Posts

District Court Stays Debt Litigation Against Sri Lanka at U.S. Request

Hamilton Reserve Bank Ltd. calls itself the “hometown bank of America’s founding father Alexander Hamilton.” In a recent case, however, the bank found itself at odds with the Treasury Department that Alexander Hamilton founded. In Hamilton Reserve Bank Ltd. v. Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, the United States filed a statement of interest supporting…

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International Custody Jurisdiction, Human Rights, and Legislative Change

The Court of Appeals of Washington State recently issued an unpublished opinion that will serve as a benchmark for parents who flee certain countries with their children, seeking safe harbor in the United States (In re AlHaidari (Fearing, CJ)). In re AlHaidari Bethany AlHaidari, a U.S. citizen, married Ghassan AlHaidari, a Saudi citizen, in Saudi…

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Parsing Invalidating Statutes (Part II)

In a prior post, I argued that the precise language used in state statutes purporting to invalidate choice-of-law clauses and forum selection clauses can have outsized effects in litigation. In this post, I continue this discussion by highlighting several statutes that purport to invalidate choice-of-law clauses in insurance contracts. Although these statutes all have the…

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Parsing Invalidating Statutes (Part I)

In previous posts, I have written about how the precise language used in a choice-of-law or forum selection clause can prove consequential in litigation. In this post, I argue that the precise language used in state statutes purporting to invalidate these clauses can likewise have an outsized effect. There are hundreds of state statutes that…

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Happy Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, so TLB is taking a break. We are thankful for you, our readers, around the world. If you celebrate the holiday, we wish you happiness with your family and friends. If you do not celebrate the holiday, we wish you the same. We will be back with…

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How to Criticize U.S. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (Part I)

[This post is based on a lecture delivered at Wuhan University School of Law on October 15, 2023] China has been critical of U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction. In February, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a report entitled “The U.S. Willful Practice of Long-arm Jurisdiction and its Perils.” In the report, the Ministry complained about U.S….

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Evergreen Content at TLB

In addition to covering new developments in transnational litigation, TLB aims to provide evergreen content that can serve as resources for practitioners, students, and academics. Our topic pages include primers on recurrent issues in transnational litigation; collections of core primary legal sources and leading academic articles; and related TLB news coverage. We are excited to…

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Financial Hardship and Forum Selection Clauses

The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that a forum selection clause should not be enforced when “trial in the contractual forum will be so gravely difficult and inconvenient” that the plaintiff “will for all practical purposes be deprived of his day in court.” The financial status of the plaintiff is obviously a factor that…

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Eighth Circuit Weighing Adoption of Foreign Relations Abstention

The Eighth Circuit will soon hear an interlocutory appeal to consider permitting abstention based on foreign relations concerns. In Reid v. Doe Run Resources Corp. (as the case is captioned on appeal), Peruvian citizens allege they were seriously harmed as children by toxic substances emitted by a metallurgical refining complex in Peru and that this…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

George Washington University Law School
william.dodge@law.gwu.eduEmail

Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law School
mgardner@cornell.eduEmail

John F. Coyle

University of North Carolina School of Law
jfcoyle@email.unc.eduEmail

Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
zclopton@law.northwestern.eduEmail

Robert Kry

MoloLamken LLP
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Luana Matoso

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
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Curtis A. Bradley

University of Chicago Law School
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Pamela K. Bookman

Fordham University School of Law
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Matthew Salavitch

Fordham Law School
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Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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