In a judgment last week, the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) has found a US party liable for damages for bringing an action against its German contractual counterparty in the US in violation of an agreement on the jurisdiction of the German courts. With this judgment, the Federal Supreme Court decided an issue that so far had been controversially debated in the German legal literature. Until this decision, it was not clear whether the violation of a choice of court agreement does not only have a procedural effect, but does also render the violating party liable for monetary damages. (Disclosure: This post is based on the Federal Supreme Court’s press release only, as the full judgment is not yet available. I will provide an update when the judgment comes out.) Read More
Tag: Oberlandesgericht Köln
Cologne Court of Appeals: Jurisdiction for Arbitration Matters in North Rhine-Westphalia
Federal states (Bundesländer) with more than one court of appeals (Oberlandesgericht) have the option to assign jurisdiction in arbitral matters to one of these courts pursuant to Section 1062 para. 5 German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO). The idea is to increase the level of expertise and specialization of the judges. Read More
Federal Supreme Court: Sedelmayer vs. Russia – No Set-off with Tax Claims
This decision published by the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) a couple of days ago on its website appears to be the latest instalment in the on-going saga of Franz Sedelmayer’s quest to enforce an investment treaty award against Russia. Of course, the Federal Supreme Court sticks to Germany’s practise of anonymous court reporting. The facts reported in the decision are so unique, however, that it cannot be anything else but the Sedelmayer case.
Franz Sedelmayer was awared damages under the German-Russian Investment treaty in an arbitration seated in Stockholm in 1998, and has spent more than 15 years enforceing it. The details have been reported extensively, see for example, this piece in the New York Times. Read More
Art Law: Auction House Liable in Sale of Fake Expressionist Painting – Update
In an earlier post, I had written about a judgment of the District Court (Landgericht) Cologne that had held the Lempertz auction house liable in relation to the sale of a Campendonk painting forged by Wolfgang Beltracchi. The court ordered Lempertz to hold the buyer harmless for the purchase price in the order of EUR 2.9 Million. Read More