Happy Passover, Chag Pesach Sameach, Ramadan Mubarak and Happy Easter!

Earlier this week, I realised  that this year, the Abrahamic family of religions celebrate in close proximity to each other: Ramadan and Lent overlap, Passover and Easter commence on the same day, on 15 April – a rare occurrence ever since the Council of Nicaea in 325 separated Christian Easter computation from the Jewish calendar. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we all focused more on what we have in common, rather that what separates us?

Happy Passover, Chag Pesach Sameach, Ramadan Mubarak and Happy Easter!

 

Continue reading

Attending German Court Hearings from Abroad By Videolink

It is a contested issue whether it is admissible for parties to attend German court hearings by videolink whilst being abroad. Many, if not the majority of legal commentators argue that this is not admissible without prior approval from the foreign state concerned, because the German court thereby exercises Germany’s sovereign on foreign soil and thus violates the sovereignty of the foreign state where the parties are located. Continue reading

“The HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention: Cornerstones, Prospects, Outlook” – Conference, Bonn, 9/10 September 2022

Back in February 2020, one of the last pre-Pandemic posts on this blog was by Matthias Weller. Professor Weller introduced a conference on a topic at the very heart of this blog, namely the Hague Judgments Convention. The conference did of course not go ahead as planned in 2020, because nothing did. Nor did it take place in 2021, but we are all fairly optimistic that everything will work out the third time round. I suggest that you  mark 9 and 10 September 2022 in your diaries. Click here for details. Continue reading

Max Planck Institutes: Joint Opinion on Judicial Assistance Reforms

In February 2022, we covered the proposed legislation that would relax Germany’s position on the discovery of documents under the Hague Evidence Convention (see here). The draft bill that contained this proposal alongside a whole host of other issues has been reviewed in depth by two Max Planck Institutes (MPI), namely by the Hamburg Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and the Luxembourg Institute for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law. The combined academic fire power was aimed at two bills in the field: Continue reading