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Europeans Fear U.S. Courts Over Russian

Here is wake-up call, if ever there was one: In-house counsel employed by European businesses would prefer to face a major legal dispute in Russia or China over the United States. A report yesterday in Times Online cites a survey commissioned by the international law firm Lovells of 180 in-house counsel in five European countries in which 29 percent identified the U.S. as the jurisdiction they most wanted to avoid.

The US attracted almost twice as many votes as Russia and China. Despite fears of political interference and corruption in their legal processes, both were named by just 16 per cent of in-house counsel as their most feared jurisdiction.

I had the privilege of traveling to Russia last year to meet with judges, lawyers and journalists there as part of a delegation from Massachusetts. I was highly impressed with the quality and commitment of the judges I met during the trip. That said, it is tough to ignore the fact that the Russian legal system remains dogged by allegations of corruption and political influence. Suffice to say, China's system enjoys not the most stellar reputation either, at least from our vantage point here in the U.S.

So what is it about U.S. courts that induces even greater fear in the hearts of European GC? Although they see our system as less corrupt than others, they worry that it is "filled with traps in which the inexperienced or uninformed may easily become caught." Marc Gottridge, Lovells’ U.S. managing partner, told the Times Online that these traps include the complexity of the federal system, with its "multiplicity of courts, prosecutors and regulators at state and federal levels" and the tradition of targeting corporations as well as individuals in criminal cases.

What most keeps them awake at night, they report, are visions of our nation's overeager regulators and overly aggressive prosecutors. Given that, it is likely that some European GC could have been heard to say this week, "Do svidanya, Eliot Spitzer."

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 18, 2008 at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Comments

I live only 50 miles from Rochester NY (in that friendly common law jurisdiction, Ontario) and throughout a former career as a business lawyer I encouraged my clients to do everything in their power to stay out of the clutches of the US court system. There are far too many instances of its bias against foreigners and crushing costs. The single feature of your civil justice system that could most use reform is the costs system that fails to sufficiently penalize frivolous plaintiffs.

Posted by: Richard Potter | Mar 18, 2008 1:39:45 PM

Our legal system may have its flaws but I had to laugh when the Europeans complained about over-eager prosecutors and regulators plus a hard-to-understand federal court system. This from attorneys in countries whose government agencies literally engage in les Miserables-type hounding of individuals to squeeze every last tax dollar they can get! And how about those jurisdictions where the judge plays both judge AND fact-finder/investigator (France and spain spring to mind)? And how about the abuse of their court systems with all these politically-motivated human rights claims? you never see any of those brought against anyone whose politics are left of the middle - it's always against conservatives. I'll take our good old American system - yes we have prosecutorial abuse (which system doesn't?) but we also have a system based on binding precedent and common law - beats the roman-based system any day of the week.

Posted by: Wolfgang | Mar 18, 2008 3:48:38 PM

We read your entry with great interest. Our members at The Association of Corporate Counsel would be interested in your take on the topic of "country forum" shopping. With that said, we have an applicable resource in our library entitled the International Practice Almanac. ACC’s IPA provides guidance on the crucial questions an in-house counsel needs to answer before engaging in or retaining legal services in countries around the globe. Check it out at www.acc.com/ipa.

As ACC expands globally, we welcome more topics on the international front.

Posted by: Ellen Zavian | Mar 19, 2008 1:57:28 PM

RussianRochesterNY is a website of russian voice in upstate NY. We envision the law that is right and fair. When the supreme court cannot agree on issues so people can disagree. What is Right and Fair ?

Posted by: alex | Mar 24, 2008 2:25:29 PM

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