Views
French Cour de cassation rules (again) on duty of domestic courts to apply European rules of conflict on their own motion
In the Airmeex case (Civ. 1re 27 septembre 2023, n°22-15.146, available here), the French Cour de cassation (première chambre civile) had the opportunity to rule on the duty of domestic courts to apply European rules of conflict on their own motion. The decision is a great opportunity to discuss the French approach to the authority of conflict-of-laws rules.Postmodernism in Singapore private international law: foreign judgments in the common law
Guest post by Professor Yeo Tiong Min, SC (honoris causa), Yong Pung How Chair Professor of Law, Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University
Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp (formerly known as Merck & Co, Inc) v Merck KGaA (formerly known as E Merck) [2021] 1 SLR 1102, [2021] SGCA 14 (“Merck”), noted previously, is a landmark case in Singapore private international law, being a decision of a full bench of the Court of Appeal setting out for the first time in Singapore law the limits of transnational issue estoppel. It was also the beginning of the deconstruction of the common law on the legal effect to be given to foreign judgments. Without ruling on the issue, the court was not convinced by the obligation theory as the rationale for the recognition of foreign in personam judgments under the common law, preferring instead to rest the law on the rationales of transnational comity and reciprocal respect among courts of independent jurisdictions. There was no occasion to depart from the traditional rules of recognition of in personam judgments in that case, and the court did not do so. However, the shift in the rationale suggested that changes could be forthcoming. While this sort of underlying movements have generally led to more expansive recognition of foreign judgments (eg, in Canada’s recognition of foreign judgments from courts with real and substantial connection to the underlying dispute), the indications in the case appeared to signal a restrictive direction, with the contemplation of a possible reciprocity requirement as a necessary condition for recognition of a foreign judgment, and a possible defence where the foreign court had made an error of Singapore domestic law.
Amendment of Chinese Civil Procedure Law Concerning Foreign Affairs
by Du Tao*/Xie Keshi
On September 1, 2023, the fifth session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress deliberated and adopted the Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Amending the Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China, which will come into force on January 1, 2024. This amendment to the Civil Litigation Law implements the Party Central Committee’s decision and deployment on coordinating domestic rule of law and foreign-related rule of law, strengthening foreign-related rule of law construction, and among the 26 amendments involved, the fourth part of the Special Provisions on Foreign-related civil Procedure is exclusive to 19, which is the first substantive amendment to the foreign-related civil procedure since 1991.
News
First View Articles on the Third Issue of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly for 2025
The first view article of the third issue of the ICLQ for 2025 was published yesterday. It contains the following article on conflict of laws:
Ardavan Arzandeh, “Anti-Suit Injunctions in Support of Foreign Dispute-Resolution Clauses”
Courts in England ordinarily grant anti-suit injunctions when proceedings are (or will soon be) initiated in a foreign court in breach of clauses which subject disputes to the exclusive jurisdiction of courts, or refer them to arbitration, in England. Would they, however, grant such relief in support of foreign dispute-resolution clauses? In UniCredit Bank v RusChemAlliance, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom answered this question in the affirmative, thus expanding the English courts’ power to issue anti-suit injunctions. This article seeks to assess the likely extent of this expansion and the future implications it could have for the law on anti-suit injunctions in England. The article also examines the Supreme Court’s pronouncements on the other significant issue in the case concerning the law governing arbitration agreements and their potential effect following the enactment of the Arbitration Act 2025.
Recent report on the Netherlands Commercial Court
Readers of this blog who are keen on the theme of commercial courts might be interested in the recent report ‘An interim assessment during the start-up phase of the Netherlands Commercial Court (NCC)’. This document is authored by T. Geurts, Y.N. Overvelde & M.P.C. Scheepmaker. The authors conducted an empirical study for the Research and Data Centre (WODC), an independent knowledge agency of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security.
Along with the full report in Dutch, a summary in English and a helpful accompanying post are available online.
The report provides several insights, including information on the NCC’s caseload in the past years, the countries where the litigating parties were domiciled, and the legal practitioners’ familiarity with the NCC’s work. Furthermore, the authors reflect on the future perspectives of the NCC.
Earlier posts on commercial posts are available here, with further links.
Call for Abstracts: Special Issue of the Italian-Spanish Journal of Procedural Law: “From Gavel to Grid: Reimagining Civil Justice in the Digital Era”
Gina Gioia, Jordi Nieva-Fenoll, and Seyedeh Sajedeh Salehi are inviting submissions for a Special Issue of the Italian-Spanish Journal of Procedural Law, which will be published under the title “From Gavel to Grid: Reimagining Civil Justice in the Digital Era”.
The details can be found in the attached Call for Papers.