U.S. Discovery in Aid of German Proceedings: Kreke Immobilien, Sal. Oppenheim and Deutsche Bank

Today’s guest post is a slightly amended version of a post published at Letters Blogatory last week. Ted Folkmann discusses In re application of Kreke Immobilien, a case from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A German party was seeking discovery under Sec. 1782 U.S.C. in support of German proceedings. Sec. 1782 has become an increasingly popular tool (see here for an earlier post on the topic) for German litigants to overcome the inherent limitations of German civil procedure to obtain documents from the opponent, or from third parties. But let’s now hear from Ted: Continue reading

Lost in Translation: Deutsche Bank vs. Kirch

In its current edition, The Economist covered the topic of cross-border legal services and the need for legal translations. But as a German case recently illustrated, in a globalised world, you can get lost in translation even in litigation that, at least on paper, is purely domestic. In the long drawn litigation saga between Deutsche Bank and the heirs of media tycoon Leo Kirch which is pending in the Munich courts, the judges have to resort to expert evidence from linguists in order to sort out what the minutes of board meetings of Deutsche Bank really meant. – According to today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine, things do not look good for Deutsche Bank. Continue reading

“Banks in Court” – Germany Posts Record Growth in Banking Litigation

“Banks in Court” (Banken vor Gericht) is today’s Handelsblatt cover story (Update August 22, 2012: article was paywalled yesterday, now available online), devoted to the dramatic increase of banking litigation in Germany. Handelsblatt looked a various indicators: It surveyed the numbers of actions filed, the provsions made by banks for litigation risks and spoke to judges and lawyers. Activity is up in customer vs. bank litigation as well as in bank-to-bank litigation and most certainly in criminal investigations into the various bank activities.

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