Posts

The Billion-Dollar Choice-of-Law Question

Choice-of-law rules can be complex, confusing, and difficult to apply. Nevertheless, they are vitally important. The application of choice-of-law rules can turn a winning case into a losing case (and vice versa). A recent decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. v. MUFG Union Bank, N.A., is…

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Does the TVPRA Apply Extraterritorially? Thoughts on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Amicus Brief in Doe v. Apple

As the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly limited the scope of the implied cause of action under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), victims of human rights abuses have looked to other U.S. statutes for remedies. One of these is the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which creates a civil remedy against perpetrators and others…

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Singer on Personal Jurisdiction Law and Choice-of-Law Doctrine

Professor Joseph Singer has a terrific new article that is well worth reading. In Hobbes & Hanging: Personal Jurisdiction v. Choice of Law, published in the Arizona Law Review, he writes about the contradictions between personal jurisdiction law and choice-of-law doctrine in the United States. He argues that personal jurisdiction law is one-sided and unbalanced…

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The Case for Attracting Litigation Business to the United States

U.S. state and federal courts routinely and reliably enforce “inbound” forum selection clauses (FSCs)—that is, if a party sues in a U.S. court designated by a contractual forum selection clause, courts will hear the case rather than dismissing on the basis of forum non conveniens.  In a recent post, John Coyle urged federal actors to…

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Contracting for U.S. Courts in Transnational Commercial Litigation

Among the most important provisions that litigators search for once alerted of a potential dispute are forum selection clauses embedded in a large number of modern commercial contracts. Over the past several decades, state legislators and the U.S. Supreme Court have increasingly enabled parties to litigate in U.S. courts, even for lawsuits with significant “foreign”…

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Should the Federal Government Seek to Attract Litigation to the United States?

U.S. courts have become significantly more hostile towards transnational litigation over the past two decades. Scholars such as Pam Bookman and Maggie Gardner have argued that a series of Supreme Court decisions—relating to the law of personal jurisdiction, forum non conveniens, international comity abstention, the presumption against extraterritoriality, and service of process, among others—have made…

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District Court Dismisses Another Case Against MBS for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction

Two weeks ago, while King Salman was appointing Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) as Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia in an apparent bid to secure him head-of-state immunity in a suit brought by Jamal Khashoggi’s widow, the judge in a different case quietly dismissed another plaintiff’s claims against MBS for lack of personal jurisdiction….

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The Controversy over Non-Signatories to Forum Selection Clauses Goes Meta

Since the mid-1970s, forum selection clauses have become an increasingly pervasive feature of the contracting and litigation landscape. While scholars still debate whether and when certain parties to boilerplate contracts (such as consumers, employees, or other parties with limited bargaining power) should be bound to such clauses, a separate controversy has emerged over the extent…

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Enforcing Chinese Judgments: A Response

In July, Bill Dodge discussed the enforcement of Chinese judgments in U.S. courts, using the Shanghai Yongrun case as a recent example and arguing against systemic review of foreign legal systems. Along the way, he cited Judging China, a recent paper of mine. He accurately characterized me as less than enthusiastic about U.S. courts enforcing…

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The Supreme Court Takes Up Sovereign Immunity from Criminal Prosecutions

On the first day of the October 2022 Term, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States. The case, put simply, asks whether the U.S. government can bring criminal prosecutions against foreign companies owned by foreign sovereigns. The United States has charged Halkbank, in which Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund has…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

UC Davis School of Law
wsdodge@ucdavis.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

Will Moon

University of Maryland
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William K. McGoughran

Vanderbilt Law School
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Chimène Keitner

UC Davis School of Law
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Catherine Amirfar

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
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Justin R. Rassi

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
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Isabelle Glimcher

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
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Ben Köhler

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
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Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
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Timothy D. Lytton

Georgia State University College of Law
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Chukwuma Okoli

University of Birmingham
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Abubakri Yekini

University of Manchester
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