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The North Carolina General Assembly has decided to legislate choice of law in commercial transactions. The new statute, enacted in June, is called the "North Carolina Choice of Law and Forum in Business Contracts Act." It will be codified at N.C. Gen. Stat. §1G-1.
The Statute Applies Only To "Business Contracts"
The statute
I don’t usually write about decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery because it’s rare for that Court to even mention North Carolina. But a decision by that Court this week — in City of Providence v. First Citizens Bancshares, Inc., explicitly approves that Delaware corporations can, via a forum selection clause in their
Everybody loves a penguin, or at least I think that is so. But Penguin Toilets, the Defendant in Roth v. Penguin Toilets, LLC, 2011 NCBC 45, can’t be loving the result it got on its Motion to Dismiss, which was denied in the Business Court by Judge Murphy on Wednesday.
The Motion to Dismiss
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The North Carolina Court of Appeals sent a pretty clear message last Tuesday to out of state citizens filing claims for alienation of affection in North Carolina courts. The message was don’t file your lawsuit here, even though North Carolina is one of the few states in the country that hasn’t abolished that tort.
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court delivered two of its most significant opinions on the subject of personal jurisdiction in nearly twenty-five years (since Asahi Metal Ind. Co. v. Superior Court of California, 480 U.S. 102(1987)). The new cases are J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro and Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown. (linked
The Court of Appeals on Tuesday of last week, in Speedway Motorsports Int’l Ltd. v. Bronwen Energy Trading, Ltd., unwound a year old decision by the Business Court. In that decision, Judge Diaz had ruled that a Defendant bank which had issued a letter of credit was bound to litigate in Switzerland a crossclaim
The Fourth Circuit ruled today in Albemarle Corp. v. AstraZeneca UK Ltd. that it was required to interpret the forum selection clause negotiated by the parties under English law, which meant that the clause would be read as requiring litigation to be brought in an English court, even though the clause would have been deemed
The Business Court held today in Armacell v. Bostic that it had personal jurisdiction over an Italian company, L’Isolante, which hired a scientist, Bostic, away from a competitor.
The Plaintiff claimed that the hiring violated Bostic’s non-compete agreement, and that Bostic had also stolen "thousands of data files containing sensitive proprietary information and trade secrets."
This case from the North Carolina Business Court involves the world’s 29th richest man, the City of Detroit, and a $55 million default judgment. Oh, and airplanes too. Big ones.
All this and more was discussed in the Business Court’s decision today in Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas v. Tradewinds Airlines, Inc., 2009
Today, the North Supreme Court made it clear that there can be personal jurisdiction over a corporate officer even if his only contacts with the state were in his capacity as a corporate officer.
The case is Saft America, Inc. v. Plainview Batteries, Inc., The opinion reverses the April 2008 decision of the Court