In a ruling in January 2013, the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) confirmed its approach to service of U.S. actions in Germany under the Hague Service Convention. The court refused to hear a constitutional complaint (Verfassungsbeschwerde) filed by a German company sued in the Unites States. The German defendant had sought to stop service in Germany of a U.S. action, and had applied for a preliminary injunction to that effect. Read More
Category: Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht)
Judicial Review of Service under the Hague Service Convention
German defendants in foreign litigation can ask the German courts to review a request for service of process under the Hague Service Convention originating from a US court for compliance with the Convention. There are references to this procedure in several US cases, such as In re South African Apartheid Litig., 643 F. Supp. 2d 423, 437 (S.D.N.Y. 2007) or Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler AG, 2005 WL 3157472, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 22, 2005) and the question how that mechanism works comes up time and time again in discussions with US colleagues. This post describes the procedure and some recent cases that illustrate the approach of the German courts to – mainly US – service requests. Read More
Update: Vattenfall vs. Germany – A Dual Track Strategy
Vattenfall, the Swedish energy group, have not only commenced, as reported before, investment treaty arbitration against the Federal Republic of Germany under the Energy Charter to pursue damages suffered as a result of Germany’s nuclear energy opt-out. In addition, Vattenfall has now joined the German nuclear operators in bringing a constitutional complaint (Verfassungsbeschwerde) and challenging the respective legislation before the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht). Read More
Litigation Funding and Success Fees: A Risky Combination
In an earlier post, I had said that the regulatory environment for litigation funding in Germany is pretty straight forward. However, success fees remain by and large illegal in this country, a certain liberalization in 2008 not withstanding. Which makes for a potentially dangerous combination. A recent judgment (paywalled) by the Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) Munich dealt with the intersection of litigation funding on the one hand and success fees on the other hand. Read More