Posts

DOJ Takes Broad View of Foreign Affairs Preemption in Pipeline Case

The Trump Administration has made so many broad assertions of executive power this year that it can be hard to keep track. One such assertion that has not made headlines is found in a statement of interest filed on September 12, 2025, in Enbridge Energy v. Whitmer. At issue is Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s 2020…

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The Billion-Dollar Determination of Foreign Law Question

The ongoing litigation in New York relating to the validity of certain notes issued by Venezuela’s state-owned oil company has received extensive coverage here at TLB. In 2022, I explained that the case presented a billion-dollar choice-of-law question. That choice-of-law question was answered in 2024 when the New York Court of Appeals held the validity…

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Maximum Comity: Recognition of Foreign Proceedings Under the Bankruptcy Code

Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code governs cross-border insolvency proceedings. It establishes a comity-based framework within which U.S. courts may recognize certain foreign insolvency proceedings and enforce orders issued in those proceedings. Like other U.S. law on the recognition of foreign proceedings, it includes a public policy exception. This post provides a brief overview…

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Opting Out of Federal Law II: Foreign Choice-of-Law Clauses

In a prior post, I examined when a choice-of-law clause selecting the law of a U.S. state may be used to avoid federal laws. In this post, I consider whether a choice-of-law clause selecting the law of a foreign country may be used to accomplish this same goal. The post first examines situations where the…

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Interesting Papers at the ASIL Midyear Meeting, Sept. 26-27

The American Society of International Law is holding its midyear meeting in Cleveland, Ohio on September 26-27, 2025.  The midyear meeting includes research fora that focus on draft papers selected through an open, competitive submission process.  Several selected papers may be of interest to TLB readers, including: Challenging National Security List Designations in U.S. Courts…

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Throwback Thursday: Forecasting Fuld

Nearly a decade ago, Professor Aaron Simowitz identified not only the problem presented in Fuld v. PLO (2025), but also the solution the Supreme Court ultimately adopted. This Throwback Thursday post highlights Simowitz’s article Legislating Transnational Jurisdiction (57 Va. J. Int’l L. 325), which offers important insights for those trying to make sense of Fuld’s…

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New Paper on Extraterritorial Application of the Wire Fraud Statute

I have written before about a circuit split over when the federal wire fraud statute applies extraterritorially. The lower federal courts disagree about how much use of U.S. wires is required to make an application of the statute “domestic.” The Second Circuit has held that use of U.S. wires must be a “core component” of…

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Opting Out of Federal Law I: State Choice-of-Law Clauses

Most provisions of federal law are mandatory. One cannot opt out of the tax code, the wire fraud statute, or civil rights laws. There are, however, a handful of federal laws that are not mandatory. These laws expressly state that they shall not apply if private actors write language into their contracts opting out. A…

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District Court Denies Saudi Arabia’s Motion to Dismiss 9/11 Claims

On August 28, 2025, Judge George B. Daniels (Southern District of New York) denied the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) motion to dismiss claims arising from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, Judge Daniels concluded that the plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence to establish an exception to KSA’s…

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Personal Jurisdiction, Consent, and the Law of Agency

I have long argued – in articles, blog posts, and amicus briefs – that it violates due process to invoke a forum selection clause to obtain personal jurisdiction over a defendant who was not a party to the agreement in which the clause appears. This position has not yet achieved universal acceptance. The state courts in…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.brunk@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

Hannah Buxbaum

UC Davis School of Law
hbuxbaum@ucdavis.eduEmail

Mehrunnisa Chaudhry

George Washington University Law School
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Victoria Pino

Vanderbilt Law School
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Robert Kry

MoloLamken LLP
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Rinat Gareev

Whitecliff Management
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