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L’Associazione Internazionale di Diritto delle Assicurazioni – Sezione Lombarda organizza per il 6 maggio 2016 a Milano un convegno dal titolo Assicurazioni e risarcimento dei danni da illecito transfrontaliero.

Intervengono, fra gli altri, Marco Frigessi di Rattalma (Univ. Brescia), con una relazione su Legge applicabile e giurisdizione in materia di assicurazione e risarcimento dei danni da illeciti transfrontalieri: problemi e prospettive, e Michele Comenale Pinto (Univ. Sassari), su Il sistema di risarcimento dei danni nel trasporto aereo di persone.

La partecipazione al convegno è gratuita, previa registrazione all’indirizzo email aida.meeting@libero.it.

Per maggiori informazioni, compreso il programma completo, si veda qui.

Maria Chiara Marullo and Francisco Javier Zamora Cabot have published a paper on “TRANSNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LITIGATIONS. KIOBEL’S TOUCH AND CONCERN: A TEST UNDER CONSTRUCTION.”

The abstract reads:

In recent years the international debate on Transnational Human Rights Litigation has mainly focused, although not exclusively, on the role of the Alien Tort Claims Act as a way of redress for serious Human Rights violations. This Act has given the possibility of granting a restorative response to victims, in a Country, such as the United States of America, that assumes the defense of an interest of the International Community as a whole: to guarantee the access to justice to the aforesaid victims. The purpose of this article is to analyze the recent and restrictive position on this Act of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Kiobel case, and especially when, as a means of modulating the limitative doctrine affirmed there, the Touch and Concern test was introduced. It has generated from its very inception a strong discussion amongst international legal scholars and also great repercussions concerning the practice of the U.S. District and Circuit Courts.

The publication can be downloaded here. 

The Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law and the University of Lucerne are organising a conference “Towards a Global Framework for International Commercial Transactions: Implementing the Hague Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts” in Lucerne on 8-9 September 2016.

The purpose of this conference is to present the impact and prospects of the Hague Principles of 2015 in the context of other instruments applicable to international commercial transactions.

For the programme and registration information see the conference’s website.

Perhaps because it so reflected our children’s character [all ‘Duracell‘ kids] there is one part of Dr Seuss’ Cat in the Hat which has always stuck with me:

so all we could do was to

sit!

   sit!

      sit!

         sit!

and we did not like it.

not one little bit.

I was reminded of the line, reading Bot AG’s Opinion in Case C-492/14, ‘Essent 2.0’ (not yet available in English at the time of writing). In order to promote the generation of renewable energy, Flanders law makes transmission of electricity generated from renewable sources, free of charge. However this courtesy is limited to electricity generated in installations directly connected to the grid. Essent imports (a considerable part of) its green electricity from The Netherlands. It does not therefore enjoy free transmission.

Bot’s disapproval of trade restrictions like these is well established and has often been reported on this blog. The CJEU disagrees with its AG on many of the issues. I am in general of the same view as the AG. Mr Bot continues to find the Court’s case-law unconvincing and makes no attempt to hide it. He repeatedly mentions that he is duty-bound to apply Essent /Vindkraft without believing they are good law. It is with obvious regret that he Opines that given the Court’s stand in Essent /Vindkraft, he has no option but to propose that the Court find the Flemish regime acceptable.

The AG does however leave open a future window for change: in particular, if and when the secondary law regime on renewable energy specifically, and energy as a whole, is amended, one may be able to distinguish Essent /Vindkraft.

Bot also reminds us of the unclear position of environmental exceptions under Article 36 TFEU and the Rule of Reason. He calls upon the Court formally to acknowledge that the Cassis de Dijon distinction between the Rule of Reason and Article 36 (the former does not allow ‘distinctly applicable’ national measures (read’ discrimination) while the latter does) no longer exists.

I do not like judgment in Preussen Elektra. Or in Essent. Not one little bit. It discourages the creation of a true European energy market. Perhaps the Court will surprise us all in Essent 2.0 and will correct some of the damage it has done with its standing case-law on the matter.

Geert.

Clayton P. Gillette, Steven D. Walt, The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods: Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press, 2016, ISBN 9781316604168, pp. 451, GBP 37,99.

[Dal sito dell’editore] – Updated and expanded for the second edition, this volume provides attorneys, academics and students with a detailed yet accessible overview of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Adopted by more than eighty nations and governing a significant portion of international sales, the CISG regulates contract formation, performance, risk of loss, conformity to contractual requirements and remedies for breach. This volume explains the CISG doctrines and their ambiguities, and appraises the extent to which the doctrines reduce transaction costs for commercial actors. Its topic-based approach will be ideal for those pursuing academic analysis or subject-specific research.

Il sommario dell’opera è consultabile qui. Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili a questo indirizzo.

Each year, the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law awards a certain number of scholarships to support academic research in the field of comparative and international law.

As for the year 2017, the Institute especially welcomes applications on the topics of Business and Human Rights and Communication and Internet law.

Preference shall be given to applicants who have never carried out research activities outside their country of origin and wish to pursue an academic career.  Fluency in at least two of the following languages is required: English, French and German.

The deadline for submitting applications is 30 June 2016.

The call for applications can be downloaded here. Further information is available at the following link.

Cross-border Litigation in Europe: the Brussels I Recast Regulation as a Panacea?, a cura di Franco Ferrari e Francesca Ragno, Cedam, 2016, pp. XIII-190, ISBN: 9788813358310, Euro 29.

[Dal sito dell’editore] – The Brussels I Regime […] is widely considered to be the foundation stone of a “European Law of Procedure” and to have enhanced cross-border litigation in Europe through an efficient system of judicial cooperation based on comprehensive jurisdiction rules, coordination of parallel proceedings, and circulation of judgments. In spite of its overall success, the system has been viewed as in need of modernization and has undergone a revision process, which led to the adoption of the EU Regulation No 1215/2012 (the “Brussels I Recast Regulation”), which became applicable on 10 January 2015. In this book, various authors examine in detail the most important changes introduced by this instrument, focus on the issues still open and address the problems arising out of the coexistence of the new Regulation with other instruments in force in Europe. Not unlike the previous book on the Brussels I Recast Proposal published in this series, this volume aims at contributing to what has been an exciting discussion in the past and is likely to be so for years to come.

Il volume racchiude gli atti del convegno tenutosi a Verona il 28 e 29 novembre 2014, già segnalato in questo post.

Maggiori informazioni e l’indice dell’opera sono disponibili a questo indirizzo.

by Veerle Van den Eeckhout

On the blog section of the Dutch journal Nederlands Juristenblad, a blog of Veerle Van Den Eeckhout on the Proposal for a revision of the Posting Directive has been published, see here.

The blog is entitled “Modellering van internationaal privaatrecht – Een enkele ipr-technische aantekening bij het voorstel tot wijziging van de Detacheringsrichtlijn” (in English: “Modelling Private International Law. A single PIL-technical note on the proposed revision of the Posting Directive”). It is written in Dutch.

The blog focuses on a single technical PIL-aspect of the proposed revision of the Posting Directive; at the end, however, the issue is placed in a broader context of ongoing dynamics and debates in private international law – see also already on this the blog “The impact and potential of a curious and unique discipline. About PIL, Shell Nigeria, European and global competition and social justice”, published also on the blog section of the NJB-site, see here , available in English on  http://conflictoflaws.net/2015/on-pil-international-labour-law-and-corporate-social-responsibility/.

The topic of the 28th Conference of Private International Law of the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, organised in cooperation with the Faculty of Law of the University of Neuchâtel, is Les banques et les assurances face aux tiers et les nouveautés en matière de faillite internationale.

The conference will take place in Lausanne on 27th May 2016.

The morning session will present recent developments in international bankruptcy, with a particular focus on the draft revision of the Swiss Federal Act on Private International Law, the practical impact of bankruptcy on civil proceedings and arbitration, as well as issues of international bankruptcy in banking.

The afternoon session will address legal relationships that involve three parties, focusing in particular on the situation of banks and insurance companies vis-à-vis third parties. Recent developments in Switzerland and the EU will be examined, including the issue of third party’s right to obtain banking information in the context of successions.

Presentations will be in French and English.

For the full program please see here. Registrations at news@isdc.ch.

The following information have kindly been provided by Prof. Dr. Matthias Lehmann, University of Bonn.

Bank resolution is key to avoiding a repetition of the global financial crisis in which failing financial institutions had to be bailed out with taxpayers’ money. It permits recapitalizing banks or alternatively winding them down in an orderly fashion without creating systemic risk. Resolution measures, however, suffer from a structural weakness. They are taken by nation-states with territorially limited powers, yet they target entities or groups with global activities and assets in many countries. Under traditional rules of private international law, these activities and assets are governed by the law of other states which is beyond the remit of the state undertaking the resolution.

Matthias Lehmann (University of Bonn) addresses this problem in a recent paper titled “Bail-in and Private International Law: How to Make Bank Resolution Measures Effective Across Borders”. He illustrates the conflict between resolution and private international law by using the example of the European Union, where the limitations of cross-border issues are most acutely felt. He explains the techniques and mechanisms provided in the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) and the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) Regulation to make resolution measures effective in intra-Eurozone cases, in intra-EU conflicts with non-Euro Member States and in relation to conflicts with third countries. Besides this, he also throws light on the divergences and flaws in the BRRD’s transposition into national law. In this context, he discusses two recent cases, Goldman Sachs International v Novo Banco SA [2015] EWHC 2371 (Comm), and BayernLB v Hypo Alpe Adria (HETA case) Regional Court, Munich I, judgment of 8 May 2015, that have dealt with the recognition of foreign resolution acts. A brief overview of third-country regimes furthermore highlights the problems in obtaining recognition of EU resolution measures abroad.

Thank you Fieke van Overbeeke for pointing this out to me. The EC have proposed to amend the posted workers Directive, to address unfair practices and promote the principle that the same work at the same place be remunerated in the same manner.

The amendment essentially relates to Article 8(2) of the Rome I Regulation, which partially corrects choice of law made in the context of contracts for employment. The proposal amounts to Union harmonisation of the concept ‘temporary employment’, as one not exceeding 24 months.

The proposal, if adopted, would insert an Article 2a in the posted workers Directive, 96/71, as follows:

Article 2a
Posting exceeding twenty-four months
1. When the anticipated or the effective duration of posting exceeds twenty-four
months, the Member State to whose territory a worker is posted shall be deemed to
be the country in which his or her work is habitually carried out.
2. For the purpose of paragraph 1, in case of replacement of posted workers
performing the same task at the same place, the cumulative duration of the posting
periods of the workers concerned shall be taken into account, with regard to workers
that are posted for an effective duration of at least six months.

Recitals 6-8 give context:

(6) The Rome I Regulation generally permits employers and employees to choose the law
applicable to the employment contract. However, the employee must not be deprived
of the protection of the mandatory rules of the law of the country in which or, failing
that, from which the employee habitually carries out his work. In the absence of
choice, the contract is governed by the law of the country in which or, failing that,
from which the employee habitually carries out his work in performance of the
contract.
(7) The Rome I Regulation provides that the country where the work is habitually carried
out shall not be deemed to have changed if he is temporarily employed in another
country.
(8) In view of the long duration of certain posting assignments, it is necessary to provide
that, in case of posting lasting for periods higher than 24 months, the host Member
State is deemed to be the country in which the work is carried out. In accordance with
the principle of Rome I Regulation, the law of the host Member Sates therefore applies
to the employment contract of such posted workers if no other choice of law was made
by the parties. In case a different choice was made, it cannot, however, have the result
of depriving the employee of the protection afforded to him by provisions that cannot
be derogated from by agreement under the law of the host Member State. This should
apply from the start of the posting assignment whenever it is envisaged for more than
24 months and from the first day subsequent to the 24 months when it effectively
exceeds this duration. This rule does not affect the right of undertakings posting
workers to the territory of another Member State to invoke the freedom to provide
services in circumstances also where the posting exceeds 24 months. The purpose is
merely to create legal certainty in the application of the Rome I Regulation to a
specific situation, without amending that Regulation in any way. The employee will in
particular enjoy the protection and benefits pursuant to the Rome I Regulation.

It would obviously be attractive to ensure the same rule is verbatim included in a future amendment of the Rome I Regulation.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, 2nd ed 2016, Chapter 3, Heading 3.2.5.

The following announcement has been kindly provided by Professor Dr. Stephan Lorenz, LMU Munich.

It was in 1916 that Ernst Rabel founded the ‘Institute of Comparative Law’ at Munich University – the first of its kind in Germany. The 100th Anniversary of the Institute, which still persists as a department of the Institute of International Law at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, gives reason to review the influence of Ernst Rabel on both, sales law and conflict of laws and to take a current view on recent developments in these fields. As is well-known, Rabel’s work on sales law was highly influential for the development of the Hague Uniform Sales Law of 1964, the precursor of the CISG of 1980. The latter had a formative impact on EU consumer sales law and subsequently on the proposal for a Common European Sales Law (CESL). But also the current contractual conflict of laws of the EU as the Rome I-Regulation would not exist in its current form without the fundamental contributions of Ernst Rabel. The presentations of the conference cover the entire range of these topics from the beginnings of comparative law and its early years until its most recent developments:

• Dean’s Greeting, Prof. Dr. Martin Franzen
• Introductory Speech, Prof. Dr. Peter Kindler
• The History of the Institute of Comparative Law, Prof. Dr. Dagmar Coester-Waltjen, München/Göttingen
• Welcome and Introduction, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Hans Jürgen Sonnenberger, München
• Ernst Rabel – The Munich Years, Archivdirektor a.D. Hans-Joachim Hecker, Stadtarchiv München
• Karl Neumeyer as a Pioneer of Comparative Law in the field of Public Law, Prof. Dr. Peter Huber, Judge at the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), München
• Rabel’s Influence on the CISG and the Development of European Sales Law, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Magnus, Hamburg
• The Distinction between Digital and Analogous Goods – How fit for the Future are the Commission’s Proposals for a Law of Contracts in the Digital Interior Market?, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christiane Wendehorst, LL.M. (Cambridge), Wien
• International Contract Law and CISG, Prof. Dr. Andreas Spickhoff, München
• Transaction-like Party Autonomy, Prof. Dr. Marc-Philippe Weller, Heidelberg
• Conclusions, Prof. Dr. Stephan Lorenz, München

Participation in the Conference requires prior registration here.

The American Branch of the International Law Association has issued a call for papers.  See here for more details.

From the Private International Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law:

We are pleased to present the second issue of “Commentaries on Private International Law,” the newsletter of the American Society of International Law Private International Law Interest Group.

You may find it here and here.

Professor Anthony Colangelo of the SMU Dedman School of Law has just posted a new article entitled A Systems Theory of Fragmentation and Harmonization.  It blends public and private international law and has a strong dose of conflict of laws.  It is well worth the read!

Also, as a friendly reminder, there is a wonderful SSRN eJournal on Transnational Litigation/Arbitration, Private International Law, and Conflict of Laws that is available here.

General Principles of European Private International Law, a cura di Stefan Leible, Kluwer Law International, 2016, p. 416, ISBN: 9789041159557, Euro 145.

[Dal sito dell’editore] – European private international law, as it stands in the Rome I, II, and III Regulations and the recent Succession Regulation, presents manifold risks of diverging judgments despite seemingly harmonised conflict of law rules. There is now a real danger, in light of the rapid increase in the number of legal instruments of the European Union on conflict of laws, that European private international law will become incoherent. This collection of essays by twenty noted scholars in the field sheds clear light on the pivotal issues of whether a set of overarching rules (a ‘general part’) is required, whether an EU regulation is the adequate legal instrument for such a purpose, which general questions such an instrument should address, and what solutions such an instrument should provide. In analysing the possible emergence of general principles in European private international law over the past years, the contributors discuss such issues and factors as the following: a) the relationship between conflict of laws and recognition; b) the room for party autonomy; c) the concept of habitual residence; d) adaptation when interplay between different laws leads to deadlock; e) public policy exceptions; f) the desirability of a general escape clause; g) the classic topics of characterisation, incidental question, and renvoi; and h) right to appeal in case of errors in the application of foreign law. Practitioners dealing with these notoriously difficult cases will welcome this in-depth treatment of the issues, as will interested policymakers throughout the EU Member States and at the EU level itself. Scholars will discover an incomparable comparative analysis leading to expert recommendations in European private international law, opening the way to an effective European framework in this area.

Ulteriori informazioni  e il sommario del volume sono disponibili qui.

Chris Thomale from the University of Heidelberg has written  a private international critique of surrogate motherhood (Mietmutterschaft, Mohr Siebeck, 2015, X+ 154 pages). Provocatively entitled “mothers for rent” the book offers a detailed and thorough (German language) analysis of the ethical and legal problems associated with gestational surrogacy.

The author has kindly provided us with the following abstract:

Surrogacy constitutes an intricate ethical controversy, which has been heavily debated for decades now. What is more, there are drastic differences between national surrogacy rules, ranging from a complete ban including criminal sanctions to outright legalisation. Hence, on the one hand, surrogacy constitutes a prime example of system shopping. On the other hand, however, we are not simply dealing with faits accomplis but rather enfants accomplis, i.e. we find it hard to simply undo the gains of system shopping at law as the “gain” levied by the parties is in fact a party herself, the child.

In his new book, “Mietmutterschaft – Eine international-privatrechtliche Kritik” (Mohr Siebeck Publishers, 2015), Chris Thomale from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, provides a fully-fledged analysis of surrogacy as a social and legal phenomenon. Starting from an ethical assessment of all parties’ interests (p. 5-18), the treatment of foreign surrogacy arrangements before the courts of a state banning surrogacy is discussed both on a conflict of laws level (p. 19-40) and at the recognition stage with respect to foreign parental orders based on surrogacy contracts (p. 41-52). The essay follows up with investigating the implications of EU citizenship (p. 53-58) and human rights (p. 59-72) for the international legal framework of surrogacy, ensued by a brief sketch of the boundaries of judicial activism in this regard (p. 73-80). Finally, proposals for legislative reform on an international, European and national level are being developed (p. 81-99).

Thomale looks at both the empirical medical background of surrogacy and the economic, political and ethical arguments involved. It is from this interdisciplinary basis that he engages the legal questions of international surrogacy in a comparative fashion. His main conclusion is that surrogacy in accordance notably with human rights and recent jurisprudence by the European Court of Human Rights as well as the principle of the superior interest of the child can and should be banned at a national level. At the same time, according to Thomale, national legislators should reform their adoption procedures, building on the well-developed private internatioal law in that field, in order e.g. to offer an adoption perspective also to couples who cannot procreate biologically, such as notably gay couples. In the essay, recent international case-law on surrogacy, including notably Mennesson et Labassée and Paradiso et Campanelli (both ECHR), is discussed in great detail.

A longer title than readers are used to from this blog. However judgment itself is also an unusually long 163 pages. In Banco Santander Totta, the High Court was asked whether snowball interest rates swaps in loan agreements between a Portuguese Bank and four Portuguese public transport companies, should be declared invalid under Portuguese ‘mandatory’ law, applicable by use of the corrective mechanism of Article 3(3) Rome I.

The Transport Companies do not assert that BST wrongly advised them to enter into the swaps, or misrepresented the swaps to them. Rather,  defences raised by the Transport Companies are that:

(1) under Portuguese law, each company lacked capacity to enter the swaps which are therefore void; this is on the basis (among other reasons) of an assertion that the swaps were speculative transactions; this defence applies regardless of the law applicable to the swaps; it is common ground that, if correct, it is a complete answer to the claim;

(2) although English law governs the Master Agreements, this is subject to Art. 3(3) of the Rome Convention; this provides that where all the elements relevant to the situation at the time of the choice of law are connected with one country only, the choice does not prejudice the application of rules of the law of that country which cannot be derogated from by contract (“mandatory rules”). Portuguese mandatory rules apply to the swaps, giving rise to two defences: a) under rules dealing with gaming and betting and ordre public, the swaps are void for being unlawful “games of chance”, alternatively speculations; b) seven of the nine swaps are liable to be terminated under rules dealing with an “abnormal change of circumstances” (which termination takes effect as though the swaps were void); this is on the basis that since 2009 (following the financial crisis), the reference interest rates relating to the swaps (EURIBOR and LIBOR) have been close to zero (and remain so at the time of this judgment);

(3) in presenting the swaps to the Transport Companies, the bank acted in breach of its duties under provisions of the Portuguese Securities Code which implement relevant European Union legislation; these apply to the bank as a financial intermediary and relate to the protection of the legitimate interests of the Transport Companies as clients, and to conflicts of interest; the breach is said to entitle the Transport Companies to damages thereby extinguishing their liabilities under the swaps.

Knowles J reviews precedent (European (limited, mostly related to the preparatory works), English and Portuguese (likewise limited) and decides against the engagement of Article 3(3). I will not regurgitate all of the analysis: readers are best referred to the judgment, in particular p.65 onwards, and the decision at 411, where Knowles J concludes

because of the right to assign to a bank outside Portugal, the use of standard international documentation, the practical necessity for the relationship with a bank outside Portugal, the international nature of the swaps market in which the contracts were concluded, and the fact that back-toback (sic) contracts were concluded with a bank outside Portugal in circumstances in which such hedging arrangements are routine, the court’s conclusion is that Art. 3(3) of the Rome Convention is not engaged because all the elements relevant to the situation at the time of the choice were not connected with Portugal only. In short, these were not purely domestic contracts. Any other conclusion, the court believes, would undermine legal certainty.  

The latter element is quite important. Referring in particular to Briggs (at 374), the Court holds that the uncertainty of the rule of Article 3(3) should lead to its narrow interpretation. I agree. With party autonomy the core consideration of the Regulation, standard recourse to Article 3(3) [or 3(4) for that matter) under the pretext for instance of a general campaign against fraus legis is most definitely not warranted.

Geert.

(Handbook of) European Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 3, Heading 3.2.8, Heading 3.2.8.1

Thank you, Matthias Storme, for alerting me late last night that judgment was issued in Case C-483/13 KA Finanz AG. The CJEU is asked to clarify the ‘corporate exception’ to the Rome Convention and subsequent Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations. The two main questions ask whether the ‘company law’ excepted area includes (a) reorganisations such as mergers and divisions, and (b) in connection with reorganisations, the creditor protection provision in Article 15 of Directive 78/855 concerning mergers of public limited liability companies, and of its successor, Directive 2011/35. I have a little more on the background in previous posting and I expressed my disappointment with Bot AG’s Opinion here.

The Court, like the AG, justifiably rejects a great deal of the questions as inadmissible, mainly due to the secondary law, interpretation of which is sought, not applying ratione temporis, to the facts at issue. It then in essence simply turns to European company law, in particular Directive 2005/56, to settle the issue. Why exhaust oneself with analysis of the corporate exception, if a different piece of EU law exhaustively regulates the issue? At 56 ff

It is stated in Article 2(2)(a) of Directive 2005/56 that a merger by acquisition is an operation whereby one or more companies, on being dissolved without going into liquidation, transfer all their assets and liabilities to another existing company, namely the acquiring company.

As regards the effects of such an operation, it is stated in Article 14(2)(a) of Directive 2005/56 that a cross-border merger brings about, from the date when the merger takes effect, the transfer of all the assets and liabilities of the company being acquired to the acquiring company.A merger by acquisition therefore entails the acquisition by the acquiring company of the company being acquired in its entirety, without extinguishing the obligations that a winding-up would have brought about, and, without novation, has the effect of substituting the acquiring company for the company being acquired as party to all of the contracts concluded by the latter. Consequently, the law which was applicable to those contracts before the merger continues to be applicable after the merger. It follows that EU law must be interpreted as meaning that the law applicable following a cross-border merger by acquisition to the interpretation of a loan contract taken out by the acquired company, such as the loan contracts at issue in the main proceedings, to the performance of the obligations under the contract and to how those obligations are extinguished is the law which was applicable to that contract before the merger.

(here: German law).

I appreciate the narrow set of facts upon which the CJEU holds allows one to distinguish. The spirit of the Court’s judgment in my view must however be what I have advocated for some time. Other than for a narrow set of issues immediately surrounding the very creation, life and death of the merged company, for which lex societatis applies, European private international law upholds lex contractus (often: lex voluntatis: the law so chosen by the parties) for the considerable amount of contractual satellites involving a merger and similar operations. Rome I is fully engaged for these contracts, including its provisions on third party impact of a change in governing law (this is relevant where the parties to the merger, decide to amend applicable law of the inherited contracts).

Geert.

 (Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.6.5, Chapter 3, Heading 3.2.2 .

In a recent order of 14 September 2015 – 1 BvR 1321/13, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) has held that the right to effective judicial protection (Article 2(1) in conjunction with Article 20(3) of the German constitution) is violated if, in a cross-border case, a court fails to investigate the facts of the case by using possibilities that have good prospects of success, in particular if it does not take into account specific institutionalised facilities and measures of judicial assistance, such as those offered by the European Evidence Regulation, the Hague Evidence Convention and the European Judicial Network in Civil and Commercial Matters. In the case before the Court, a Romanian national had sued a widow of Romanian nationality for a share of the inheritance of her deceased husband based on the assertion that the couple had adopted him. Although it remained controversial whether such an adoption had actually taken place in Romania, the Municipal Court (Amtsgericht) did not request the Romanian adoption files for consultation by way of judicial cooperation. According to the Constitutional Court, the Amtsgericht ought to have considered whether the EU Evidence Regulation or the Hague Evidence Convention permit a German court to request the original case files from another Member State. An English abstract of the decision is available here.