Mathias Reimann

Cost and Fee Allocation in Civil Procedure: A Synthesis

This General Report provides a comparative study of the principles and rules governing costs and fees in civil litigation. It is based on the General Report written for the XVIIIth World Congress of Comparative Law held in Washington D.C. in the summer of 2010. It is thus draws heavily (albeit by no means exclusively, see infra Section 1.1.4) on the respective National Reports contributed to this Congress Most, though not all, National Reporters also contributed chapters to this book.

Conflict of laws in Western Europe : a guide through the jungle

This informative work introduces the conflict of laws in Western Europe to the American scholar and practitioner. It describes the field as a whole, explains the underlying issues, and notes the idiosyncracies that create stumbling blocks in the successful resolution of business transactions and other legal matters. A useful reference for the modern lawyer.

Stepping out of the European shadow: why comparative law in the United States must develop its own agenda

In the United States today, comparative law does not play nearly as prominent a role in teaching, scholarship, and practice as one would expect in our allegedly cosmopolitan age. Perhaps the discipline is not in an outright crisis but it surely does not occupy a prominent place in the American legal universe either. It is quite common to blame the parochial attitude and lack of international sophistication of American lawyers for the marginal role of comparative law. But, as a matter of fact, interest in international legal subjects, ranging from human rights to foreign trade law and international litigation, is currently high and growing fast. Course offerings in these and other specialized areas have mushroomed,1 the number of international journals is staggering, and in January 1998 the AALS held yet another annual meeting trumpeting the globalization of law. Only classic comparative law, it seems, has somehow missed the boat. This indicates that we, the American comparatists, have simply not been able to sell our product well to our students, our academic colleagues, and certainly not to the practitioners. A major reason for this failure is that the product in its current form is not nearly as attractive as we would like to think. In large part, this is because the design of the product is badly flawed. It is essentially a copy of a foreign model which suffers from two fundamental ills: It is hopelessly out of date and it was never fashioned to fit either global or American needs. As a result, comparative law in the United States is both behind the times and far off the mark. In this essay, my main goal is a (partial) deconstruction of the traditional model of comparative law in the United States. I first briefly describe this model and its European lineage (I.). I then explain why its three major features neither reflect current global realities nor serve modern American needs (II.- IV.). I conclude that the

American Private Law and European Legal Unification – Can the United States Be a Model?

This shift in focus is illustrated particularly by the recent debate on the revival of an allEuropean ius commune. There is no doubt that we are currently witnessing the rise of a common private law on the level of the European Union. This law originates partially in Brussels (in the form of regulations and directives), and partially in Luxembourg (in the form of case law). It determines and, where necessary, even overrides the law of the Member States. I The result is a sort of uniformity imposed upon the Member States from the outside. The primary focus of this essay, however, is the creation of an innerunity (possibly emerging from the old ius commune) the unification or assimilation of the private law of the Member States through teaching and scholarship, i.e.

Cost and Fee Allocation in Civil Procedure

This report considers principles and rules governing costs and fees in civil litigation. The law of costs and fees is a significant factor in the decision whether a commercial dispute will result in litigation. In transboundary cases, legal counsel compare rules of litigation costs in choosing forum and applicable law. Based on reports from 33 countries, the author considers cost shifting mechanisms, the components of three major items of litigation costs (lawyer fees, evidence expenses, court costs), and mechanisms for distributing financial risk (legal aid, litigation insurance, collective actions, success-oriented fees, and third party investment in lawsuits). The report groups systems by regional and culture clusters in detailing the degree to which a regime embraces a loser-pays principle, implements fee shifting caps, or permits judicial discretion in allocating costs and fees. It also notes characteristics of regimes explained by civil versus common law tradition. Lawyer fees for litigation are higher in common law systems and the amount of lawyer fees is more predictable in civil law jurisdictions.

Unternehmenshaftung für Menschenrechtsverletzungen in den USA jenseits des Alien Tort Claims Act

Der Beitrag untersucht den status quo der Rechtsprechung in den USA zu Menschenrechtsklagegn gegen Unternehmen anhand der jeweils einschlagigen prozessualen Voraussetzungen und prozessrechtlichen Institute. Ausfuhrlich zeigt er zunachst die Voraussetzungen der personlichen Zustandigkeit von US-amerikanischen Gerichten, die erforderlich ist, damit ein Unternehmen verklagt werden kann. Problematisch ist dies insbesondere bei auslandischen Unternehmen. Dabei weist der Beitrag vor allem auf die einschrankenden Wirkungen des Urteils des US Supreme Court im Fall Daimler aus dem Jahre 2014 hin. Eine weitere Prozessvoraussetzung ist die sachliche Zustandigkeit. Diese wird fur Bundesgerichte u. a. im Alien Tort Claims Act begrundet, dessen Reichweite durch das Kiobel-Urteil des Supreme Court aus dem Jahre 2013 jedoch ebenfalls stark eingeschrankt wurde. Trotz dieser Urteile bestehen weiter Klagemoglichkeiten vor Bundes- und Staatsgerichten. Der Zugang zu den Gerichten der einzelnen Bundesstaaten erscheint dabei oft sogar noch leichter als der Zugang zu den Bundesgerichten. Allerdings sind Urteile von Staatsgerichten oft weniger effektiv und in ihrem Wirkungskreis beschrankt. Die Suche nach dem anwendbaren Recht wirft die Problematik der Bindung von Privatpersonen und Unternehmen an volkerrechtliche Normen auf, bezuglich der die Rechtsprechung in den USA uneinheitlich agiert. Schlieslich werden noch politisch begrundete Hurden fur Prozesse in den USA diskutiert. Dazu zahlen die political questions doctrine, die foreign affairs doctrine und die act of state doctrine sowie die international comity. Reimann schliest mit dem Hinweis, dass die USA volkerrechtlich verpflichtet sind, effektive Klagen bei Menschenrechtsverletzungen zu ermoglichen.

Parochialism in American conflicts law

Modern American conflicts law has often been accused of being parochial. Both at home and abroad, its critics have pointed out that the disciplines narrow focus on domestic problems, particularly during the conflicts revolution of the 1960s through the 1980s, has led to a regrettable neglect of comparative perspectives.1 By and large, this criticism was justified. In stark contrast to longstanding European2

The Political Story of The German Civil Code. A Review of Politics and the Law in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany

provisions of the revised law went into effect on August 1, 1989.11 Consequently, while the chapter on the United Kingdom is currently useful as a starting point for finding major cases interpreting basic copyright concepts (which cannot have been radically changed), its numerous statutory references have become essentially without value. Readers will have to wait for the first update before this treatise becomes truly useful for comparative research in British copyright law.