At the outset of a litigation, clients inevitably ask how long the matter will take. And they do not want me to quote the lyrics of an old Cat Stevens song. But frankly, in many cases, that would be the best I could do. And going by two recent decisions, I would need to add, being the cautious lawyer that I am: “You’re still young, there’s so much you have to go through…” Read More
Month: March 2012
Football, the Federal Tax Court and German Case Reporting
In my post on the Porsche/Volkswagen saga, I pointed to the practice of publishing cases in sanitized versions only. Names of parties, witnesses, even cities are anonymized – the press report about Porsche and Ferdinand Piech, about claims against Standard & Poor’s etc., but you will not find their names anywhere in the published judgments – a time-honoured practice which I find increasingly absurd. Read More
Frankfurt Courts Limit Scope of New German Bond Act – Direct Impact on Debt Restructuring
Today’s post provides some legal back ground on prominent corporate restructuring matters. Pfleiderer, a manufacturer of engineered wood and laminate flooring, and solar company Q-Cells have been making the headlines in the business press for quite some time now. Both were the brink of insolvency, both had bonds outstanding, the restructuring of which was central to their survival – and in both cases this led to litigation in the Frankfurt courts. Read More
American Bar Association on Foreign Data Protection Laws in U.S. Discovery
One of the recurring themes in German-American legal relations is the culture clash of US style discovery and German style data protection. Therefore, I read with great interest that the American Bar Association (ABA) passed a resolution on the topic. Here it is – the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association resolved on February 6, 2012: Read More