Belfast Project: A New Subpoena To Boston College

Update: According to the BBC, McIntyre means to bring an action in the High Court in Belfast to try to stop the latest subpoena.

The US government, acting pursuant to the US/UK mutual legal assistance treaty, has apparently obtained an order from the District Court in Boston for issuance of a subpoena to Boston College in the Belfast Project case. We can glean from the new subpoena that the UK authorities are investigating charges including attempted murder, illegal possession of explosives, conspiracy, illegal possession of an imitation firearm, and membership in a proscribed organization. On their behalf, the US government is seeking the recordings of interviews of Anthony McIntyre (that is, interviews in which he is the person interviewed, not interviews in which he was the interviewer).
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Case of the Day: Delex, Inc. v. Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co.

The case of the day is Delex Inc. v. Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. (Wash. Ct. App. 2016). Delex’s claim was that it had entered into a three-year lease of office and warehouse space in Seattle from a third party on behalf of Sukhoi, a Russian firm. According to Delex, Sukhoi never paid rent, and Delex surrendered the premises to the landlord within a year, and it sued Sukhoi for breach of contract. It served process by registered mail in Russia and by personal delivery to the head of Sukhoi’s foreign activity legal support department. Sukhoi defaulted, and Delex obtained a default judgment for approximately $327,000. The court issued a writ of execution. The sheriff seized Sukhoi’s property, worth $420,000, which, according to Sukhoi, included “highly sensitive US aircraft technology and components.” Sukhoi then sought relief from the judgment and a stay of the sheriff’s sale. The trial court denied the motions, and Sukhoi appealed.
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Paper of the Day: Oluwaseun Ajayi on Recognition of Foreign Country Money Judgments Connected to Criminal Proceedings

Readers, you may be interested in a new paper by practitioner Oluwaseun Ajayi on the recognition of foreign money judgments that are connected with criminal proceedings. It was published in the February 2016 edition of the Banking Law Journal. Unfortunately, the publisher, LexisNexis A.S. Pratt, refused the author’s request for reprint permission, so I cannot provide a link to a copy of the paper here. Tsk, tsk, LexisNexis A.S. Pratt.
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Save The Date! “Toward a Global Framework for International Commercial Transactions: Implementing the Hague Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts”

Readers, the Hague Conference and the University of Lucerne are hosting a conference on the new Hague Principles on September 8 and 9, 2016 in Lucerne. Here at Letters Blogatory…

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Editorial: No on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act

The proposed Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, S. 2040, has been in the news recently. The Saudi government has made economic threats to try to deter Congress from passing the bill. The bill was introduced in the Senate in September 2015 and was reported by the Committee on the Judiciary, in an amended form, in February 2016. There was some discussion of the bill, though not really substantive, during the Judiciary Committee hearing.
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What’s Going On At HLS?

I have been following the news from Harvard Law School, my law school, with concern. What is going on at HLS? I want to note two items that were worrying to me and maybe to you.

The first is the anti-Semitic remarks that, according to a published report, an “HLS student, who is the president of a student organization on campus,” made to Tzipi Livni, a member of the Knesset and former foreign minister of Israel, while she was taking questions at a program run by Harvard’s excellent Program on Negotiation:

At the Q&A section of an event last Thursday, an HLS student asked Jewish, Israeli dignitary Tzipi Livni: “How is it that you are so smelly? … A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she’s very smelly, and I was just wondering.”

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Case of the Day: In re O’Keeffe

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Letters Blogatory wishes its readers a Happy Patriots' Day!

The case of the day is In re O’Keeffe (3d Cir. 2016). I’ve written about the case before. Kate O’Keeffe was a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. She wrote an article that described casino magnate Sheldon Adelson as “foul-mouthed.” Adelson sued for defamation in Hong Kong, and O’Keeffe sought issuance of a subpoena to Kirk A. Thorell, who as an auditor who worked on audits for one of Adelson’s companies. Adelson moved to quash the subpoena, but the district court denied the motion, and Adelson appealed.
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Case of the Day: In re Frau R

The case of the day, courtesy of Peter Bert of Taylor Wessing, is In re Frau R (German Fed. Constitutional Ct. 2015). Yes, I know that’s not the proper form for citing German cases, but it will have to do. Frau R., a Romanian national, sued a Romanian widow for a share of her dead husband’s estate on the grounds that the widow and her husband had adopted her. The widow denied the adoption, and so Frau R. sought recognition, in Germany, of the Romanian adoption. The lower court that heard the case failed to request the record of the adoption from the Romanian court under Council Regulation (EC) No 1206/2001, the EU regulation on judicial assistance, even though Frau R. had presented a letter from the Romanian authorities indicating that they would be receptive to a request from the German court. On appeal, the Federal Constitutional Court held that the lower court had violated Frau R.’s constitutional right to effective judicial protection.
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Case of the Day: In re Application of Laos

The case of the day is In re Application of the Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (D.N.M.I. 2016). The Laotian government was partners with Sanum Investments Ltd. and Lao Holdings N.V. in the Savan Vegas casino, which was located in Laos. As part of the deal, Laos had given tax benefits and a monopoly to the casino, but due to disagreements, Sanum and Lao Holdings brought a claim in arbitration under the BITs between Laos and China (Sanum was a Macau company) and Laos and the Netherlands (Lao Holdings was a Dutch company). The parties settled the claims in 2014, but Sanum and Lao Holdings unsuccessfully sought to reopen the arbitration on the grounds that Laos had breached the settlement agreement. Laos initiated its own arbitration at the SIAC pursuant to the settlement agreement. Laos also began an investigation of criminal bribery and tax evasion on the part of Sanum and Lao Holdings, which it had discontinued as part of the settlement agreement.
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Case of the Day: PJS v. News Group Newspapers Ltd.

The case of the day is PJS v. News Group Newspapers Ltd., [2016] EWCA Civ 100. PJS is a well-known English entertainer. No, I will not tell you who he is—it’s easy to find out on the web if you like. YAM was his spouse, also an entertainer. PJS and YAM had young children. PJS was the friend and occasional lover of AB, who had a partner, CD. In 2011, PJS propositioned AB and CD, and, as the judge wrote, “the three met for a three-way sexual encounter which they duly carried out.” AB and CD then told the editor of the Sun on Sunday about the tryst. When the editor reached out to PJS for comment, PJS brought a suit seeking to enjoin publication. He lost in the High Court and took an appeal.
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