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South Africa Grapples with the Act of State Doctrine and Choice of Law in Delict
By Jason Mitchell, barrister at Maitland Chambers in London and at Group 621 in Johannesburg.
The Supreme Court of Appeal delivered judgment today in East Asian Consortium v MTN Group. The judgment is available here.
East Asian Consortium, a Dutch company, was part of the Turkcell consortium. The consortium bid on an Iranian telecommunications licence. The consortium won the bid. East Asian Consortium alleged that it was later ousted as a shareholder of the ultimate license holder, the Irancell Telecommunications Services Company. East Asian Consortium sued, amongst others, several subsidiaries of the MTN Group, a South African telecommunications company, in South Africa. East Asian Consortium alleged that the defendants unlawfully induced the Iranian government to replace East Asian Consortium with one of the MTN subsidiaries. Read more
U.S. Court Issues Worldwide Anti-Enforcement Injunction
This post was written by Hannah Buxbaum, the John E. Schiller Chair in Legal Ethics and Professor of Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in the United States.
Last month, Judge Edward Davila, a federal judge sitting in the Northern District of California in the United States, granted a motion by Google for a rare type of equitable relief: a worldwide anti-enforcement injunction. In Google v. Nao Tsargrad Media, a Russian media company obtained a judgment against Google in Russia and then began proceedings to enforce it in nine different countries. Arguing that the judgment was obtained in violation of an exclusive forum selection clause, Google petitioned the court in California for an order to block Tsargrad from enforcing it.
As Ralf Michaels and I found in a recent analysis, the anti-enforcement injunction is an unusual but important device in transnational litigation. There aren’t many U.S. cases involving these orders, and one of the leading decisions arose in the context of the wildly complicated and somewhat anomalous Chevron Ecuador litigation. As a result, there is little U.S. authority on a number of important questions, including the legal standard that applies to this form of relief and the mix of factors that courts should assess in considering its availability. Judge Davila’s decision in the Google case addresses some of these questions.
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Tatlici v. Tatlici: Malta Rejects $740 Million U.S. Defamation Judgment as Turkish Case Looms
Written by Fikri Soral, Independant Lawyer, Turkey; and LL.M. student, Galatasaray University, Turkey
A Maltese court has refused to enforce a $740 million default judgment issued by the 15th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida (Palm Beach County) in a defamation suit brought by Applicant Mehmet Tatlici against his half-brother, Defendant Ugur Tatlici. [1] The Florida court’s award—issued on 8 January 2020 in a defamation suit filed by Mehmet Tatlici against his half-brother—was deemed procedurally deficient and substantively incompatible with Malta’s public policy, particularly due to its lack of reasoning and its chilling effect on free expression.[2] Read more
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Virtual Workshop (in English) on February 3, 2026: Stellina Jolly on “Forging a Path for Climate Justice: Integrating Public and Private International Law in Transboundary Litigation in India”
On Tuesday, February 3, 2026, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (CEST). Stellina Jolly (South Asian University) will speak, in English, about the topic
“Forging a Path for Climate Justice: Integrating Public and Private International Law in Transboundary Litigation in India”
Cross-border climate litigation, gaining traction globally, requires active engagement with private international law for effective dispute adjudication. Although Indian climate jurisprudence has not yet substantively addressed cross-border disputes, emerging trends suggest that this scenario may soon evolve. The talk analyses three plausible litigation scenarios involving Indian and foreign parties to assess the readiness of Indian private international law in addressing transboundary climate harm. Firstly, Indian plaintiffs filing cases in foreign jurisdictions against transnational corporations headquartered abroad, alleging climate-related harm caused within India; secondly, foreign plaintiffs filing cases before Indian courts for the harm caused by Indian transnational corporations in their jurisdictions; thirdly, foreign plaintiffs filing cases before Indian courts for the transboundary harm caused by Indian companies as a result of their Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The talk evaluates the adequacy of Indian private international law in addressing cross-border climate cases and proposes incorporating environmental and human rights considerations in the determination of choice of 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.
New Book: La circolazione dello statuto personale / La circulation du statut personnel
A new collective volume entitled “La circolazione dello statuto personale / La circulation du statut personnel” has recently been published by Pacini Giuridica. Edited by Gustavo Cerqueira (Nice), Nicolas Nord (Strasbourg) and Claudio Scognamiglio (Rome), the book brings together the proceedings of an international conference held on 19 January 2024 in Rome, in the prestigious Giallombardo Hall of the Italian Court of Cassation. Read more
Dutch Journal of PIL (NIPR) – issue 2025/3
The latest issue of the Dutch Journal on Private International Law (NIPR) has been published. It contains the following contributions.
NIPR 2025, Issue 3
Editorial
Mathijs ten Wolde / p. 421
Articles
Steven Stuij, De positie van art. 10:2 BW in het Nederlands burgerlijk procesrecht / p. 423-444
Abstract
Article 10:2 of the Dutch Civil Code stipulates that the rules of private international law as well as the applicable law designated by those rules are to be applied ex officio. There has been a debate as to the positioning of this provision in relation to other rules of civil procedure on party autonomy as a result of two cases of the Dutch Supreme Court (‘Hoge Raad’). This contribution will address Read more