Art Law: US Supreme Court on Welfenschatz and Sovereign Immunity

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp (S. Ct. 2021) and today, we have Ted Folkman of Letters Blogatory reviewing it: 

This is the case of the Welfenschatz, the Guelph treasure said to have been stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owners. The claim was that Hermann Göring, one of Hitler’s most powerful ministers, had coerced the Jewish owners of the treasure to sell it for a fraction of its value to the Prussian government in the early 1930s. Continue reading

Federal Constitutional Court on International Judicial Co-Operation – A US Perspective

US_Supreme_Court_-_correctedOver at Letters Blogatory, Ted Folkman has picked up the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) on judicial assistance on which I reported earlier this week. Ted found a nice name for the case, In re Frau R.*, and shared an interesting observation from a US perspective: Continue reading

Personal Jurisdiction Over Foreign Parties in US Courts: New Developments

European businesses view being sued in the United States as a major business risk, and they traditionally percieve the U.S. courts to be very liberal in assuming jurisdiction over foreign parties. Recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to be more restrictive.  They were widely reported over here, in particular Daimler AG vs. Bauman earlier this year. In today’s guest post, Peter S. Selvin summarizes the recent cases and reports that the lower courts do not always follow the trend.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has recently cut back on the power of US courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over non-US parties in civil litigation, certain federal appellate courts nevertheless continue to issue surprising decisions that buck this trend.  Continue reading