Agrégateur de flux

I have for the moment little to go on in a new claim, launched in the English courts, in the Corporate Social Responsibility /mass torts category. The claim was apparently filed against Barrick Tz Limited, formerly Acacia Mining, domiciled in the UK, alleging human rights abuses by security forces at the company’s North Mara mine.

Of jurisdictional note undoubtedly will be the application of Articles 33-34 Brussels Ia: forum non conveniens – light, and a likely application for summary judgment by defendant. There is as far as I know no mother holding issue involved, unlike in Vedanta or Bento Rodriguez /Samarco.

Geert.

(Handbook of) European Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 8, Heading 8.3.

 

Claim was issued against Barrick Tz Limited, formerly known as Acacia Mining.

For the kind of jurisdictional issues involved, use search string 'CSR' on the https://t.co/nqA3VE1lht blog. #bizhumanrights https://t.co/wIr8X6D0Le

— Geert Van Calster (@GAVClaw) February 10, 2020

La procureure de la République a requis quatorze ans d’emprisonnement contre Gilbert Chikli, et dix ans contre Anthony Lasarevitch, organisateurs selon elle de l’escroquerie au « Faux le Drian ». Contre les autres prévenus, elle a requis entre deux et quatre ans d’emprisonnement. En dehors de Sylvain R., tous les prévenus ont demandé leur relaxe. Délibéré le 11 mars.

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Un manquement professionnel grave ayant une incidence sur la capacité d’exercice des missions de police judiciaire doit entraîner une interdiction d’exercice des fonctions d’officier de police judiciaire

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Sécurité sociale, accident du travail

Sécurité sociale

Sécurité sociale, cotisations et contributions du régime général

Sécurité sociale, accident du travail

Sécurité sociale - Accident du travail

Sécurité sociale - Assurances sociales du régime général

Construction immobilière

Responsabilité décennale

Assurance dommage-ouvrage

Engagement solennel devant la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne de deux nouveaux membres de la Cour des comptes européenne et de la Médiatrice européenne

It took quite some time but the news is finally here: North Macedonia has an entirely new Private International Law Act.

The Act was adopted by the Assembly on February 4th 2020 and it was just published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of North Macedonia No. 32, on 10 February 2020. The Act is not available online yet but we will make sure to share it here as soon as it or an English translation is available.

The first draft of the Act was completed in 2015 and was much welcomed by experts and scholars in the region as it ensured compatibility with all relevant EU Regulations, including Rome I, Rome II, Rome III, Brussels I bis, Brussels II bis, Succession Regulation etc. Since then, the Draft Law had been waiting for discussion and adoption by the Assembly until recently. The wait was worth it since the law has been passed without any amendments which is even more groundbreaking given that the new Act is quite a departure from the previous PIL Act in force.

Until now, the Republic of North Macedonia had been applying the PIL Act enacted in 2007 (Official Gazette of Republic of Macedonia No 87/2007). An amendment of this act was made in 2010 specifically to provisions on choice of law (Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia, No. 87/2007, 156/2010). While the rules on choice of law in contractual and non-contractual matters were updated to match the EU Conventions (and later Regulations), the Act of 2007 had stayed quite true to its predecessor – the Yugoslav PIL Act of 1982.

This new PIL Act of 2020 makes North Macedonia now the bearer of the most modern PIL Act in the Region of the Western Balkans. The last adopted PIL Act in this region was the Act of Montenegro, in force since 2014. Although other reforms of PIL Acts are underway in Serbia (since 2014) and Kosovo (since 2018) these countries and Bosnia and Herzegovina continue applying the Yugoslav PIL Act of 1982, while Albania’s PIL Act in force is that of 2011.

A more detailed report of the PIL developments in the region of the Western Balkans will be posted soon.

For queries about the Act, please contact Prof. Toni Deskoski at t.deskoski@pf.ukim.edu.mk, or Prof. Vangel Dokovski at v.dokovski@pf.ukim.edu.mk, or me at donike.qerimi@uni-pr.edu.

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of human rights lawsuits. Striking human rights cases have always enjoyed high media attention. But lately, they appear in a new dimension in Europe. The headline-grabbing “KiK” trial before the Regional Court of Dortmund and the current discussion about the adoption of a German Supply Chain Law are proof of this: It has long ceased to be a mere thought that German companies could be held liable in Germany for damage that occurred somewhere in their global supply or value chain. But are civil courts and arbitral tribunals suited at all for enforcing international human rights obligations of business enterprises, which are already highly controversial under substantive law?

On 4 May 2020, the Munich Center of Dispute Resolution (MuCDR) will host a conference that will be dedicated to this phenomenon. It will shed light on fundamental theoretical and dogmatic questions of civil human rights lawsuits as well as their consequences for the legal system, the legal profession, the German economy as well as for potential plaintiffs.

The full conference programme is available  here (in German).

Date: Monday, 4 May 2020

Registration: Participation in the conference is free of charge. Registration is required. Please find the registration form online.

 Venue: Ludwig Maximilians University, Main Building, Senatssaal E 106, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Munich, Germany

Conference language: German

Luis de Lima Pinheiro (university of Lisbon) has posted Public Policy and Private International Law – Portugal on SSRN.

The abstract reads:

The present report is aimed at describing the concept, legal framework, and features of the public policy clause in the Portuguese legal order, and at giving an account of the main applications of this clause in modern Portuguese case law and literature (marriage, children, custodianship, succession, contract, non-contractual obligations, property, intellectual property, and corporate).

The report deals mainly with choice of law, but reference is also made to the recognition of foreign judgments, since the public policy features and applications are to a large extent common in both contexts.

Portuguese courts tend to respect the exceptionality of the public policy clause. In recent case law, only a few judgments have deviated from this guideline, namely concerning the right of some heirs to a legal portion of the estate. In the vast majority of situations, the arguments based upon international public policy considerations were not accepted by the courts.

The paper is forthcoming in Public Policy and Private International Law (Olaf Meyer ed., Edward Elgar). It can be downloaded here.