Category Archives: Public policy
Christopher Sullivan and Justin Ritter, ‘Banning Noncompetes in Virginia’
ABSTRACT The past decade has seen a nationwide wave of reform in noncompete law, specifically the limitation of noncompete agreements. Since 2016, ten states – including Virginia in 2020 – banned the use of noncompete agreements against certain ‘low wage’ employees. In order to stay ahead of this curve and ensure Virginia remains and grows […]
María Guadalupe Martínez Alles, ‘Punitive Damages in Argentina and Mexico: Rethinking the Scope of the Public Policy Exception’
ABSTRACT The current status of punitive damages in Latin America, particularly in Argentina and Mexico, is tending towards acceptance and incorporation, yet remains highly fluid and dynamic. Because of the unresolved uncertainties regarding implementation and tensions inherent between the punitive institution and other established elements of those countries’ legal systems, it could follow any of […]
Marcus Ho, ‘The Question of Autonomy, Liability Attribution and Black Boxes Decision Making’
ABSTRACT This paper canvasses the legal consequences of AI Development, and dives deep into the domain of Autonomous Vehicles and Smart Contract to reveal a myriad of unresolved legal questions in the Law of Tort (Civil Wrongs) and the Law of Contract. In the first part, this paper examines interlocking regimes in Tort governing liability […]
Reid Weisbord, ‘Trust Law’s Public Policy Doctrine: Major Policy Fault Lines, Aggressive Home Rule Legislation, and Implications for Conflicts Reform’
ABSTRACT Trust law is highly deferential to settlor intent, however, under the public policy doctrine, any trust or trust provision contrary to public policy is unenforceable. Echoing that doctrine is a conflict of laws rule providing that a settlor’s express choice-of-law designation is enforceable if the trust assets are movable, the designated state has ‘a […]
Daniel Pi, ‘Honor Among Thieves: Enforcing Criminal Contracts’
ABSTRACT Contracts involving promises to commit criminal acts are ordinarily unenforceable. Yet nonenforcement does not fully deter incentives to form criminal agreements. This Article demonstrates that partial enforcement can generate greater deterrence incentives by disrupting the trust relationship between parties to a criminal agreement, effecting superior deterrence. Specifically, by allowing promisors and denying promisees the […]
Chao Xi, ‘Contract Law and Financial Regulation in China: An Illegality Perspective’
ABSTRACT The dynamics between Chinese contract law and regulatory legislation have most prominently played out in the past four decades in respect of the question of what counts as an illegal contract or a contract that is contrary to public policy. This article depicts the unique evolutionary trajectory of the Chinese law on illegality and […]
Clement Salung Petersen, ‘The Public Policy-Implementing Role of Nordic Courts in Civil Dispute Resolution’
ABSTRACT This chapter explores the role of Nordic courts in safeguarding certain public values and interests, whether substantial or procedural, in the three types of civil dispute resolution that can potentially lead to state enforcement, namely civil litigation, arbitration and mediation. First, it shows how Nordic courts in civil litigation may take on an ‘active […]
Solomon Faakye, ‘Right to Restitution under Illegal Contracts: Seeking Clarity in Ghana’
ABSTRACT The law on the availability of restitution in the context of illegal contracts is unclear. Several irreconcilable approaches have been proposed at common law in search of a solution to the question of whether or not a party to an illegal contract who has benefitted from the contract has any right to restitution. This […]
‘Judge Refuses To Strike Out Action On The Basis Of “Illegality”: The Claimant Was Not Capable Of Committing “Criminal” Acts’
“For the second time today I am writing about a case where the court has refused to strike out a statement of case. In Lewis-Ranwell v G4S Health Services (UK) Ltd and others [2022] EWHC 1213 (QB) Mr Justice Garnham refused to strike out a case where the defendant alleged illegality. The claimant had been […]
Anthony Sebok, ‘Going Bare in the Law of Assignments: When is an Assignment Champertous?’
ABSTRACT This Article is a response to David Capper’s ‘The Assignment of a Bare Right to Litigate’, in which he reviews the evolving approach to champerty in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Capper’s paper makes two claims. First, that maintenance is less offensive to the law of champerty than the assignment of ‘bare’ claims. Second, […]