Deadline for abstract submission: Thursday 17th April 2025.
The organisers, Dr Ilias Kapsis, Dr Clara Martins Pereira, Dr Virag Dr Virág Blazsek, Dr Andreas Kokkinis, and Professor Federico Lupo-Pasini, would like to invite paper abstract submissions for the 4th Conference on Financial Law and Regulation to take place at the City Law School, City St George’s, University of London on the 3rd of July 2025. This conference is supported by the Society of Legal Scholars, and the City Law School.
Whilst the majority of us consider the home a safe and comfortable place, for one in five people aged 16 and over, it represents a place of fear and violence if they are victim-survivors of domestic abuse. However, what is often lost amongst the already devastating facts and figures about domestic abuse is the reality for those victim-survivors who are also immigrants subject to the harsh realities of the UK’s strict immigration laws.
At the end of April 2021, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 came into force, representing a sea change in law around domestic abuse in England & Wales. Before this, governance and legislation on protecting against domestic abuse was fragmented, with domestic abuse undefined in the law. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 sought to address many of these problems. It would have been legitimate cause for optimism about the future of victim-survivors’ rights in England & Wales, if it was not for one significant oversight.
When the Domestic Abuse Bill was being debated by the Government, the problem of migrant victim-survivors’ rights regularly surfaced as a problem demanding urgent attention. It was a key campaign focus of many migrant women’s charities, known as “by-and-for” organisations, and the subject of many tabled amendments, particularly by the House of Lords.
But why exactly does being an immigrant make the situation of a victim-survivor of domestic abuse any different? It all comes down to the way the law impacts on those who are both at the mercy of an abuser and the strict immigration laws in the UK. The latter is known as the hostile environment policy, which has existed since 2012. For years, victim-survivors of domestic abuse who found themselves also subject to UK immigration law were in a unique position of fear – already fearful of consequences from abusers and the authorities when reporting their experiences of domestic abuse, but also fearful of whether they would risk deportation because of also being precarious migrants.
National legal systems have provisions that empower courts, especially, commercial courts to regulate matters related to business and commercial affairs, including insolvency related matters or disputes. These courts make strategic decisions, such as deciding whether a company faced with financial difficulties is worthy of a chance to restructure its debts/capital structures as opposed to being liquidated. However, the role of the court in this context is often either misunderstood or underestimated due to divergent theoretical perspectives on the role that they ought to play in an insolvency setting. In this short blog, I explore how involved should a court be in balancing stakeholder interests in insolvency and debt restructuring proceedings, especially in African emerging economies?
Debates on the role of the court in insolvency settings are dominated by theoretical ideals advanced by two leading insolvency theoretical schools; the traditionalists and proceduralists. These ideals further transcend to other theoretical movements, such as the contractarianism, and communitarianism in informing how such theoretical ideals may influence the role and/or approaches of the courts in balancing stakeholder interests in insolvency and debt restructuring frameworks. This is because, a theory is a factual concept or framework describing a given phenomenon, the way it is, or it ought to. Hence, insolvency law theories provide the basis upon which substantive insolvency laws and policies in different jurisdictions are prescribed or evaluated.
The recent announcement of sweeping tariffs by US President Donald Trump on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China has ignited a global trade conflict with far-reaching implications. President Trump’s decision to impose a 25% tariff on most Canadian and Mexican goods, with a 10% tariff on Canadian energy resources, and an additional 10% on Chinese imports, marks a significant departure from the longstanding free trade relationship between the two nations. In response to the US tariff threat, Canada announced retaliatory measures, planning to impose 25% targeted tariffs on $155 billion worth of US imports.
While a temporary reprieve has been granted for both Canada and Mexico, it is not clear that the tariffs will not eventually be imposed, as they have been on China, potentially violating the US’s commitments under international treaties. All four countries, as WTO members, are bound not to raise tariffs beyond their committed levels under Article II of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Article I of GATT further requires countries not to treat imports from different WTO members differently with respect to tariffs. Article 2.4 of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) prevents those three parties from increasing tariffs.
In another standard essential patents (SEPs) case from the Unified Patent Court (UPC), on 18 December 2024 the Munich Local Division (LD) issued an injunction in favour of Huawei (UPC_CFI_9/2023, available in German here). The order prohibited Netgear from selling Wi-Fi 6 routers in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Finland, France, and Sweden. Netgear is also required to withdraw the infringing products from the market and hand them over to a court-appointed bailiff for destruction. The ruling was enforceable upon the provision by Huawei (the SEP owner) of partial security, the full amount of which remains confidential (order of the court Lett. M, p.161). Nevertheless, faced with a seven-country injunction, Netgear settled in early January, agreeing to take a license to the WI-Fi 6 standard patents.
The Munich LD decision stems from an infringement claim filed by Huawei before the Munich LD in July 2023. The dispute centered on Huawei’s EP3611989, which relates to the Wi-Fi 6 standard and covers both methods and devices for transmitting and/or receiving information within a wireless local network. The case had been previously reported in this blog here.
In addition to addressing Huawei’s infringement claim, the Munich LD ruled on, and rejected, Netgear’s counterclaim for revocation (§C, ACT_588071/2023-UPC_CFI_9/2023). A parallel dispute between these parties is still pending at the US District Court of California, but it will likely be withdrawn in light of the settlement. Earlier in December 2024, the Munich LD had issued an anti-anti-suit injunction, prohibiting Netgear from pursuing an anti-suit or anti-enforcement application at the US District Court of California (the UPC decision CNF_791/2024 is available in the German language here).
Set under the palms of Florida’s Key West, the Truman Little White House, originally a winter retreat for US President Harry Truman and now a public museum, has at first sight little to say about law, let alone cosmopolitan law. Yet the sign outside its gate adds a cosmopolitan touch to the history of the building. It points out that the Little White House is ‘held in trust by the state for the citizens of the world’.
In hinting to something that the state, the state of Florida in this case, does for the citizens of the world, the sign evokes an unsolved conundrum of international law and legal theory: does the sovereign state owe any legal duties, beyond its citizens and its jurisdiction, to humanity at large? And if so, why?
These questions about the cosmopolitan role of the sovereign state have grown more pressing as the first quarter of the 21st century slides towards its end. The sovereign state remains the main actor in the international arena. Yet the challenges it faces are increasingly of a type that affects the entire human race: climate change; energy provision; security of data and identities in a borderless cyberspace; as well as the global movement of people. In the face of such challenges, a vision of the sovereign state as the mere guardian of its territory and people is increasingly inadequate.
By Vasiliki Verykaki, PhD Researcher at the City Law School
The European Union’s legal and constitutional landscape is undergoing a remarkable transformation, as highlighted by Judge Damjan Kukovec in a thought-provoking lecture on 28 November at City Law School. At the heart of these changes lies the EU’s assertion of autonomy in determining its legal standards and the evolving role of its judicial and regulatory institutions. Judge Kukovec’s insights provided a thorough analysis into the evolving influence of EU agencies and the complex relationship between EU and international law, shedding light on key developments reshaping the EU’s legal framework.
He first asserted that EU law, as a sui generis system, relies on mutual trust among authorities for functionality. Jurisdiction over customs law, VAT, and passenger rights shifted from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to the General Court (GC) to alleviate ECJ’s caseload and leverage GC’s capacity. Also, traditionally, EU agencies have included independent Boards of Appeal (BoAs) that serve as a preliminary stage before cases are escalated to the GC. This arrangement signifies a shift in the jurisdiction, as the option of an appeal against decisions of several specified BoAs at certain agencies is effectively being reduced. In the future, the GC will regularly be the ‘last resort’ in these matters. This structural evolution highlights the growing importance of EU agencies in resolving significant legal and regulatory matters, shaping a new constitutional order.
Moreover, in the landmark Kadi judgments (C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P), the ECJ emphasised the EU’s autonomy from international law, adding that protecting fundamental rights is central to the EU legal order. Accordingly, all Union measures must align with these fundamental rights. On a similar note, the Judge summarised the Case C-457/18, Slovenia v. Croatia, where the Court ruled that Slovenia’s claim, based on Croatia’s failure to recognise an arbitral award, involved an international law dispute rather than EU law. Despite some links to Croatia, the Court did not consider the issues having a Union dimension to exercise jurisdiction.
Moral damages are as real as material damages and, accordingly, must be compensated where appropriate in the particular case. This is not new law. The position as regards moral damages and its recoverability was settled over a century ago. In 1923 in the Opinion in the Lusitania Cases, the tribunal confirmed it in the following terms:
“That one injured is under the rules of international law, entitled to be compensated for an injury inflicted resulting in mental suffering, injury to his feelings, humiliation, shame, degradation, loss of social position or injury to his credit or to his reputation, there can be no doubt, and such compensation should be commensurate to the injury. Such damages are very real, and the mere fact that they are difficult to measure or estimate by money standards makes them none the less real and affords no reason why the injured person should not be compensated therefor as compensatory damages, but not as penalty.”
Maintaining a smooth trading relationship with the European Union (EU) is rightly a top priority for the new Labour government. While there is strong growth in the UK’s trade with other countries around the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific, the EU is still one of the UK’s most important trading partners. Non-tariff barriers in the form of product safety regulations are among the most significant modern impediments to trade, particularly since the EU tends to employ dense and constantly evolving regulations on a wide range of goods and services.
The Product Regulation and Metrology (PRM) Bill reflects the UK government’s concern that it does not currently have sufficient powers to respond to EU regulatory initiatives fast enough that there will not be adverse trade consequences. The EU’s new General Product Safety (GPS) Regulation, which will come into force in mid-December of this year, should entail significant product standard regulatory changes. The GPS will introduce specific safety obligations for economic operators and online marketplaces, reinforced product traceability requirements, as well as specific rules on handling product recalls, including a mandatory recall notice template.
The PRM Bill is intended to allow UK domestic law to be updated to reflect new or revised EU product requirements with a view to minimizing trade frictions. Under clause 2(7) of the PRM, future UK product regulations can provide that a product requirement is to be treated as fulfilled if it meets specified provisions in relevant EU law. This captures the government’s view that any EU regulation is presumptively valid from the standpoint of safety – a reasonable perspective given the EU’s devotion to the precautionary principle of mitigating even the most miniscule of risks. It is odd, though, that only the EU’s standards are granted this status – the Bill does not make reference to any other international standard setting bodies. It says nothing about the costs of these measures as borne by businesses.
It is not quite right, moreover, to term this clause in the PRM Bill as indicative of ‘mutual recognition’ since there is no indication that the deference will work in the opposite direction (e.g. UK standards being presumptively accepted for products entering the EU). The EU remains concerned that the UK will apply product standards in such a way that it will make it more competitive, drawing economic activity away from the continent.
Article 3(5) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) sets out the Union’s obligation to “contribute […] to the strict observance and the development of international law”. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has interpreted this to mean that “when [the Union] adopts an act, it is bound to observe international law in its entirety, including customary international law, which is binding upon the institutions of the European Union.” Until now, however, the CJEU had not gone so far as to annul a Union legal act on the basis that it violates international law. On 4 October 2024 the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice upheld the General Court’s decision to annul two economic agreements concluded between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco. The landmark judgment is the first time the CJEU has annulled an EU agreement for violating international law binding on the Union.
The legal and factual background to these cases has been discussed elsewhere on this blog. The cases relate to the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, which is considered by the United Nations to be a non-self-governing territory. In a 1975 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognised the people of Western Sahara have the right to self-determination. The status of the territory continues to be subject to a long-stalled United Nations mediated peace process. France, the only EU Member State with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, recently backed Morocco’s autonomy plan that would recognise Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory.
The economic agreements between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco have been the subject to ongoing litigation before the CJEU and domestic courts in the EU Member States over the last decade. In December 2015, the General Court annulled the Council Decision approving the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement concluded between the EU and Morocco in so far that it applies to the territory of Western Sahara. That decision was reversed on appeal in 2016. In these judgments, the Court highlighted two important factors. First, the territory of Western Sahara is separate and distinct from Morocco. Second, as Western Sahara is considered a ‘third party’ to these agreements, they can only apply with respect to Western Sahara with the consent of the people of Western Sahara.
