Recent Posts

Dear Readers: On July 8, 2011 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held, in a divided 2-1 panel decision, that Exxon Mobil is not immune from claims of civil damages liability under the Alien Tort Statute  for torture and extrajudicial killing allegedly committed at its behest by the Indonesian military forces against civilian tribesmen in Indonesia.  The outcome on the issue of ATS liability of corporations is the opposite of that reached last year by a  divided panel in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. An analysis of one of the key issues in…
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Dear Readers: The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals today issued its second significant decision under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of the current week. With apologies that I have not yet provided you with synopsis or analysis of the earlier ruling, I invite you to read the account of the decision today, posted to my general website. www.lexmarc.us Warm regards. Marc Goldstein

As New York’s workforce took flight from offices and cubicles to launch the Independence Day Weekend, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan found that there are still a few breaths of life remaining in class arbitration, deciding to reinstate an arbitrator’s award in favor of a proposed employment discrimination class arbitration. (Jock v. Sterling Jewelers, Inc., 2011 WL 2609853 (2d Cir. July 1, 2011)). The award at issue addressed only whether the arbitration clause permitted a class arbitration, and not whether the proposed class should be certified. The panel majority in the Second Circuit rejected the District…
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Dear Readers: On my general website today, I report on a very significant Second Circuit decision concerning civil liability under the RICO (federal racketeering) statute. The case has already once been to the U.S. Supreme Court, and a petition for certiorari from this further decision can be expected.  My report is found under Legal Developments at www.lexmarc.us National holiday greetings to U.S. and Canadian readers. Marc

Class arbitration in the US may have some remaining vitality, under arbitration agreements made before the recent Concepcion decision and which do not include express class action waivers. A recent decision from a federal district judge in San Francisco indicates this, as the Court held that it was for the arbitrators to decide whether the language of the arbitration clauses at issue permits classwide arbitration. (Hayes v. Servicemaster Global Holdings, Inc., 2011 WL 2471001 (N.D. Cal. June 22, 2011). After sorting through the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bazzle, Stolt-Nielsen, and (by implication) Concepcion, this Court concluded that there were legitimate…
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Dear Readers: Foreign companies may be exposed to US discovery sought for use in litigation outside the United States. A recent federal court decision rejected an attempt to serve a subpoena for such discovery on a Chinese company at the Chicago offices of its wholly-owned subsidiary. A discussion can be found in the Legal Developments section of my general website. www.lexmarc.us Regards. Marc Goldstein