Tag Archive for: Recent Cases

Upcoming European Dialogue on Civil Procedural Law “Recent Developments on Brussels Ibis” Thursday, 4 December 2025 1 pm CET

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The next session of the conference series European Dialogue on Civil Procedural Law will take place (online) on Thursday, 4 December 2025, from 13:00 to 17:00 (CET), under the theme “Recent Developments on Brussels Ibis”.

The event is organised by Dr. habil. Balázs Arató, PhD, Prof. Dr. Thomas Garber, Prof. Dr. Katharina Lugani and Prof. Dr. Matthias Neumayr.

The Brussels I bis Regulation, together with its parallel instrument, the Lugano Convention, forms the core of European civil procedure law. Events in this series serve to promote dialogue among Member States and with third countries, thereby strengthening and improving the integration and efficiency of European legal instruments. The interim online conference on 4 December 2025 will feature country reports from four legal systems and two presentations on current topics relating to the Brussels Ia Regulation. The event is aimed at academics and practitioners alike. We look forward to a lively exchange.

The speakers are :

  • Dr. habil. Balázs Arató, PhD, Budapest, Hungary
  • Dr. Caterina Benini, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy
  • Assoc.-Prof. Dr. Eva Dobrovolná, Ph.D., LL.M., Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
  • Prof. Dr. Étienne Farnoux, University of Strasbourg, France, seconded to the Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon
  • Prof. Dr. Thomas Garber, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
  • Prof. Dr. Katharina Lugani, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
  • Prof. Dr. Robert Magnus, University of Bayreuth, Germany
  • Assoc.-Prof. Dr. Martina Melcher, M.Jur, University of Graz, Austria
  • Prof. Dr. Matthias Neumayr, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
  • Prof. Dr. Anna Nylund, University of Bergen, Norway

The flyer for the event can be found here.

Please register here.

Participation is free of charge.

The $24 Billion Judgment Against China in Missouri’s COVID Suit

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This article was written by Prof. William S. Dodge (George Washington University Law School) and first published on Transnational Litigation Blog. The original version can be found at Transnational Litigation Blog. Reposted with permission.

On March 7, 2025, Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. (Eastern District of Missouri) entered a default judgment for more than $24 billion against the People’s Republic of China and eight other Chinese defendants for hoarding personal protective equipment (PPE) during the early days of the COVID pandemic in violation of federal and state antitrust laws. The Eighth Circuit had previously held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) barred most of Missouri’s claims but that the hoarding claim fell within the act’s commercial activity exception.

Missouri now has the judgment against China that it wanted. But Missouri may find that judgment hard to enforce. As discussed below, there appear to be significant procedural problems with the judgment that at least some defendants might raise. More broadly, the properties of foreign states and their agencies or instrumentalities are entitled to immunity from execution under the FSIA. Immunity from execution is broader than immunity from suit, and it is not clear that any of the defendants have property in the United States that can be used to satisfy the judgment. Read more