear witnesses, so the issue of the language in which they may address the court does not arise.
Some issues
So, the new international division will be able to read documents in several foreign languages. However, nothing suggests that parties or lawyers will be able either to speak, or to write pleadings, in any other language than French. Lawyers arguing these cases will still need to file their pleadings in French, and thus to translate them in English beforehand for their clients. Furthermore, the interview of the Court’s President seems to suggest that using a foreign language will not be a right for the parties. Quite to the contrary, it seems that it will not be possible if one of the parties disagrees, and demands documents be translated in French.
Will that be enough to attract additional commercial cases to Paris?
I wonder whether introducing class actions in French civil procedure would have been more efficient in this respect.
For the full interview of the Court’s President, see after the jump.
News
The International Dimension of Intellectual Property Disputes
Lex & Forum Law Review and Sakkoulas Publications SA are organizing an online conference on:
The International Dimension of Intellectual Property Disputes
PRESIDING:
Prof. Lia Athanasiou, University of Athens
PRESENTERS:
• Prof. Dan Svantesson, Faculty of Law, Bond University/Australia,
‘Intellectual Property disputes and PIL: A Swedish and Australian perspective’
• Prof. Dr. Marketa Trimble, Samuel S. Lionel Professor of Intellectual Property Law, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Stanford University
‘The Territorial Discrepancy Between Intellectual Property Rights Infringement Claims and Remedies’
• Prof. Dr. Gerald Spindler, Faculty of Law, Georg-August Universität Göttingen
‘EU Digital Services Act und EU Digital Markets Act and its impact on private international law’
• Dr. Ioannis Revolidis, University of Malta,
‘International jurisdiction on online copyright infringements’
More information available here
FAMIMOVE (FAMIlies on the MOVE) – the website is now live!
FAMIMOVE is an international project co-funded by the European Commission under the JUST-2022-JCOO program. The FAMIMOVE website is now live and may be consulted by clicking here.
The project aims to improve the protection of migrant children and families by bringing actual practice more in line with EU goals and values, such as the protection of fundamental rights and best interests of the child. It also seeks to provide more effectiveness to EU objectives through a better coordination of instruments in overlapping fields, such as Regulations in private international law in family law matters and migration law rules. The duration of the project is 24 months (from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024). For more information, click here.
The Consortium is coordinated by Prof. Marta Pertegás Sender (University of Maastricht) and is comprised of the following partners: Prof. Bettina Heiderhoff (University of Münster), Prof. Costanza Honorati (University of Milano-Bicocca); Prof. Fabienne Jault (University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines), Prof. Ulf Maunsbach (Lund University), Prof. Orsolya Szeibert (Eötvös Loránd University) and Prof. Jinske Verhellen (Ghent University). Each Partner is further supported by colleagues with expertise in cross-cutting fields, thus bringing together experts who are representatives from a large range of European regions. More information is available here.
FAMIMOVE (actually, FAMIMOVE 2.0) is a spin-off of an earlier project with the same name, which was very successful and resulted in two insightful documents published by the European Parliament: Children on the Move: A Private International Law Perspective and Private International Law in a Context of Increasing International Mobility: Challenges and Potential.
Any new developments on FAMIMOVE will be published here – stay tuned!
Registration Open: Webinar Series on the Future of Cross-border Parenthood in the EU
As announced on this blog and on the blog of the EAPIL, a series of webinar has been organised under the title The Future of Cross-Border Parenthood in the EU – Analyzing the EU Parenthood Proposal.
This is just a quick reminder for those who also read the EAPIL blog – and a new announcement for those who do not – that registration is open through the form available here.
The programme of the series is as follows:
- 3 May 2023, webinar chaired by Claire Fenton-Glynn: Surrogacy in comparative perspective (Jens Scherpe), and What’s in it? Subject matter, scope and definitions (Cristina González Beilfuss)
- 10 May 2023, webinar chaired by Fabienne Jault-Seseke: The EU Proposal and primary EU law: a match made in heaven? (Susanne Gössl), and The law governing parenthood: are you my father? (Tobías Helms)
- 17 May 2023, webinar chaired by Nadia Rustinova: The mutual recognition of decisions under the EU Proposal: much ado about nothing? (Alina Ontanu), and Who decides on parenthood? The rules of jurisdiction (Maria Caterina Baruffi)
- 24 May 2023, webinar chaired by Steven Heylen: Authentic documents and parenthood: between recognition and acceptance (Patrick Wautelet), and The European certificate of Parenthood: a passport for parents and children? (Ilaria Pretelli)
The series of webinars is organized by Cristina González Beilfuss (Universitat de Barcelona), Susanne Gössl (Universität Bonn), Ilaria Pretelli (Institut Suisse de Droit Comparé), Tobias Helms (Universität Marburg) and Patrick Wautelet (Université de Liège) under the auspices and with the support of EAPIL, the European Association of Private International Law.