Peter Bert's Blog about Litigation, Arbitration and Mediation in Germany – Art Law, Case Law, News etc.
In an M&A contract, the parties consider agreeing on the jurisdiction of the German courts. The corporate guys get in touch: “Isn’t there this M&A chamber at the Frankfurt District Court, where they conduct proceedings in English…?”
Well:
In March 2014, the proposal to allow English language proceedings in German courts has been re-introduced into the parliamentary process. It had become obsolete after last year’s election.* The draft legislation is more or less identical to the one proposed during the last parliamentary term, which had proceeded to an experts’ hearing in the Bundestag.
As reported previously, the draft law on English language proceedings in international commercial matters is currently being deliberated in parliament. Martin Illmer, a senior research fellow at Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, was one of the experts who testified before the German Parliamnet (Bundestag) on Wednesday this week. He has kindly agreed to provide a guest post and provide an insider’s view:
“My Court is Better than Your Court” was the title of a session at this week’s annual IBA Conference in Dubai. It presented the approaches to specialized commercial courts in jurisdictions around the globe. It was a very informative session. The presentations that I found the most impressing were on the one hand those from the home region, namely the DIFC Court in Dubai and the QFC Civil and Commercial Court in Doha, Qatar. Both courts, in a way, started with a clean slate and allowed their founders to design state of the art processes and procedures. And budget restrictions appeared not to an obstacle. The DIFC court originally had jurisdiction over matters related to the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). During the IBA Conference, an extension of the DIFC’s jurisdiction was signed into law by the Ruler of Dubai, creating an opt-in jurisdiction which is now available to parties outside the DIFC. Read More