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Understanding The Obstacles To The Recognition And Enforcement Of U.S. Judgments Abroad, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Samuel P. Baumgartner

Questions of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments have entered center stage. Recent empirical work suggests that there has been a marked increase in the frequency with which U.S. courts are asked to recognize and enforce foreign judgments. The U.S. litigation surrounding a multibillion-dollar Ecuadoran judgment against Chevron indicates that the stakes in some of these cases can be high indeed. This rising importance of questions of judgments recognition has not been lost on lawmakers. In November of 2011, the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee held hearings on whether to …

Changes In The European Union's Regime Of Recognizing And Enforcing Judgments And Transnational Litigation In The United States, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Samuel P. Baumgartner

The European Commission has proposed to amend (recast) the Brussels I Regulation, which governs jurisdiction to adjudicate, parallel proceedings, and judgments recognition within the European Union. Although much of the Brussels I Regulation is simply the 1968 Brussels Convention cast into European Union legislation, the proposed amendments are part of a deeper set of structural and conceptual changes in the law of transnational litigation within the Union over the past couple of decades. Understanding these changes is essential to understanding what drives the proposed amendments and what is likely to follow.

In this paper – presented at the symposium Our …

Sarbanes-Oxley & The Culture Of Bribery: Expanding The Territorial Scope Of Private Whistleblower Suits To Overseas Employees, Matt A. Vega

Matt A Vega

SARBANES-OXLEY & THE CULTURE OF BRIBERY: EXPANDING THE TERRITORIAL SCOPE OF PRIVATE WHISTLEBLOWER SUITS TO OVERSEAS EMPLOYEES, by Matt A. Vega

This article has been accepted for publication in Vol. 46, No. 2 Harvard J. on Legis. 425 (Summer 2009).

Abstract: This paper examines the use of private transnational litigation to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA). Small, but repetitive bribery of foreign officials by local employees is the Achilles heel of corporate ethics. In fact, it is what perpetuates the “culture of bribery” that makes major corruption possible. Unless overseas employees refuse to give in to …

Is Transnational Litigation Different?, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Samuel P. Baumgartner

During the last fifteen years, there has been a growing interest in litigation transcending national borders. Yet, both in the United States and in Europe, where this interest is much older, a comprehensive intellectual framework to deal with this type of litigation is hard to find. In fact, courts and procedural law reformers still approach transnational cases in the same fashion as purely domestic ones, adjusting the concepts of domestic law where they believe it necessary. This has created significant problems both for litigants seeking justice in transnational cases and for lawmakers fashioning policy specifically for the transnational setting.

In …