Commercial Law Commons^™

Regulation Of The Sharing Economy: Uber And Beyond, Jack M. Beermann

Shorter Faculty Works

On January 8, 2016, the Section held a program entitled “Regulation of the Sharing Economy: Uber and Beyond.” I served as moderator of the program, which included four excellent speakers, Nicole Benincasa, Attorney for Uber Technologies, Inc., Bernard N. Block, Managing Principal, Alvin W. Block & Associates, Chicago, Illinois, Randy May, Founder and President, Free State Foundation (and long-time active member of the Section) and Peter Mazer, General Counsel to the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade and former General Counsel to the New York City Taxicab Licensing Commission.

The program began by asking general questions about regulatory issues concerning the …

A Fork In The Stream: The Unjustified Failure Of The Concurrence In J. Mcintyre Machinery Ltd. V. Nicastro To Clarify The Stream Of Commerce Doctrine, Cody Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

This article critiques the concurring opinion in the recent United States Supreme Court personal jurisdiction decision in J. McIntyre Machinery Ltd. v. Nicastro. That opinion declined to choose between the competing approaches to the stream of commerce doctrine because of perceived flaws in those approaches and because the facts of Nicastro did not involve modern technology.

Consumer products are increasingly distributed through international distribution chains. Whether foreign manufacturers who utilize such chains are amenable to personal jurisdiction in states where their products are distributed has become a hotly litigated issue because of the Supreme Court’s 4-4-1 split decision over 20 …

The Procedural Soft Law Of International Arbitration, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

The conference organizers set me the daunting task of exploring arbitration's “non-national instruments,” which is to say the guidelines of professional groups and non-governmental organizations related to evidence, conflicts of interest, ethics and the organization of arbitral proceedings. Frequently these procedural standards build on the lore of international dispute resolution as memorialized in articles, treatises and learned symposium papers. These guidelines represent what might be called “soft law,” in distinction to the harder norms imposed by arbitration statutes and treaties, as well as the procedural framework adopted by the parties through choice of pre-established arbitration rules.

The growth of procedural …

The Merchandising Right: Fragile Theory Or Fait Accompli?, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

Trademark merchandising is big business. One marketing consultant estimated the global market for licensing and marketing sports-related merchandise at $17 billion in 2001. With this much money at stake, it's no surprise that trademark holders demand royalties for use of their marks on shirts, key chains, jewelry, and related consumer products. After all, the value of these products comes largely from the allure of thetrademarks, and it seems only fair to reward the party that created that value . . . doesn't it?

It turns out that the answer is more complicated than this intuitive account would predict. Trademark law …

Income Tax Treaty Arbitration, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

Notwithstanding similar fiscal objectives, countries that conclude income tax treaties often arrive at radically different results when treaty language is applied to a practical problem. The task of resolving disagreement on treaty interpretation falls either to national courts or to joint efforts by the tax administrations to work out differences on a voluntary basis. Neither alternative is satisfactory. Judicial proceedings lack political neutrality and yield inconsistent results. And the process for "mutual agreement" among competent fiscal authorities is fraught with delays and uncertainty.

Copyright Preemption After The Procd Case: A Market-Based Approach, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

As information becomes increasingly available in digital form, a little noted yet significant legal change is occurring in the way in which information providers use the law to establish the terms under which they market their products. Electronic information providers, in contrast to their hard-copy counterparts, have continually turned to the private law of contract both to supplement and modify the public law of copyright.' While this trend began when most users were relatively large commercial, academic, or governmental enterprises, it accelerated as software providers began to market pre-packaged software to consumers, using the infamous "shrinkwrap" as a device to …

Debt, Accelerated Depreciation, And The Tale Of A Teakettle: Tax Shelter Abuse Reconsidered, Theodore S. Sims

Faculty Scholarship

For more than thirty years a consuming preoccupation of the income tax has been the control of "tax sheltered" investments. Of most widespread concern have been acquisitions, financed by debt, of assets that enjoy some sort of "tax-preferred" treatment, most commonly some advantageous form of depreciation. Tax-favored treatment has been conferred on many productive assets through deliberate congressional action. Nevertheless, debt-financed acquisitions of those very same assets have been regarded as exploiting the available tax benefits in ways that seemed "abusive" and have widely been regarded as "bad." This perplexing, fundamentally self-contradictory state of affairs has levied constant demands on …

National Law And Commercial Justice: Safeguarding Procedural Integrity In International Arbitration, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

The law chosen to govern the merits of an international contract dispute does not always lead to results hat satisfy an arbitrator's personal sense of what is right. The arbitrator therefore may be tempted to resolve the dispute according to his own notion of justice. Seduced away from the rules of the otherwise applicable law, the arbitrator may take on unauthorized powers of amiable composition. While most international arbitrators are conscientious in respecting the bounds of their mission, some have been known to boast of their skill in finding ways to bypass the established rules of the party-chosen law. …

Arbitration Of International Contract Disputes, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

International commercial arbitration has been the victim of its own success. Arbitration is often the only dispute resolution process acceptable in business contexts where parties from different countries have rejected recourse to each other's legal system at the outset of the contractual relationship. For example, when a Swedish shipyard contracts to build tankers for an agency of the Libyan government, the Swedes are unlikely to relish the prospect of appearing before Libyan courts, and the Libyans may view submission to the courts of Sweden (or of another industrialized Western nation) as an affront to Libyan national sovereignty. Neither the Swedish …

The Binding Force Of International Arbitral Awards, William W. Park, Jan Paulsson

Faculty Scholarship

A party that submits a controversy to arbitration may later regret having abandoned recourse to the courts. Once the award is rendered, the chosen arbitrator may no longer seem so wise to the losing party, who may refuse to comply with his decision. A legal system must therefore legitimize the arbitrator's authority if the award is to be more than an unenforceable attempt at conciliation.

The Lex Loci Arbitri And International Commercial Arbitration, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

Luke's gospel reports that Jesus once declined to arbitrate a family dispute over an inheritance by asking a disgruntled sibling, "Who set me over you to arbitrate?" Private resolution of business disputes raises a related question: whence springs the arbitrator's authority to render a binding award? A company that submits a controversy to arbitration may later regret having abandoned recourse to the courts. On the day of reckoning, the sage chosen to decide the dispute may no longer seem so wise to the losing party, and the loser might consider refusing to comply with the arbitrator's decision. Some legal system, …

French Codification Of A Legal Framework For International Commercial Arbitration, W. Laurence Craig, William W. Park, Jan Paulsson

Faculty Scholarship

Resolution of a dispute arising under an international commercial contract frequently has been plagued with uncertainty regarding applicable substantive and procedural law. These problems are not necessarily solved by the presence of an arbitration clause in the contract. In the absence of a clearly defined arbitral system, the parties can not be certain of the rules regarding the arbitral procedure or the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards. By enacting a decree that specifically applies to international commercial arbitration, France has recently taken a major step toward resolving the uncertainties surrounding the resolution of international commercial disputes. The authors analyze …

Tax Characterization Of International Leases: The Contours Of Ownership, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

Pondering the human tendency to pay dearly for short-lived adornments, Shakespeare asks a question of interest to lawyers as well as poets: "Why so large cost, having so short a lease.. .? The lawyer's analysis of the issue might begin with a scenario set in an imaginary world in which the tax effects of business transactions are determined by their legal form rather than their economic substance. In such a world, each of two companies decides to build a new factory. One acquires the land outright, paying in several installments. The other enters into a shortterm lease at a very …

"Judicial Supervision Of Transnational Commercial Arbitration: The English Arbitration Act Of 1979, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

Present day interaction between court and arbitrator is reminiscent of the seventeenth century struggle between court and crown, in which King James I claimed that his representatives should have the right to adjudicate disputes according to "natural reason," not according to the "artificial ... judgment of the law." The Lord Chief Justice, Edward Coke, resisted this arrogation of power using words attributed to Bracton: "quod Rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege." Although under no man, the King was subject to God and the law. The extent to which the modern commercial arbitrator should likewise be …