Conference on Teaching Transnational Business Law and Arbitration

The Conference on Teaching Transnational Business Law and Arbitration is organized by Professor Franco Ferrari and Professor Kevin Davis. The participants of the conference include academics and practitioners who teach or have taught international commercial arbitration or international business transactions on behalf of NYU in New York, Paris, Buenos Aires and Shanghai, or who have spent time at NYU as scholars-in-residence of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law. The Conference aims to take advantage of the fact that the participants come from multiple jurisdictions around the world, and share knowledge about approaches to teaching substantive topics under transnational business law and arbitration, teaching materials, and pedagogy.  

The first day of the conference is devoted to “Teaching International Commercial Arbitration Globally,” with the aim of developing teaching materials on international commercial arbitration that incorporate perspectives from multiple countries and suitable for use around the world. This day’s four sessions will proceed in the form of open discussion on a variety of topics.

The second day of the conference is devoted to “Teaching International Business Transactions Globally,” with the purpose of sharing ideas about how to teach students about the legal aspects of business transactions that have a transnational dimension. The proceedings of this day are organized into four sessions: cross-border mergers and acquisitions, cross-border financings (including insolvency), transnational regulation, and transnational dispute resolution. Each session will include brief formal presentations, and discussion will be devoted to addressing the following questions:

1. What knowledge and skills ought to be imparted? (Topics of particular interest include: How to introduce students to the possibility of multiple applicable laws? What concepts from accounting and corporate finance ought to be covered? What are the most salient issues of professional ethics or social responsibility?)
2. What are the pros and cons of various teaching methods? (Topics of particular interest include: in-class presentations, simulated negotiations, drafting exercises, analyses of executed transactions, group projects.)
3. What teaching materials are particularly effective? (Topics of particular interest include: Are there any particularly instructive judicial opinions and arbitral awards? Which sample agreements are particularly useful, including ICC model agreements/clauses or specific transactions? What materials should be used as a basis for discussion of regulatory regimes, e.g. the FCPA, that rarely lead to judicial proceedings?)

The conference is sponsored by the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law and the Office of Global Programs at NYU Law School. Support from NYU’s Global Faculty Fund is gratefully acknowledged.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Teaching International Commercial Arbitration Globally

9:00-9:30 a.m.  Breakfast

9:30-11:00 a.m.  Session I

• Actual and perceived features of arbitration (references to neutrality, speed, flexibility, access to knowledgeable individuals as arbitrators, confidentiality, circulation of arbitral awards virtually worldwide)
• Consensual nature of arbitration versus jurisdictional nature versus autonomous/transnational nature of arbitration
• The Arbitration Agreement: What law governs the decision whether there is an agreement to arbitrate
• The Arbitration Agreement: Capacity to enter into an arbitration agreement

11:00-11:15 a.m.  Coffee Break

11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m.  Session II

• The Arbitration Agreement: Separability or autonomy of arbitration agreements
• Kompetenz-Kompetenz and the Gateway-Issue
• Requirements of form and incorporation by reference
• Assignment
• Extension to non-obvious parties

12:45-2:00 p.m.  Lunch

2:00-4:15 p.m.  Session III

• Anti-suit injunctions
• Arbitrability
• Place of arbitration and lex arbitri
• Arbitrators: Rights and duties, independence impartiality, and neutrality
• Standards of challenge of arbitrators

4:15-4:30 p.m.  Coffee Break

4:30-6:00 p.m.  Session IV

• The law governing the proceedings: The Lex Arbitri, mandatory provisions of domestic and international law, rules of procedure
• Law applicable to the merits, adjudication ex aequo et bono, and amiable composition, failure to apply, and misapplication of the law: consequences
• Challenges to awards
• Recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and grounds for refusal
• Enforcement of annulled arbitral awards

7:30 p.m.  Dinner

 

Friday, June 5, 2015