Personal Jurisdiction in Federal Antitrust Litigation Post-Fuld: In re Diisocyanates Litigation
Last year, in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, the Supreme Court held that the due process limits of personal jurisdiction under the Fifth Amendment differ from those under the Fourteenth. As Maggie Gardner has noted, the Court didn’t say much about what those limits might be—meaning that the lower federal courts will now take on…
Continue ReadingEnterprise-Wide Contracts as a Basis for Personal Jurisdiction Over Foreign Parent Companies
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a case in which certain enterprise-wide contracts executed by a (U.S.) corporate plaintiff figured in the analysis of legislative jurisdiction. Today, I want to focus on VMware LLC v. Siemens AG, a case in which certain enterprise-wide contracts executed by a (foreign) corporate defendant figure in the…
Continue ReadingNew Article on the Determination and Treatment of Foreign Law in U.S. Courts
Professor Chris Whytock, who is an Associate Reporter for the ALI’s Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws, has just posted an article on SSRN outlining the Restatement’s approach to determining the content and meaning of foreign law. As he notes, this is a perennial challenge in transnational as well as multistate litigation. Like choice-of-law rules,…
Continue ReadingNinth Circuit Validates a Theory of Extraterritorial Antitrust Regulation in Global Price-Fixing Case
It is not easy for the foreign victims of global price-fixing schemes to assert viable claims under U.S. antitrust law, even when the conspiracy in question also affects U.S. markets. In a recent case, though, the Ninth Circuit vacated an order of summary judgment against the foreign purchasers of price-fixed goods, concluding that they had…
Continue ReadingExtraterritoriality in Flux
Earlier this month, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, TLB Editors Maggie Gardner, Bill Dodge, and Hannah Buxbaum participated in a panel organized by the Section on Conflicts of Law entitled “Extraterritoriality in Flux.” This post summarizes their remarks. Maggie Gardner: It’s Time to Look Beyond the Presumption Against Extraterritoriality…
Continue ReadingA Primer on Antisuit Injunctions
The antisuit injunction, which blocks a party from initiating or pursuing litigation in a foreign court, is a powerful tool in the judicial arsenal. Courts issue these injunctions, under appropriate circumstances, to prevent the development of parallel proceedings. They can also be used to prevent a party from taking action in a foreign forum intended…
Continue ReadingHappy New Year!
TLB will be on break until January 6, 2026. We wish you all the best in the new year!
Continue ReadingToshiba ADR Investors in a Catch-22
A recurring challenge in defining the geographic scope of U.S. securities law is how to characterize non-exchange-based transactions in American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). Under the Supreme Court’s Morrison test, such transactions have to qualify as “domestic” to trigger the application of U.S. law. If they don’t, the assumption is that investors would have to litigate…
Continue ReadingCivil Contempt Orders Against Non-Parties in Parallel Proceedings
Among the challenges U.S. courts face in managing parallel litigation is enforcing any anti-suit injunctions they might order. In this regard, one of the most important enforcement tools they have at their disposal is the power to impose contempt sanctions in response to violations of their orders. The authority of a court to hold the…
Continue ReadingChoice of Law in Shareholder Derivative Litigation
U.S.-based investors hold trillions of dollars in equity of foreign companies. In the event of corporate wrongdoing, those investors may want to initiate shareholder derivative litigation in the United States against the managers of those corporations. This form of litigation is brought on behalf of the corporation itself rather than as a direct action. Derivative…
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