Law Commons^™

International Arbitration Of Sep Frand Royalties, Steven Pepe, Samuel Brenner, Michael Morales

Touro Law Review

Standard-essential patent royalty disputes have typically been litigated in U.S. federal district courts, but patent owners have recently started to file suit in courts across the globe, leading to issues of comity, anti-suit injunctions, and increased litigation costs. International arbitration provides a unique forum for parties to litigate these royalty disputes and avoid, or at least lessen the burden, of these issues. This Article explores the advantages and disadvantages of using international arbitration to resolve standard-essential patent royalty disputes.

Divined Comity: Assessing The Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation And Updating The Second Circuit’S Prescriptive Comity Framework, William Weingarten

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

In re Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation, recently decided by the Second Circuit, sets a grave precedent for American plaintiffs seeking redress for antitrust injuries wrought by foreign defendants. The case involved a group of Chinese manufacturers and exporters of vitamin C, who conspired to fix prices and restrict output in the export market, injuring American consumers in import commerce. The foreign manufacturers conceded that they had colluded in fixing prices and restricting output, in flagrant violation of U.S. antitrust law. And yet, with the assistance of the Chinese government—intervening as amicus curiae—the defendants were successfully able to argue, on appeal …

Clarity About Comity: How Courts Have Attempted Greater Guidance For Chapter 15 Litigants, Sabrina Lieberman

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Abstract

This note explores the development of courts’ refusal to extend comity to foreign representatives who have filed a proceeding under chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Congress adopted chapter 15 as part of a comprehensive 2005 bankruptcy reform. It allows foreign entities to receive protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In most cases, foreign representatives who file a chapter 15 proceeding are involved with ancillary insolvency proceedings outside the United States. There is often a question of how or if a U.S. court overseeing the chapter 15 proceeding will defer to a judgment or process within the foreign …

Family Law Disputes Between International Couples In U.S. Courts, Rhonda Wasserman

Articles

Increasing mobility, migration, and growing numbers of international couples give rise to a host of family law issues. For instance, when marital partners are citizens of different countries, or live outside the country of which they are citizens, or move between countries, courts must first determine if they have jurisdiction to hear divorce or child custody actions. Given that countries around the world are governed by different legal regimes, such as the common law system, civil codes, religious law, and customary law, choice of law questions also complicate family litigation. This short article addresses the jurisdictional and other conflicts issues …

Speech Across Borders, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

As both governments and tech companies seek to regulate speech online, these efforts raise critical, and contested, questions about how far those regulations can and should extend. Is it enough to take down or delink material in a geographically segmented way? Or can and should tech companies be ordered to takedown or delink unsavory content across their entire platforms—no matter who is posting the material or where the unwanted content is viewed? How do we deal with conflicting speech norms across borders? And how do we protect against the most censor-prone nation effectively setting global speech rules? These questions were …

Comity And International Courts And Tribunals, Thomas Schultz, Niccolo Ridi

Cornell International Law Journal

This study seeks to clarify the importance, current and potential, of the use of comity by international courts and tribunals. Our findings support the idea that comity might be an emerging principle of procedural law, though agreement on its exact meaning— or unequivocal choices among its many connotations— still tends to be uncommon. We submit that, as long as other solutions are not in place, the principle can be successfully employed to assist international courts and tribunals in mediating jurisdictional conflicts between themselves by balancing coordination efforts and the demands of justice in the individual cases.

Comity may serve as …

Book Review: Foreign Commerce And The Antitrust Laws. By Wilbur L. Fugate. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2d Ed. 1973. Pp Xxv, 491. $35.00., Paul P. Harbrecht

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Obtaining International Judicial Assistance Under The Federal Rules And The Hague Convention On The Taking Of Evidence Abroad In Civil And Commercial Matters: An Exposition Of The Procedures And A Practical Example: In Re Westinghouse Uranium Contract Litigation, Robert J. Augustine

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Solicitation Of Anticompetitive Action From Foreign Governments: Should The Noerr-Pennington Doctrine Apply To Communications With Foreign Sovereigns?, Ronald W. Davis

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

“Islamic Law” In Us Courts: Judicial Jihad Or Constitutional Imperative?, Faisal Kutty

Pepperdine Law Review

At the beginning of 2014, about a dozen states introduced or re-introduced bills to ban the use of Sharī’ah law. They hope to join the seven states that have ostensibly banned it to date. Anti-Sharī’ah advocates have cited a number of cases to back their tenuous claim that Sharī’ah is stealthily sneaking in through the doctrine of comity, but a close examination of the cases they cite contradicts their claim. Comity, when one court defers to the jurisdiction of another, has been accepted and denied based on legal principles and public policy, on a case-by-case basis. There is no creeping …

Comity Of Errors: Foreign Same-Sex Marriages In New York, Gennaro Savastano

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Has The Cftc Gone Too Far In Trying To Keep The American Economy Safe From Cross-Border Swaps?, Gabriel Lau

Gabriel Lau

With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) in 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) received the daunting task regulating swap markets. Following two iterations of proposed guidance and comment periods, the CFTC released its finalized “Interpretive Guidance and Policy Statement Regarding Compliance with Certain Swap Regulations” (“Guidance”) on July 26, 2013. In the Guidance, the CFTC gives its interpretation and policy outlook for promulgating rules with respect to the regulation of cross-border swaps. This paper examines both the critiques of the Guidance, including issues of international comity and rule promulgation procedures, and …

On The Ninth Circuit's New Definition Of Piracy: Japanese Whalers V. The Sea Shepherd-Who Are The Real "Pirates" (I.E. Plunderers)?, Barry H. Dubner, Claudia Pastorius

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Extraterritoriality And The Rule Of Law: Why Friendly Foreign Democracies Oppose Novel, Expansive U.S. Jurisdiction Claims By Non-Resident Aliens Under The Alien Tort Statute, Donald I. Baker

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

A Question Of Sovereignty, Development, And Natural Resources: A New Standard For Binding Third Party Nonsignatory Governments To Arbitration, Jacob Stoehr

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Effects Test: Extraterritoriality’S Fifth Business, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

American laws increasingly regulate the conduct of foreigners abroad. The growth in extraterritorial laws, in no small part, can be traced to the effects test - a doctrine that instructs courts to presume that Congress intended to regulate extraterritorially when foreign conduct is found to have a substantial effect within the United States. For many scholars and lawyers, the effects test is the doctrinal lynchpin for determining the geographic reach of domestic laws. Territorial limits on legislative jurisdiction, on the other hand, are seen as anachronistic; a remnant of a pre-modern, pre-globalized world.

This article takes a different, more skeptical …

Harold Maier, Comity, And The Foreign Relations Restatement, Andreas F. Lowenfeld

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Hal Maier's career and mine have interacted in several respects. We have both served in the Legal Adviser's Office of the State Department; we have both taught Conflict of Laws as well as International Law; and we have both tried to show--I believe successfully--that there is no sharp divide between "Public International Law" and "Private International Law." In particular, we have both been interested in the reach and limits of economic regulation across international frontiers, initially in connection with antitrust and securities regulation, but also in connection with economic sanctions, pollution controls, and other interactions of governmental and private activity. …

National Courts, Global Cartels: F. Hoffman-Laroche V. Empagran, S.A., Hannah Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This comment discusses the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hoffman-LaRoche v. Empagran, an action brought by foreign plaintiffs under U.S. antitrust law to recover damages caused by the activities of a global price-fixing cartel. It describes the jurisdictional issues raised by conduct that affects the global market for a particular good, and analyzes the Court's reliance on notions of comity to restrain the reach of U.S. antitrust law. It argues, however, that the decision does not in fact undermine the anti-comity approach adopted in the 1993 Hartford Fire case, as the Court here assumes that the cartel's effects in the …

Assessing Sovereign Interests In Cross-Border Discovery Disputes: Lessons From Aerospatiale, Hannah Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The Hague Evidence Convention addresses a particular kind of jurisdictional conflict: the conflict between one nation's issuance of extraterritorial discovery orders and another nation's right to govern discovery activity taking place within its territory. The particular mechanisms that the Convention establishes for use in cross-border discovery proceedings, and the compromises between civil-law and common-law procedures for evidence gathering that it embodies, were effected with that system goal in mind. In Aerospatiale, the Supreme Court considered the scope of the Convention's application, addressing the interaction of Convention procedures and pre-existing federal rules on evidence gathering. As portions of the decision make …

The Private Attorney General In A Global Age: Public Interests In Private International Antitrust Litigation, Hannah Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Even in a climate of increased cooperation among regulatory authorities, jurisdictional conflict remains a prominent aspect of cross-border antitrust regulation. Much of this conflict is generated by private litigation - that is, lawsuits initiated under U.S. antitrust law by private attorneys general rather than by the government. This article examines two strands of jurisprudence relevant to the role of the private attorney general in cases with international aspects. First, it analyzes the cases, involving actions based on statutory violations of the antitrust laws, in which the extraterritorial reach of U.S. antitrust law has been delimited. It then turns to decisions …

Rethinking International Insolvency: The Neglected Role Of Choice-Of-Law Rules And Theory, Hannah L. Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Solutions to the problem of international bankruptcy are generally framed as either universalist (arguing that international bankruptcies should be administered in a single forum) or territorialist (arguing in favor of multiple local bankruptcies). This article seeks to expand this debate by using traditional conflicts theory to examine the problem of cross-border bankruptcy. It analyzes the current regime under which cross-border bankruptcies are administered in U.S. courts, concluding that this regime operates as a multilateralist (jurisdiction-selecting) regime. Concluding that multilateralism is an appropriate method for resolving choice-of-law issues in international insolvency, the article analyzes some possible refinements to the current system. …

A Threshold Test For Validity: The Supreme Court Narrows The Act Of State Doctrine, Steven R. Swanson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article analyzes the Supreme Court's recent decisions involving the act of state doctrine. This doctrine, which is based upon notions of international comity, prevents the courts of one state from adjudicating the acts of a foreign state that occur within the foreign state's territory. This respect for foreign tribunals reduces friction between states and promotes more cooperative interaction in the international arena.

The Article first defines comity and explains its importance in international litigation. Professor Swanson then outlines the diminishing role of comity as a basis for the act of state doctrine. In early opinions, United States courts refused …

Extraterritorial Discovery: Cooperation, Coercion And The Hague Evidence Convention, Harold G. Maier

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article reviews the most recent case law on this issue and examines the results of those cases in the light of existing principles of comity and of the newly promulgated Restatement of Foreign Relations Law of the United States (Revised). The analysis focuses on three important appellate court decisions, all of which are or have been before the United States Supreme Court, and examines the contents and origins of the United States Government's position on these issues as found in amicus briefs submitted in these cases. The article concludes with an evaluation of the dilemma evidenced by the need …

Comity And The International Application Of The Sherman Act: Encouraging The Courts To Enter The Political Arena, Steven A. Kadish

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

In this article, Mr. Kadish discusses the comity analysis of Timberlane Lumber Company v. Bank of America, and examines what it involves, what it accomplishes, whether it is justified, and whether there are preferable alternatives to it. He concludes that the Timberlane analysis should rejected, or at least limited becauses its use to determine United States' court jurisdiction is at best questionable, because it violates traditional abstention doctrine and current Supreme Court and Congressional treatment of foreigners' activities, because there may be insurmountable practical difficulties in applying the analysis, and because the analysis encourages courts to enter the political arena.

Recognition Cases In American Courts, 1923-1930, John S. Tennant

Michigan Law Review

Although the Soviets have maintained complete, uninterrupted, and practically undisputed control over most of the territory of the former Russian Empire for more than ten years, the United States still refuses to recognize the Soviet government as the international representative of Russia. The first general consideration of the legal situation engendered by the policy of our government was contained in an article by Professor Edwin D. Dickinson, "The Unrecognized Government or State in English and American Law,'' which appeared in the Michigan Law Review in 1923. In view of the importance of this matter, and the number of cases involving …