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Is this a Conflicts Case?
In Sharp v Autorité des marchés financiers, 2023 SCC 29 (available here) the Supreme Court of Canada has held that a Quebec administrative tribunal, the Financial Markets Administrative Tribunal, can hear a proceeding brought by the administrative agency that regulates Quebec’s financial sector, the Autorité des marchés financiers, against four defendants who reside in British Columbia. The AMF alleged in the proceedings that the defendants had contravened the Quebec Securities Act.
The courts below, including a majority of the Quebec Court of Appeal, focused the analysis on s. 93 of the Act respecting the Autorité des marchés financiers, CQLR, c. A-33.2, which grants the FMAT jurisdiction to make determinations under the Securities Act. They interpreted and applied this provision in light of Unifund Assurance Co. v Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, 2003 SCC 40, a leading decision on the scope of application of provincial law, which held that a provincial regulatory scheme constitutionally applies to an out-of-province defendant when there is a “real and substantial connection”, also described as a “sufficient connection”, between the province and the defendant. This test was met on the facts [see para 22] and so the FMAT had jurisdiction. This analysis is not generally understood as being within the field of conflict of laws. Indeed, the majority of the Court of Appeal “saw no conflict of jurisdiction or any conflict of laws that would require the application of private international law rules to this case” [see para 29].
How to Criticize U.S. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (Part II)
Written by Bill Dodge, the John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law.
There are better and worse ways to criticize U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction. In Part I of this post, I discussed some shortcomings of a February 2023 report by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The U.S. Willful Practice of Long-arm Jurisdiction and its Perils.” I pointed out that the report’s use of the phrase “long-arm jurisdiction” confuses extraterritorial jurisdiction with personal jurisdiction. I noted that China applies its own laws extraterritorially on the same bases that it criticizes the United States for using. I argued that the report ignores significant constraints that U.S. courts impose on the extraterritorial application of U.S. laws. And I suggested that China had chosen to emphasize weak examples of U.S. extraterritoriality, such as the bribery prosecution of Frédéric Pierucci, which was not even extraterritorial.
In this post, I suggest some better ways of criticizing U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction. Specifically, I discuss three cases in which the extraterritorial application of U.S. law appears to violate customary international law rules on jurisdiction to prescribe: (1) the indictment of Huawei executive Wanzhou Meng; (2) the application of U.S. sanctions based solely on clearing dollar transactions through U.S. banks; and (3) the application of U.S. export controls to foreign companies abroad based on “Foreign Direct Product” Rules. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs report complains a lot about U.S. sanctions, but not about the kind of sanctions that most clearly violates international law. The report says much less about export controls and nothing about Meng’s indictment, which is odd given the tensions that both have caused between China and the United States. Read more
How to Criticize U.S. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (Part I)
Written by Bill Dodge, the John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law.
China has been critical of U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction. In February, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a report entitled “The U.S. Willful Practice of Long-arm Jurisdiction and its Perils.” In the report, the Ministry complained about U.S. secondary sanctions, the discovery of evidence abroad, the Helms-Burton Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the use of extraterritorial jurisdiction in criminal cases. The report claimed that U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction has caused “severe harm … to the international political and economic order and the international rule of law.”
There are better and worse ways to criticize U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs report pursues some of the worse ways and neglects some better ones. In this post, I discuss a few of the report’s shortcoming. In a second post, I discuss stronger arguments that one could make against U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction. Read more
News
Revue Critique de droit international privé – Issue 2025/2
Written by Hadrien Pauchard (assistant researcher and doctoral student at Sciences Po Law School)
The second issue of the Revue Critique de droit international privé of 2025 has just been released. It contains four articles, seven case notes and numerous book reviews. In line with the Revue Critique’s recent policy, the doctrinal part will soon be made available in English on the editor’s website (for registered users and institutions). Read more
Out Now: Gössl/Kienle, Grundkurs Internationales Privat- und Zivilverfahrensrecht
Any student of German private international law will take delight in the news that a new textbook has just been published by our co-editor Susanne Goessl together with Florian Kienle. The book covers questions of both the applicable law (internationales Privatrecht) and of jurisdiction and foreign judgments (internationales Zivilverfahrensrecht), with a certain focus on the former area. As one might expect from a new text, it puts the European instruments of private international law (and the areas governed by them) into the centre (pp. 16–144) – without neglecting the areas that remain governed by domestic law (pp. 145–282).
Readers looking to familiarize themselves with German PIL will appreciate the concise introduction to the field (pp. 1–15), the comprehensive coverage of fundamental questions (such as renvoi, characterisation, etc.; starting at p. 157), and the revision questions provided at the end of each chapter. Above all else, however, they will notice the many topical examples used by the authors to explain the material, ranging from climate change and human rights litigation to Covid, the Volkswagen emissions scandal, and the 2021 Suez Canal obstruction by the Ever Given. The wealth of these examples alone makes the book a great read even for those who may consider themselves already well acquainted with German PIL (not least if they need to teach it).
More information on the book is available here.
Private International Law and Sustainable Development in Africa
Editors:
Dr Chukwuma Okoli, Dr Eghosa O. Ekhator, Professor Veronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm, Professor Ralf Michaels, Hans van Loon
Originally sourced from Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law post on 22 July 2025, with slight amedments.
Recall, on 14 October 2024, we invited submissions to The Journal of Sustainable Development and Policy for a special issue focusing on “Private International Law and Sustainable Development in Africa.”
Make today matter! Under this motto, legal scholars from all over the world gathered at the University of Pretoria on July 8, 2025 to take part in the conference “Sustainable Development and Transnational Law in Africa”. The event was jointly organized by the Law Schools Global League and Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law with a view to fostering academic exchange across continents on today’s most pressing challenges.
“It was fantastic to see the breadth and depth of work done in and on Africa within the new field of sustainable development and private international law. Thanks are due also to our co-organizers at the Law Schools Global League ant the University of Pretoria; it is so important to hold conferences like this one outside of Europe,” says Max Planck Institute’s Director Ralf Michaels.
The conference program consisted of four panel discussions (for a report, see ? here). The last two panels brought together five of the participants in a current project titled “Private International Law and Sustainable Development in Africa”**:
Solomon Okorley (University of Johannesburg) spoke about International Child Abduction Jurisprudence in South Africa; Grihobou Roland Nombré (Thomas SANKARA University School of Law) discussed the implications of the rise of Nuclear Energy in Africa for Private International Law; Michael K. Quartey (University of Johannesburg) and Theophilus Edwin Coleman (University at Buffalo School of Law & University of Johannesburg) addressed Product Liability Disputes in Ghana from the perspective of sustainable development, and Panji Chirwa (University of Pretoria) looked at the Impact of the EU Directive 2024/1760 on African Sustainability Frameworks.
** The project “Private International Law and Sustainable Development in Africa” forms the African component of the broader initiative “The Private Side of Transforming our World – UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Role of Private International Law” (see ? here), led globally by Ralf Michaels (Max Planck Institute), Hans Van Loon (previously Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International), and Veronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm (University of Edinburgh). The African initiative is spearheaded by Chukwuma Samuel Adesina Okoli (University of Birmingham), in partnership with Eghosa Ekhator (University of Derby) and the Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy (Afe Babalola University, Nigeria), and works closely with the global project leaders.