LL4AN Half Unit
International Business Transactions: Conflict of Laws, Extraterritoriality, and Global Governance
This information is for the 2024/25 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr Jacco Bomhoff
Availability
This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time) and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
This course has a limited number of places and we cannot guarantee all students will get a place.
Knowledge of conflict of laws (private international law) would be useful but is not essential.
Course content
States often aim to regulate activities that transcend their own borders. When such measures are challenged or enforced through litigation, domestic courts become important sites of global governance. This course brings together perspectives from tort & company law, private international law (conflict of laws), public law, and regulation theory, to study such forms of extraterritorial and transnational regulation. Questions for discussion include: What law should a court in England apply to a case involving environmental damage allegedly caused abroad by a multinational mining company? Should companies operating in China ever be bound by US competition law rules or other US regulations? How free should companies be to choose the law they want to apply to their transactions? Topics to be studied throughout the course are: (1) Choice of law in contract and tort law(especially in Europe and the US); (2) Extraterritorial application of statutes (incl. competition law, securities law, internet regulation; environmental regulations; and other case studies);; (3) theories of transnational regulation (e.g. institutional roles of courts, regulatory arbitrage).
Teaching
20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term. Revision seminar in Spring Term.
There will be a reading week in week 6 of Winter Term.
Formative coursework
All students are expected to produce one 1,800 word formative essay during the course.
Indicative reading
Core textbook: Trevor C Hartley, International Commercial Litigation (Cambridge University Press, 3rd edn, 2020) (specified chapters only). Further reading: Christopher Whytock, Domestic Courts and Global Governance, 84 Tulane Law Review (2009);; Brilmayer, Goldsmith & O’Hara O’Connor, Conflict of Laws: Cases and Materials (7th edn., 2015).
Assessment
Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes) in the spring exam period.
Key facts
Department: Law School
Total students 2023/24: 29
Average class size 2023/24: 29
Controlled access 2023/24: No
Value: Half Unit
Course selection videos
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