Goethe University, Frankfurt: German & International Arbitration Course, Summer Term 2022

Goethe University’s Law School has just announced the details for this year’s course in German and International Arbitration. Again, this year’s edition will be completely virtual, so it might be of interest to students outside Frankfurt as well. Here is the official course announcement:

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EU Commission: Proposal on Cross-Border Videoconferencing in Court Hearings

When the pandemic started and court hearings by video became a real thing, German lawyers found, sometimes to their surprise, that the law was actually quite advanced: Already back in 2002, Section 128a ZPO was introduced to allow the conduct of court hearings using videoconferencing technology and the law was updated in 2013 (see our earlier post “Remote Courts in Germany” for details). The law in action has since caught up with the law on the books: Courts have been equipped with the necessary hardware and hearings by videoconferencing have become a regular feature in many court rooms across the country – and they are likely to stay in a post-pandemic world. However, there remains some uncertainty regarding the use of videoconferencing in a cross-border context.

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Germany and Pre-Trial Discovery of Documents: A New Proposal

Germany has made a reservation under Article 23 Hague Evidence Convention and does not execute letters of request “issued for the purpose of obtaining pre-trial discovery of documents as known in Common Law countries.” Long-time readers of this blog may recall that we had posts like “Is Germany’s Position on Pre-trial Discovery of Documents under the Hague Evidence Convention Softening?” (2015) and even “Germany’s Position on Pre-trial Discovery Softens!” (2017) before. Spoiler alert: Germany’s position did not change. Shortly after the 2017 post, the Legal Committee (Rechtsausschuss) of the Bundestag killed the proposed softening of Germany’s reservation under Article 23. With this note of caution, we report on a new attempt at changing Germany’s position.  Continue reading

German Bar Association – Civil Litigation Committee

The German Bar Association (Deutscher Anwaltverein – DAV) comprises 252 local bar associ­ations and more than 61,000 individual lawyers. It represents the interests of the German legal profession at the national, European and international level. I am honoured to have been appointed to its Civil Litigation Committee (Zivilverfahrensausschuss).

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