On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 12:04:07PM +0400, olive wrote: olive> olive> >That is not totally correct. First, choice of venue clauses are, as a olive> >rule, totally legal. olive> olive> In all countries? Do you have any reference for that? I am certainly not going to state that it is true in all countries, that would be way too risky... As for my own (Belgium), it's textbook knowledge, and is confirmed by article 6, § 1 of the code of international private law <quote> Lorsque les parties, en une matière où elles disposent librement de leurs droits en vertu du droit belge, sont convenues valablement, pour connaitre des différends nés ou à naître à l'occasion d'un rapport de droit, de la compétence des juridictions belges ou de l'une d'elles, celles-ci sont seules compétentes. </quote> The wording is actually a little flimsy, but understood as validating choice of venue clauses. For the US, you could have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_selection_clause Now I do believe that certain US states don't enforce choice of venue clauses (Michigan I think, but don't quote me on that). It is also true that even when such clauses are valid *they can often be overriden if there is a good reason to*. Such good reasons are usually understood as being matters which are politically important to the courts (what in french we call "d'ordre public"), or, sometimes, sufficient ties to another forum. Let it be noted that seemingly alot of countries have such rules, but that doesn't mean they apply them most of the time. olive> Second, the judgement won't be directly olive> >enforceable in other countries, but in non-controversial cases (by olive> >controversial, I'm thinking Yahoo! and the like), it is quite easy to olive> >get a judgement called (in Europe anyway) an exequatur which renders a olive> >foreign olive> >judgement enforceable. So let's not dismiss such a clause as ineffective. olive> olive> I am not a lawyer and I wonder if this totally exact. Anyway even if you olive> are right this will be confirmed by the foreign tribunal and if the olive> issue is not controversial it is normal that you will condemned. In the olive> specific case of the Adobe license, which basically let you do anything olive> you want, I do not see how you can non controversially break olive> the contract. Well, I'm not going to go to lengths to detail every country, but here's the idea: if a foreign decision has respected the equivalent of due process, and isn't politically disturbing for the country in which enfocement is sought (again, think Yahoo!), it's usually easy to get it enforced. I would like to clarify my statement on the "non-controversial" bit. I didn't mean it as "undisputable", but more as "not politically connotated". So any decision without glaring political consequences in "non-controversial in this sense". For an example of such rules, I can refer to article 22 of the aforementioned belgian code: <quote> Art. 22. § 1er. Une décision judiciaire étrangère exécutoire dans l'Etat où elle a été rendue est déclarée exécutoire en Belgique, en tout ou en partie, conformément à la procédure visée à l'article 23. Une décision judiciaire étrangère est reconnue en Belgique, en tout ou en partie, sans qu'il faille recourir à la procédure visée a l'article 23. Si la reconnaissance est invoquée de façon incidente devant une juridiction belge, celle-ci est compétente pour en connaître. La décision ne peut être reconnue ou déclarée exécutoire que si elle ne contrevient pas aux conditions de l'article 25. § 2. Toute personne qui y a intérêt ainsi que, en matière d'état d'une personne, le ministère public, peut faire constater, conformément à la procédure visée à l'article 23, que la décision doit être reconnue ou déclarée exécutoire, en tout ou en partie, ou ne peut l'être. § 3. Au sens de la présente loi : 1° le terme décision judiciaire vise toute décision rendue par une autorité exerçant un pouvoir de juridiction; 2° la reconnaissance établit pour droit ce qui a été décidé à l'étranger. <\quote> The procedure in article 23 is mainly formal, and the conditions of article 25 which allow enforcement to be denied are mainly political incompatibility, lack of due process of law, existence of possible appeals, etc. -- Yorick
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