English Court Finds No Sovereign Immunity in Spyware Case
The English High Court has applied a statutory exception to foreign sovereign immunity to claims arising from the alleged use of spyware by a foreign state to target and monitor dissidents in the United Kingdom. It is the first case to find an exception to sovereign immunity for allegations relating to spyware. In doing so,…
Continue ReadingComparing Extraterritoriality in the EU
How a court decides whether a statute applies extraterritorially is a fundamental question in transnational litigation. TLB has lots of information about the U.S. approach. Our Primer on Extraterritoriality describes the federal and state approaches, as well as the customary international law rules on jurisdiction to prescribe. Recent posts have discussed the extraterritorial application of…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: John Henry Merryman on the Civil Law Tradition
Transnational litigation is situated at the intersection of many areas of law, including comparative law. This Throwback Thursday focuses on one of the great works of comparative law, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America by John Henry Merryman. The slim volume can almost get lost…
Continue ReadingImmediate Appeals in Foreign Sovereign Litigation
Foreign governments have many advantages in litigation. Chief among them is sovereign immunity. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, foreign states and their agencies and instrumentalities are immune from suit in United States courts unless the case falls within one of the statute’s specific exceptions to immunity. That substantive immunity also confers important procedural advantages. …
Continue ReadingChina’s New Data Security Law in U.S. Discovery Disputes
Discovery litigation regarding the impact of China’s Data Security Law (“DSL”), which took effect less than a year ago in September 2021, has steadily increased in U.S. courts, and it is likely to continue to increase over the coming months and years. One driver of this litigation is the uncertainty created by the newness of…
Continue ReadingIs MBS Entitled to Head of State Immunity?
Editor’s Note: This article also appears in Just Security. In 2018, Saudi security agents brutally murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) approved the operation. In 2020, Khashoggi’s widow and a non-profit organization that he helped found sued MBS and…
Continue ReadingFifth Circuit Issues En Banc Opinion on Personal Jurisdiction over Foreign Defendants
The Fifth Circuit has issued an important en banc opinion on foreign defendants, personal jurisdiction, and the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause. The court held in Douglass v. Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha that the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause mirrors the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, except that the relevant sovereign is the United States…
Continue ReadingThe Extraterritorial Application of State Wage and Hour Laws
Many U.S. states have enacted wage and hour laws. These laws generally set a minimum wage and require employers to pay overtime. When a company headquartered in one state hires an employee to perform work in a foreign country, however, it is not always clear which jurisdiction’s laws will apply. Is the payment of wages…
Continue ReadingUsing TLB to Teach Civil Procedure
August invariably brings not only heat and humidity (to Nashville, anyway) but also…. the first civil procedure classes. And, more pressingly, the need for a syllabus. This post continues TLB’s series on using the blog to teach law school classes. An earlier post discussed using TLB to Teach Transnational Litigation and there are more to…
Continue ReadingA Primer on Forum Non Conveniens
Under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, a judge may dismiss a case on the understanding that the case would be better heard in another sovereign’s court. It is a judge-made discretionary doctrine that can be invoked even if the court otherwise has proper jurisdiction over the case. This primer describes the current federal doctrine…
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