Can courts resolve disputes using a legal system outside their location? I am wondering why there would be a need for an &quot;attornment&quot; clause as well as a governing law clause. For example Governing Law; Attornment. This Agreement shall be construed, interpreted and enforced in accordance with, and the rights of the Parties shall be governed by, the laws of the Province of Québec and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein (excluding any conflict of law rule or principle of such laws that might refer such interpretation or enforcement to the laws of another jurisdiction). The Parties hereby irrevocably attorn to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Province of Québec, judicial District of Montreal, with respect to any matters arising pursuant hereto. Is it possible that a court of one jurisdiction would apply the laws of another jurisdiction? For example could a case heard in France (by a French court) apply the laws of the US? If no, then what is the point of such clauses? Also do such clauses go by other names than &quot;attornment&quot; clauses? This article points out such a name is specific to Canada.
Is it possible that a court of one jurisdiction would apply the laws of another jurisdiction? For example could a case heard in France (by a French court) apply the laws of the US? If no, then what is the point of such clauses? Yes. This can be done and the example you provide could happen. This is done in civil cases, but not in criminal cases. The other main exception is that a court will not apply another jurisdiction's tax laws, although this is less absolute and the other jurisdiction's tax laws may still be considered as relevant to a civil dispute, so long as they are not enforced. For example, I have litigated a case where the events took place in France in a U.S. Court where the court had jurisdiction over the parties and the relevant choice of law rules pointed to French law. The overarching principle of that the law of the place with the most significant connection to the legal issue decided applies. But there are many subsidiary rules that provide clarity in some areas (although the clarity was reduced with the effect of making forum law apply more often, in the 1960s-1980s after a previous regime of more black and white rules). A clause like this is generally effective if it the parties have any connection to the forum chosen. It is a close cousin, although not nearly so strongly preferred in the law, of an arbitration clause. Also do such clauses go by other names than &quot;attornment&quot; clauses? This article points out such a name is specific to Canada. Yes. In the U.S. an &quot;attornment&quot; clause is a provision that requires a party to a contract to affirmatively declare upon notice from the other party if the attorning party claims that the other party is in breach of the contract or has unfulfilled obligations (with the attorning party waiving any claims for breach of contract not identified at that time). An &quot;attornment&quot; clause is normally found in a lease or secured promissory note and facilitates the transfer of the leased property or secured debt in a way that the new owner can know that there is no risk that it is already in default apart from the transferor's representation. Otherwise, the aggrieved party wouldn't have to mention anything until the statute of limitations arrived. All of the meanings, including the Canadian one, go back to the notion of affirming the existence of certain rights in advance of a dispute arising between the parties. This Agreement shall be construed, interpreted and enforced in accordance with, and the rights of the Parties shall be governed by, the laws of the Province of Québec and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein (excluding any conflict of law rule or principle of such laws that might refer such interpretation or enforcement to the laws of another jurisdiction). The language above is a choice of law clause. The Parties hereby irrevocably attorn to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Province of Québec, judicial District of Montreal, with respect to any matters arising pursuant hereto. The language above is a choice of forum clause, a.k.a. choice of jurisdiction clause, a.k.a. choice of venue clause.
Laws update, collectively, very frequently. Laws are embodied in statutes, regulations, and court rulings, statutes being the most stable of the three. In terms of what an individual lawyer would do, the most important is to focus on the relevant and ignore the irrelevant. If you mostly write wills and trusts, that defines a subset of issues that are important to you; if you are a tax attorney, that is another subset. If you ask a contract attorney about some highly speculative matter of constitutional law, the answer will most likely be &quot;That's outside my area of specialization&quot;. The concepts of &quot;subscribe&quot; and &quot;free&quot; are mostly antithetical. If you want the really good stuff, you can subscribe to Westlaw or Lexis Nexis. If you want the really free stuff (as generally seen here), the simplest solution is to use Google which may direct you to Findlaw, Justia, Cornell, Avvo or Law SE (unabashed plug). New is not necessarily better, and frankly, new statutes are the least informative, because legislatures often say things that are less than clear on the face of it, and will need to await either administrative creation of a regulation that spells out what the law means, or a court ruling that does the same thing – maybe 10 years after the law was passed.
No The general common law rule is that a lawsuit requires an actual dispute. This is a contrived dispute with no real-world relevance. With apparent (or even actual) authority to act on behalf of A, you assisted B with making copies. The moment you contrived this scheme and set it into motion, you consented on behalf of A to allow B to use the materials. It is like paying someone to slip and &quot;fall&quot; on your sidewalk so they can sue you. There is no actual dispute, and volunti fit non injuria.
Different jurisdictions have different laws about arbitration and there can be a distinction between domestic and international arbitration. Notwithstanding, most jurisdictions use the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration as the basis for their domestic law so there is a lot of commonality between jurisdictions. 1. Can I be compelled to arbitrate? No, arbitration requires the agreement of all parties to the dispute. However, you may have given your consent to arbitration when you entered a contract or agreed to terms and conditions; if so, then that agreement is binding and you will be required to arbitrate. If a matter for which there is a valid arbitration agreement is nevertheless brought before a court, a party can argue that the proper venue is arbitration and the court will almost certainly agree and refuse to hear the case. Arbitration agreements are subject to what is called the "severability" principle which means that they remain binding even if the contract they are contained in is ultimately found to be void. So it remains within the power of an arbitrator appointed by a contract to validly decide the contract that appointed them is void. 2. If I don't think the tribunal has jurisdiction, what can I do? You make submissions to the arbitration tribunal on jurisdiction and they are required to consider if they have it or not. This is the "competence-competence" principle: an arbitrator is competent to decide if they are competent to hear the dispute. Depending on the size of the matter, the tribunal may rule on their competence in the final decision or issue an interim ruling. If a party thinks the tribunal has wrongly decided they do or don't have jurisdiction then they can, within the limited time usually allowed, ask the court to review the decision - in the meantime the arbitration continues. 3. If I disagree with the award, what can I do? Not a lot. Arbitration is intended to be a final and binding method of dispute resolution. Because, unlike a court summons, it was agreed to by all the parties (see above), the legal attitude is "you made your bed, you lie in it". Article 34 provides that a court can set aside the decision for: incapacity in the arbitration agreement. Since the arbitration agreement is itself a contract it can be void for all the same reasons a contract can (see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?) that you weren't told about the arbitration that the dispute is outside the scope of the arbitration agreement that the arbitration tribunal wasn't composed as agreed the matter is not subject to settlement by arbitration by law (e.g. workplace disputes are often excluded from arbitration) the award is against public policy (e.g. the award requires illegality) Article 35 provides that a court can refuse to enforce an award for all of the reasons above plus if a court has set the decision aside under Article 34. Appeals are rarely allowed and even more rarely successful. For example, stats from the UK under s68 and s69 of their domestic Act (equivalent to Article 34 and 35 respectively) indicate that success rates for challenges are about 3%.
Nothing prevents firms from putting clauses like that in the disclaimer. If you're talking about goods (rather than services), much contract formation is governed by the Uniform Commercial Code, which 49 states have adopted (and which Louisiana has adopted part). However, the real question relates to whether that kind of language will be enforceable in court. A common way to attempt to avoid litigation is to insert a clause that requires arbitration of disputes (instead of litigation). The Supreme Court upheld the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1 (1984), so this can be successful. Contracts that have class-action arbitration provisions are a little dicier, but in AT&amp;T Mobility, LLC v. Conception, 563 US 333 (2011) , the court held the FAA preempts state laws that disallow class arbitration.
The companies agree to resolve the dispute with a neutral arbitrator. This is similar to a court action, but instead of a judge or panel of judges, there is an arbitrator or panel of arbitrators. The two parties to the dispute must agree to this in advance. For more information, you can consult the rather thorough Wikipedia article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration
However, if a website is based in the US and the terms of service say that the law governing the terms is US law, how can GDPR have any affect? It is unlikely that the EU will be able to enforce financial penalties against a company with no presence in the EU. But they could for example block your website in the EU, depriving you of your EU user base. The actual measures that they could or would take against such a company are still unclear, since the GDPR is quite new, and there has been no action under the GDPR against foreign companies. I'm not a lawyer, but I've signed many contracts in my life and nearly all of them have some form of "governing law" clause. The governing law clause in a contract identifies the law that will be used to interpret the contract and to resolve any disputes arising from the contract. The law identified in the clause does not become the sole law governing every aspect of the relationship between the parties, however. For example, a business in New Jersey could have a contract with a client in New York with a clause specifying New Jersey law as the governing law of the contract. But that does not mean that New York's consumer protection law doesn't apply to the transaction.
In the event of a dispute, the person resolving the matter, probably an arbitrator in the case of a commission dispute between two realtors and either an arbitrator or a judge and jury depending upon what your listing agreement says about that issue, would hear the testimony from both parties and decide. The intent of the parties is supposed to govern in cases of clerical errors, but a signed document has a lot of weight, especially in such a prominent term. It is a little hard from the way the question is posed to determine who is willing to correct the typo and who insists on enforcing the contract containing the typo.