Discharge Injunction

 

An article title	Main theses	Definition
Violations of the Bankruptcy Discharge Injunction     WRITTEN BY:   Freeman Law	But more often than not, violations of the automatic stay or the discharge injunction occur out of a misunderstanding of the applicable law.	An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts.[1] A tax refund or tax rebate is a payment to the taxpayer when the taxpayer pays more tax than they owe.
	When a creditor violates the discharge injunction in a bankruptcy case, a bankruptcy court may hold the creditor in contempt to compensate the debtor for the violation and to coerce the creditor into compliance with the injunction. Placid Refining Co. v. Terrebonne Fuel & Lube, Inc. (In re Terrebonne Fuel & Lube, Inc.),
	To determine whether a party should be held in contempt for violating a discharge injunction, courts employ an objective standard, and contempt is appropriate when “there is not a ‘fair ground of doubt’ as to whether the creditor’s conduct might be lawful under the discharge order.” Taggart v. Lorenzen, 139 S. Ct. 1795, 1804 (2019).
	Under Taggart, three elements must be proven for a court to hold a party in contempt: “(1) the party violated a definite and specific order of the court requiring him to … refrain from performing … particular … acts; (2) the party did so with knowledge of the court’s order; and (3) there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the party’s conduct.” In re City of Detroit, Mich., 614 B.R. 255, 265 (Bankr. E.D. Mich. 2020).
	Therefore, the Court found that, while she never had an objectively reasonable basis for concluding she was not violating the Discharge Injunction, she had shown that she was “not proceeding in bad faith but, instead, under a misguided understanding of how she was restrained under the Discharge Injunction.”
	the Court ultimately limited its damage assessment to a sanction of $250/day for every day after the date that this order became final that Leslie McKinney failed to file a notice in State Court withdrawing the Motions to Enter.

https://www.jdsupra.com/

 

An article title	Main theses
Ninth Circuit Rejects Vehicle Manufacturer’s Attempt to Enforce Arbitration Clause in Dealership Purchase Agreement   WRITTEN BY: King & Spalding	A court’s resolution of arbitration-clause enforcement issues frequently turns on nuances in state decisional law and the precise meaning of the terms used in the arbitration provision.
	Under California law, a non-signatory to an arbitration agreement can move to compel arbitration as a third-party beneficiary only if it can prove that the “express provisions of the contract” show that (1) the non-signatory would benefit from the contract; (2) a “motivating purpose of the contracting parties was to provide a benefit to the third party”; and (3) permitting the “third party to enforce the contract is consistent with the objectives of the contract and the reasonable expectations of the contracting parties.”
	Language limiting the right to compel arbitration to a specific buyer and a specific dealership (and its assignees) means that extraneous third parties may not compel arbitration.
	The doctrine of equitable estoppel prevents a plaintiff from “seeking to hold a non-signatory liable for obligations imposed by an agreement, while at the same time repudiating the arbitration clause of that very agreement.”
	Under California law, warranty terms are not part of a sales contract where the manufacturer is not a party to the contract.
An article title	Main theses	Interesting Facts
Kanter Signals DOJ to Follow FTC Lockstep, Calls for Substantial Change to Competition Enforcement Approach   WRITTEN BY: McDermott Will & Emery	Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division, believes that the Supreme Court of the United States’ 1992 opinion in Eastman Kodak v. Image Technology Services supports a change in approach because “[l]egal presumptions that rest on formalistic distinctions rather than actual market realities are generally disfavored in antitrust law.	On the criminal side, the Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF) has already brought multiple conduct cases. The PCSF brought a case in June 2021 against the Belgian security firm G4S Secure Solutions NV, which pled guilty for its role in a criminal conspiracy involving bid rigging of US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts.[12] In September 2021, the PCSF brought a case against Minnesota concrete contractors for bid rigging of repair and construction contracts.[13] As recently as March 10, 2022, the PCSF filed a second charge against Kamida Inc. and its CEO for involvement in the same bid rigging conspiracy for concrete repair and construction contracts.
	Kanter intends to reshape the Division, both in terms of resource allocation and approach to anticompetitive conduct, from a civil and criminal perspective.
	The Division intends to take a more aggressive stance on vertical merger enforcement, reformulate the Horizontal and Vertical Merger Guidelines to better reflect market realities (in the government’s view), enter into fewer consent decrees and instead litigate cases to generate judicial opinions and advance the relevant case law, and bring more civil and criminal conduct cases.
	Consent decrees have become disfavored because, in Kanter’s view, partial divestitures can still result in “concentration creep” in situations where the divested assets are acquired by a buyer that will not effectively deploy them, thus allowing the former owner to continue coalescing market power.
	Vertical mergers may not eliminate horizontal competitors, but Kanter argued that vertical integration and efficiencies of scale derived from these deals can just as effectively create monopolies.
	Kanter indicated that investigating improper conduct in government procurement is a top Division priority.
An article title	Main theses	Interesting Facts
SDNY Rules Non-Signatories to Agreement May Compel Signatory to Arbitrate Issues of Arbitrability   WRITTEN BY: Carlton Fields	The court read two Second Circuit decisions as creating or implying a two-part inquiry: first, the court must decide whether the arbitration agreement permits or precludes invocation by non-signatories; and second, the court must decide whether a threshold of “relational sufficiency” exists between and among the parties to the dispute and the arbitration clause.	Plaintiffs, the Republic of Kazakhstan and Outrider Management LLC, filed suit in New York state court claiming the defendants conspired to obtain a fraudulent international arbitral award against them of nearly $500 million.
		The court therefore held that the defendants may compel Outrider to submit the arbitrability of its claims to the arbitrator.

 

Before deciding to scrap rule 5.4, the court’s justices had to ask “are these rules necessary to protect the public? Or are they restraints on the practice of law?”

 

Arizona First State to OK Nonlawyer Ownership of Law Firms

The Cardinal Change Doctrine

The cardinal change doctrine limits the ability to make significant changes to a project’s scope of work after the contract is signed. This doctrine prevents a contractor or sub from having to perform work that wasn’t initially bargained for.

The ability to identify cardinal changes is an important tool for contractors and subs to protect their rights and ensure they get paid what they’ve earned. Without knowing what is and isn’t allowable, construction businesses can’t be empowered to stand up for themselves when they’re getting yanked around. The cardinal change doctrine grants construction businesses a way out when confronted with a cardinal change.

https://www.levelset.com/blog/cardinal-change-doctrine/

The same person is both the creditor and the debtor

Under the merger doctrine, when the same person is both the creditor and the debtor with respect to a debt, that debt is extinguished.

....In the final analysis, while [The Court] clearly opened the door to application of the merger doctrine in cases where the creditor and debtor are in the relation of corporation/sole shareholder, it did not articulate a clear standard for courts or practitioners to apply in the future in such cases. 

Австралия. Беларусь. Еще раз о критериях отличия работника, осуществляющего работу не по трудовому, а по гражданскому договору. Может просто включать в договор специальный пункт?

Эта тема в последнее годы стала актуально уже и для Беларуси.  В интернете при быстром поиске можно стразу найти такую статью:   «Гражданско-правовой договор с физлицом: на что обратить внимание». В данной статье в частности приводятся признаки, по которым на практике определяется подмена трудовых отношений гражданско-правовыми.

Ниже приведу рассылку из Австралии в которой приводятся также критерии по данному вопросу, изложенные в судебном постановлению по делу  Workpac Pty Ltd v Rossato (2020).

Но не буду сейчас анализировать эти критерии, а хочу обратить внимание на следующее.

The Entire Fairness Doctrine

 

Once the entire fairness standard is triggered, the corporate board has the burden to demonstrate that the transaction is inherently fair to the stockholders by demonstrating both fair dealing (i.e., process) and fair price (i.e., substance).

http://www.rc.com/documents/Primer%20on%20Business%20Judgment%20Rule.pdf

Doctrines of Preclusion

DOCTRINES OF PRECLUSION 

When a claimant has filed claims or lawsuits for the same injury under more than one statute various doctrines of preclusion may be raised as a defense to the claim under the Act or to issues raised in a claim under the Act. 

 

Equitable Mootness Doctrine

Mootness In the legal system of the United States, a matter is moot if further legal proceedings with regard to it can have no effect, or events have placed it beyond the reach of the law. Thereby the matter has been deprived of practical significance or rendered purely academic. The U.S. development of this word stems from the practice of moot courts, in which hypothetical or fictional cases were argued as a part of legal education. These purely academic issues led the U.S. courts to describe cases where developing circumstances made any judgment ineffective as "moot". The doctrine can be compared to the ripeness doctrine, another judge-made rule, that holds that judges should not rule on cases based entirely on anticipated disputes or hypothetical facts. Similar doctrines prevent the federal courts of the United States from issuing advisory opinions.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mootness

Work-product doctrine / Public nuisance / Edict of government /

Work-product doctrine In American civil procedure, the work-product doctrine protects materials prepared in anticipation of litigation from discovery by opposing counsel.[1] It is also known as the work-product rule, the work-product immunity, and the work-product exception. It is sometimes mistakenly called the work-product privilege. This doctrine does not apply in other countries, where such communications are not protected, but where the legal discovery process itself is much more limited.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-product_doctrine

Federal and State Courts Wrestle with Work Production Doctrine Variations by McGuireWoods LLP on 5/7/2020 United States Ironically, federal courts interpreting a single sentence from a federal rule take dramatically differing approaches to the work product doctrine. And a handful of states have not adopted that federal work product rule.

Public nuisance  In English criminal law, public nuisance is a class of common law offence in which the injury, loss, or damage is suffered by the public, in general, rather than an individual, in particular.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_nuisance

Potential Liability for Businesses Under the Public Nuisance Doctrine by Seyfarth Shaw LLP on 5/18/2020 United States Today, plaintiffs lawyers have already begun testing the doctrine’s viability in COVID-19 litigation. While state law varies, the public nuisance doctrine generally protects the public against unreasonable and substantial interference with a public right. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 821B (1979).

Edict of government  Edict of government is a technical term associated with the United States Copyright Office's guidelines and practices that comprehensively includes laws (in a wide sense of that term), which advises that such submissions will not be accepted nor processed for copyright registration. It is based on the principle of public policy that citizens must have unrestrained access to the laws that govern them. Similar provisions occur in most, but not all, systems of copyright law; the main exceptions are in those copyright laws which have developed from English law, under which the copyright in laws rests with the Crown or the government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_government

Supreme Court Expands the Government Edicts Doctrine to Legislators by WilmerHale on 5/19/2020 United States ... annotations in Georgia’s official statutory code were “authored by an arm of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties,” the Court decided that the government edicts doctrine put the annotations “outside the reach of copyright protection.” The 5-4 decision revisited the government edicts doctrine for the first time in over ...

Некоторые вопросы банковской тайны. Германия, Россия

Law Business Research

Ниже приведены ссылки на следующие статьи.  Вопросы налогообложения физических лиц в Австрии. Обязательство банка о неразглашении сведений о клиенте и ответственность за неисполнение данного обязательства во Франции. Консультации по поводу изменения кодекса надлежащей практики деятельности доверительного управляющего (компании, занимающейся доверительным управлением) по вопросам управления средствами пенсионного обеспечения в Великобритании. Системный гид по вопросам арбитража в  Бразилии. Международный арбитраж по вопросам инвестиций, профессиональные советы для представителей. Международный арбитраж по вопросам строительной деятельности, профессиональные советы. Международный арбитраж по вопросам уголовного права, профессиональные советы. Системный гид по вопросам законодательства, касающегося виртуальной валюты в Великобритании. Системный гид по вопросам документального оформления процедуры реорганизации юридических лиц в виде слияния и присоединения в Доминиканской Республике.  Гид по вопросам инвестирования в различные страны. Определение понятия «контроль», данное Комитетом Международных Инвестиций США в отношении глобального фонда венчурного капитала. Вопросы прекращения трудовых отношений с иностранным элементом. Влияние Всемирной организации здравоохранения в отношении цен на лекарственные средства и изделия медицинского назначения.   Гид по вопросам договоров страхования и перестрахования в Турции. Защита прав интеллектуальной собственности проектов и вновь создаваемых компаний в области техники. Системный гид по выбору программного обеспечения для работы с договорами.   Системный гид по признанию и исполнению иностранного судебного решения в Израиле. Вопросы патентоспособности в Бразилии. Налог с обращения товаров и услуг на Аляске. Системный гид по вопросам обязанностей, связанных с предупреждением в США.: действий по отмываю денежных средств;  мошенничества.  Системный гид по вопросам законодательства о коррупции в Австрии. Как осуществляет деятельность Азиатско-Тихоокеанская группа по борьбе с отмыванием денег. Другие стати.

ИНКОТЕРМС 2020, Часть 2

            4. Распределение расходов.

Практика применения ИНКОТЕРМС 2010  показала, что у сторон возникали споры относительно распределения расходов «in or around the port or place of delivery»[1].

Перескажу, что я вычитал по данному поводу.

С конца 1960-ых годов появилась практика, когда грузы, перед погрузкой на суда, начали помещать в контейнеры. Это стало причиной того, что, например, базис поставки FOB стал wholly inappropriate, то есть совершенно не подходящим[2].

Базисы поставки FOB, CFR и CIF подходят для ситуации, когда продавец передает товар перевозчику путем размещения его на борту судна, что, в случае передачи груза в контейнере, на практике просто не происходит[3].

ИНКОТЕРМС 2020. Часть 1.

1. Действие для сторон договора.

Можно применять уже прямо сегодня. Для этого нужно указать в договоре, именно на ИНКОТЕРМС 2020[1].

Если в договоре не указано ИНКОТЕРМС какого года применяется, и договор действует с 01.01.2020, то  it is likely that будет действовать ИНКОТЕРМС 2020[2].

Вопрос: если в договоре не указано ИНКОТЕРМС какого года применяется и договор вступил в силу до 2020 года, то какой тогда ИНКОТЕРМС будет действовать? Этот вопрос оставляю пока для себя открытым.