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US Court Refused to Apply the Chosen Chinese Law due to Public Policy Concern
In Fu v. Fu, 2017 IL App (1st) 162958-U, a father brought a claim against his son to revoke an unconditional gift of $590,000 that he donated to his son for the later to pursue an EB-5 Visa to immigrate to the US. Both parties are Chinese citizens and the defendant is currently a resident of Massachusetts. The gift agreement was entered into in China, drafted in Chinese and contained a clause specifying PRC law should apply. The money was held by the International Bank of Chicago. The plaintiff brought the action in Illinois.
NIKI continued
Written by Lukas Schmidt, Research Fellow at the Center for Transnational Commercial Dispute Resolution (TCDR) of the EBS Law School, Wiesbaden, Germany
The Spanish airline Vueling Airlines S.A. is still intending to acquire large parts of the NIKI business. Vueling is part of the European aviation group IAG, which also includes British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and LEVEL. The provisional insolvency administrator of NIKI Luftfahrt GmbH, therefore, will continue to drive forward the sales process. Vueling has provided interim financing of up to € 16.5 million to finance the NIKI business until the closing of the purchase agreement. This funding is only sufficient for a few weeks. (more…)
NIKI, COMI, Air Berlin and Art. 5 EIR recast
Written by Lukas Schmidt, Research Fellow at the Center for Transnational Commercial Dispute Resolution (TCDR) of the EBS Law School, Wiesbaden, Germany.
The Regional Court of Berlin has, on the basis of the immediate appeal against the order of the provisional insolvency administration on the assets of NIKI Luftfahrt GmbH (under Austrian law), repealed the decision of the District Court of Charlottenburg (see here) as it finds that international jurisdiction lies with Austrian and not German courts. In its decision, the regional court has dealt with the definition of international jurisdiction, which is based on the debtor’s centre of main interests (‘COMI’). According to the provisions of the European Insolvency Regulation, that is the place where the debtor usually conducts the administration of its interests and that is ascertainable by third parties. (more…)
News
Brexit – no need to panic: The UK intends to deposit new instruments of ratification of the HCCH Child Support Convention and accession to the HCCH Choice of Court Convention prior to the termination of the transition period (ending on 31 December 2020). In the meantime, it’s business as usual.
In an unprecedented manner, the UK has dealt with its problems around Brexit and its relations with the Contracting States to two HCCH Conventions on the international plane. The Depositary (i.e. the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) has just announced that the UK has withdrawn its instruments of ratification of the HCCH Child Support Convention and instrument of accession to the HCCH Choice of Court Convention, together with its declarations and extension to Gibraltar, which actually never came into effect and were apparently only a backup option to a no-deal Brexit; see our previous posts (“some Brexit news” part 1, part 2 and part 3 and the more recent post “Brexit: No need to stop all the clocks” here).
Third Issue of 2019’s Revue Critique de Droit International Privé
The last issue of the Revue critique de droit international privé has been released. It is a special edition on the Cloud Act and the General Regulation on Data Protection.
The abstracts of the articles, authored by Marie-Elodie Ancel, Patrick Jacob, Régis Bismuth and Théodore Christakis, are available here.
A full table of contents is available here.
Save the Date: “The HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention: Prospects for Judicial Cooperation in Civil Matters between the EU and Third Countries” – Conference on 25 and 26 September 2020, University of Bonn, Germany
As of today, Brexit has become reality – one more reason to think about the EU’s Judicial Cooperation with third states:
The largest proportion of EU economic growth in the 21st century is expected to arise in trade with third countries. This is why the EU is building up trade relations with many states and other regional integration communities in all parts of the world. The latest example is the EU-MERCOSUR Association Agreement concluded on 28 June 2019. With the United Kingdom’s exit of the Union on 31 January 2020, extra-EU trade with neighboring countries will further increase in importance. Another challenge for the EU is China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, a powerful global development strategy that includes overland as well as sea routes in more than 100 states around the globe.