Law Blogs Maastricht

Imagine two companies from different countries enter a business deal. They pick a neutral country’s law to govern their contract and agree to arbitrate any disputes, thinking they can sidestep each other’s national courts. But what if one country’s law absolutely prohibits something in the deal – say, paying bribes, or trading with a sanctioned nation? Laws like these are called overriding mandatory rules, and they can trump the chosen law of the contract. In international commercial arbitration, where private arbitrators (not courts) decide disputes, such must-obey laws pose a unique challenge. How can arbitrators respect these important laws without undermining the freedom of businesses to choose their own rules? This question is at the heart of my research on overriding mandatory rules in international commercial arbitration.

According to classic economic thinking—and to common sense—if two parties agree to a deal, both are made better off, otherwise they would not have agreed. This idea is also reflected in contract law, at least in its basic form, treats consent as the cornerstone of a valid contract. If both sides say ‘yes,’ the law usually upholds the deal.

But matters are not that simple. Consumer protection laws, for instance, recognise situations where one party needs special safeguards. And everyone accepts that consent at gunpoint—think of the mobster line, ‘Your signature, or your brains on the contract’—is not real consent. The harder question is why coercion invalidates consent, and even what “consent” really means. In my thesis, I address both questions. Contrary to much of the existing scholarship, which treats the distinction between free and coerced consent as a social construct, I argue that the difference is factual and can be identified objectively.

When we speak of corporations, we usually think of shareholders and managers: the former provide capital, the latter make decisions. Yet, without the contributions of its employees, no corporation can survive, let alone thrive. In my PhD thesis, I answered the question of how employee participation has been developing and structured over time in China, and what effects it has had on employees and on firm performance. I also compared employee participation in China and Germany. In this blog, I want to focus on the importance of employee participation and what insights China and Germany can provide.

My thesis proposes to analyse in depth the Ivorian framework for combating money laundering, suggesting solutions inspired by international best practices. It calls for action from all stakeholders: public decision-makers, financial institutions, media, civil society, and international organizations, in order to foster collective mobilization around the proposed solutions, for an effective and efficient fight against this scourge with multiple repercussions.

Every October 18, the EU marks its Anti-Trafficking Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness for human trafficking and its impact on victims and societies. In this blog – which draws from our article recently published in the 76^th special edition of Cahiers Politiestudies exploring the financial side of crime – we adopt a dual legal-sociological lens to explore how this hidden offense can be made more visible. We make the case for law enforcement and banks to proactively join forces, while highlighting some of the tensions that can arise in such partnerships and the need to address them explicitly if these initiatives are to reach their full potential.