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Forcing a Square Peg into a Round Hole – The Actio Pauliana and the Brussels Ia Regulation
Earlier today, the Court of Justice held that, under certain circumstances, special jurisdiction for an actio pauliana can be based on Art. 7(1) Brussels Ia (Case C-337/17 Feniks).
The actio pauliana is an instrument provided by the national laws of several EU member states that allows the creditor to challenge fraudulent acts by their debtor that have been committed to the creditor’s detriment. The ECJ already had several opportunities to decide on the availability of individual grounds of special jurisdiction for such an action, but has reliably denied their availability. In today’s decision however, the Court confirmed the availability of special jurisdiction for matters relating to contract, contrary to the proposition of AG Bobek (Opinion delivered on 21 June 2018). Read more
International commercial courts: should the EU be next? – EP study building competence in commercial law
By Erlis Themeli, Xandra Kramer, and Georgia Antonopoulou, Erasmus University Rotterdam (postdoc researcher, PI, and PhD candidate ERC project Building EU Civil Justice)
Previous posts on this blog have described the emerging international commercial and business courts in various Member States. While the primary aim is and should be improving the dispute resolution system for businesses, the establishment of these courts also points to the increase of competitive activities by certain Member States that try to attract international commercial litigation. Triggered by the need to facilitate business, prospects of financial gain, and more recently also by the supposed vacuum that Brexit will create, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium in particular have been busy establishing outlets for international commercial litigants. One of the previous posts by the present authors dedicated to these developments asked who will be next to enter the competition game started by these countries. In another post, Giesela Rühl suggested that the EU could be the next. Read more
Genocide by Expropriation – New Tendencies in US State Immunity Law for Art-Related Holocaust Litigations
On 10 July 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rendered its judgment in the matter of Alan Philipps et al. v. the Federal Republic of Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz.
This case involves a claim by heirs of Holocaust victims for restitution of the „Welfenschatz“ (Guelph Treasure), a collection of medieval relics and devotional art housed for generations in the Cathedral of Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany. This treasure is now on display at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin (Museum of Decorative Arts) which is run by the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz. The value of the treasure is estimated to amount to USD 250 million (according to the claim for damages raised in the proceedings). Read more
News
RabelsZ 87 (2023): Issue 4
The latest issue of RabelsZ has just been released. It contains the following contributions:
ESSAYS
Mareike Schmidt, Kulturalität der Rechtsanwendung und internationale Rechtsvereinheitlichung – Überlegungen am Beispiel des UN-Kaufrechts, 643–671, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsz-2023-0077
Early Career Research Workshop on Dispute Resolution Mechanisms and Competence-Competence in Multi-Level Systems (Berlin, 15–17 February 2024)
From 15 February 2024 to 17 February 2024, an early career research workshop will be held at Freie Universität Berlin to discuss works in progress on dispute resolution mechanisms and competence-competence in multi-level systems. The workshop invites young researchers working on related topics from all fields of legal research and is open to different methodological approaches to analyse the research questions. The workshop aims to generate a constructive and friendly atmosphere to test working hypotheses and discuss findings. Read more
Private International Law and Sustainable Development: Global and Latin American Perspectives
A new special issue of the University of Brasilia Law Journal is dedicated to the topic “Private International Law and Sustainable Development: Global and Latin American Perspectives”. The issue, co-edited by Véronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm and María Mercedes Albornoz, is based on contributions to a panel at the 15th conference of ASADIP in Asunción, Paraguay (2022), and contains some articles in Spanish, some in English. The issue is available as open access.