Supreme Court Ducks Fifth Amendment Due Process Question
The Supreme Court denied certiorari yesterday in Douglass v. Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha. This highly-watched case raises an important question that the Court will have to address sooner or later: the Fifth Amendment due process limitations on personal jurisdiction. The Supreme Court’s personal jurisdiction cases have repeatedly interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment…
Continue ReadingDistrict Court Refuses to Let 9/11 Plaintiffs Have Afghan Central Bank Assets
The District Court for the Southern District of New York (Judge George Daniels) has denied the turnover motions filed by judgment creditors against assets of Da Afghanistan Bank (“DAB”) that are held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (“FRBNY”). Judge Daniels’ order and decision, issued on February 21, 2023, adopted the report and…
Continue ReadingHiring Announcement
The American Society of International Law is hiring for two important positions: Director of Finance and Administration and Director of Programs. These are key positions with a wonderful organization. More information here.
Continue ReadingPGA v. LIV: Golf, Discovery, Immunity and PIF — The Saudi Arabian Sovereign Wealth Fund
Just as the competition between PGA Tour and LIV Golf has divided the golf world, so too may the immunity issues raised by the litigation divide legal experts. Sadly, this post is pretty weak in terms of golf puns – par for the course in legal writing about immunities – but it does address interesting…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Forty Years of the Bancec Test
The Supreme Court’s 1983 decision in First National City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba was saddled with a cumbersome mouthful of a title, one confusingly similar to a 1972 opinion in another important case, First National City Bank v. Banco Nacional de Cuba. Fortunately, the 1983 decision was quickly dubbed Bancec, an…
Continue ReadingRecent Scholarship on Ethnocentrism and Transnational Litigation
Asif Efrat has published Intolerant Justice: Conflict and Cooperation on Transnational Litigation. This interesting book argues that prejudice against foreign legal systems (or “out-group negativity”) plays an important role in domestic political debates over transnational litigation. The author is a political scientist, and the book accordingly focuses on domestic political dynamics and not just on…
Continue ReadingCentral Bank Immunity, Afghanistan, and Judgments Against the Taliban
International law and U.S. foreign policy provide powerful reasons to require clearer direction from the political branches before ordering the turnover of Afghan central bank assets to U.S. judgment creditors. [This post also appears on Lawfare]. Afghan central bank assets in the United States were frozen by President Biden following the Taliban’s takeover of the…
Continue ReadingNew Scholarship on Anti-Suit Injunctions
Raghavendra R. Murthy, outgoing Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review, has published a note on antisuit injunctions and patent litigation: Why Can’t We Be FRANDs?: Anti-Suit Injunctions, International Comity, and International Commercial Arbitration in Standard-Essential Patent Litigation. The note explores the rise of anti-suit injunctions related to the licensing of “standard-essential patents.” Owners of such…
Continue ReadingExecutive Control Versus “Deference” in Halkbank
On January 17, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States(Halkbank) on whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) applies to criminal prosecutions. One argument advanced by the government in Halkbank (and other immunity cases) is that the executive branch has absolute control over immunity determinations not governed by…
Continue ReadingHappy Holidays
TLB is taking a break for the holidays. We will return to blogging on Tuesday, January 3.
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