New York

A Troubling Decision in the EDNY

In the annals of troubling decisions relating to the enforcement of foreign forum selection clauses, a recent opinion, Gurung v. MetaQuotes, Ltd., by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Judge Orelia E. Merchant) warrants special mention. It raises the question whether any forum selection clause will ever be deemed unreasonable…

Continue Reading

The Small Potatoes Problem with New York Forum Selection Clauses

New York has long sought to attract cases to its courts—and to generate business for New York lawyers—by enforcing New York forum selection clauses when they appear in commercial contracts worth at least $1 million that are governed by New York law. This policy is codified in New York General Obligations Law 5-1402. What happens,…

Continue Reading

Great Lakes in Action

On February 21, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC. Loyal readers will remember (see here and here and here and here) that this case presented the question of what test to apply to determine the enforceability of a choice-of-law clause governed by federal maritime law….

Continue Reading

Anti-Comity and N.Y. General Obligations Law 5-1401

Not many statutes can fairly be described as bruisers. Section 5-1401 of New York General Obligations Law is an exception. In the immortal words of The Bachelor: “Section 5-1401 didn’t come here to make friends.” The purpose of Section 5-1401 is to generate business for New York lawyers and maintain New York’s status as a…

Continue Reading

Successor Jurisdiction and Anti-Terrorism Litigation

Transnational litigation often presents tricky questions of personal jurisdiction. Ongoing litigation in New York arising out of rocket attacks by Hizbollah does so in spades. This post reviews the recent New York Court of Appeals decision in Lelchook v. Société Générale de Banque au Liban SAL, answering a certified question posed by the Second Circuit…

Continue Reading

Rethinking the Internal Affairs Rule

The internal affairs rule posits that a court should generally apply the law of the state in which an entity is incorporated to resolve questions relating to that entity’s internal affairs. These affairs encompass such matters as the election of directors, the rights of shareholders, and the fiduciary duties owed to shareholders. In a trio…

Continue Reading

Faux Forum Selection Clauses

In linguistics, a false friend (or faux ami) is a word from a different language that looks and sounds like a familiar word in English but, in fact, has a very different meaning. A classic example is the word “gift.” In English, the word means “present.” In German, the word means “poison.” These are not…

Continue Reading

An Answer to the Billion-Dollar Choice-of-Law Question

On February 20, 2024, the New York Court of Appeals handed down its opinion in Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. v. MUFG Union Bank, N.A. The issue presented—which I described in a previous post as the billion-dollar choice-of-law question—was whether a court sitting in New York should apply the law of New York or the law…

Continue Reading

Execution of Judgments Against the Assets of Foreign Sovereigns Located Abroad

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) provides immunity from execution for the “property in the United States of a foreign state.” It does not confer immunity on a foreign state’s property located abroad. The limitation makes sense: to the extent that a foreign sovereign’s property located outside the United States is not subject to the…

Continue Reading

Missed Opportunities in Great Lakes

In the 1994 film, Clerks, the main character works at a quick-stop grocery store in New Jersey. On his day off, he gets a call from his boss asking him to cover the shift of another employee. As he grapples with a stream of difficult customers during the course of this unexpected shift, he keeps…

Continue Reading

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

Noah Buyon

Duke University School of Law
Bio | Posts

Naman Karl-Thomas Habtom

University of Cambridge
Bio | Posts

Ben Köhler

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Bio | Posts

Melissa Stewart

University of Hawai'i, William S. Richardson School of Law.
Bio | Posts

Ian M. Kysel

Cornell Law School
Bio | Posts

Craig D. Gaver

Bluestone Law
Bio | Posts

Gregg Cashmark

Vanderbilt Law School
Bio | Posts

Rochelle C. Dreyfuss

NYU School of Law
Bio | Posts

Linda J. Silberman

New York University School of Law
Bio | Posts

Timothy R. Holbrook

Emory University School of Law
Bio | Posts