John Coyle
University of North Carolina School of Law
John F. Coyle is the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. He is a past chair of the AALS Section on Conflict of Laws and is currently an Adviser for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws. His articles on choice-of-law clauses, forum selection clauses, cross-border dispute resolution, and international commercial contracts have appeared in journals such as the Notre Dame Law Review, the William & Mary Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, and the Iowa Law Review. Before entering the academy, he worked as a transactional attorney at Covington & Burling LLP and clerked for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The CISG Saves the Day
The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has long been something of an enigma to American lawyers. The available evidence suggests that many U.S. lawyers are unaware of this treaty’s existence nearly forty years after it was ratified. In many cases, U.S. lawyers are upset to learn, first, that…
Continue ReadingLimits on Damages for Breach of a Forum Selection Clause
Tanya Monestier and I recently posted a draft of a new paper, Limits on Damages for Breach of a Forum Selection Clause, that discusses an important issue at the intersection of contract law and conflict of laws—when it is appropriate to award damages for breach of an exclusive forum selection clause. We build on Tanya’s…
Continue ReadingThe Billion-Dollar Determination of Foreign Law Question
The ongoing litigation in New York relating to the validity of certain notes issued by Venezuela’s state-owned oil company has received extensive coverage here at TLB. In 2022, I explained that the case presented a billion-dollar choice-of-law question. That choice-of-law question was answered in 2024 when the New York Court of Appeals held the validity…
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