John F. Coyle

Recent Scholarship on Foreign Judgments

Michael Solimine recently posted an interesting paper exploring the connection between party autonomy, on the one hand, and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, on the other. Solimine thoughtfully engages with the argument that private parties should be permitted to select, in advance, the law that will govern the recognition and enforcement of foreign…

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Interpreting Foreign Forum Selection Clauses

What law should a court use to interpret a forum selection clause selecting the courts of a foreign country when the contract also contains a choice-of-law clause selecting the law of that same country? A pair of federal court decisions—one from Illinois, and one from California—recently addressed this question. Neither of these decisions is likely…

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Exclusive Forum Selection Clauses in the First Circuit

Forum selection clauses are complicated. Under the framework laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Atlantic Marine (2013), a clause selecting the courts of another jurisdiction should only be given effect in federal court when it is “contractually valid.” As part of the inquiry into contractual validity, a court must first interpret the clause…

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Throwback Thursday: Choice-of-Law Clauses Through the Lens of Contract

The academic literature on choice-of-law clauses may be usefully sorted into three boxes. Articles in the first box seek to ascertain when, exactly, the courts will enforce these clauses. This body of literature looks to case decisions, treatises, statutes, and works such as the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws in an attempt to determine…

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An Insightful Post on a Recent Case

Ted Folkman has a post over at Letters Blogatory discussing a case – CDM Smith v. Atasi – decided by the Federal District Court for the District of of Massachusetts in March 2022. The court first considers whether a judgment rendered by the labor courts of Saudi Arabia is enforceable in Massachusetts. It then goes…

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Why Transnational Litigation?

The justiciability of Holocaust expropriation claims; treaty interpretation in international custody disputes; the adequacy of pleading the enslavement of children; accessing U.S. discovery for international arbitration; the availability of punitive damages for international terrorism; the immunity of international organizations before U.S. courts; how to serve process on a foreign state: The U.S. Supreme Court has…

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A Primer on Choice-of-Law Clauses

A choice-of-law clause is a contract provision that selects the law to govern the contract and claims relating to the contract.

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A Primer on Forum Selection Clauses

A forum selection clause is a contractual provision that selects a specific court to resolve disputes. When suit is filed in a court that is not the chosen forum, the clause may provide a basis for dismissal or transfer. When suit is filed in the chosen forum, the clause may provide a basis for the…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@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

Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
zclopton@law.northwestern.eduEmail

Robin Effron

Brooklyn Law School
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Scott Dodson

UC Law – San Francisco
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Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
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Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
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Paul MacMahon

LSE Law School
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Satjit Singh Chhabra

Khaitan and Co
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Keshav Somani

Khaitan and Co.
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Kartikey Mahajan

Khaitan and Co.
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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Caroline Spencer

Vanderbilt Law School
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