International Law Section conference draws large crowd

More than 1,350 judges, lawyers and regulators from around the world came together in early April to attend the ABA Section of International Law's Spring Meeting, which featured a first-of-its-kind meeting of the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body on American soil, a keynote speech by Judge Thomas Buergenthal of the International Court of Justice, and a panel on combating international terrorism with former Illinois Gov. (and 9/11 Commission member) James Thompson.

Continuing legal education programs included several tracks ranging from corporate counsel to dispute resolution/litigation to a law practice management. During "Managing Antitrust Risk in Cross-Border Acquisitions," Peter Franklyn of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt in Toronto spoke to the contractual considerations relevant to multi-jurisdictional merger review. David Hull, from Covington & Burling's Brussels' office, submitted a background paper in which he laid out the framework for understanding the structure of the transaction. He also reminded merger filers to "include antitrust counsel in the early stages of the deal planning process in order to ensure that international pre-merger filings do not delay the closing of a transaction."

During the first part of a panel discussion on the "Fundamentals of International Business Transactions," the participants were given a hypothetical international commerce contract situation and answered questions as to what law – state law or the law of the foreign country – applied to each element of the transaction.

Alan Jakimo, one of the co-moderators of "International Outsourcing: An Interactive Discussion of the Key Legal and Business Issues," brought some humor to the issue of outsourcing by citing Buffalo Springfield's lyrics: "Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep..." and presenting examples of newspaper reporting of outsourcing, prior to 1980 and then from the beginning of 1981 through today. Jakimo, a New York-based member of Sidley Austin, mentioned various issue areas to be taken into consideration with respect to outsourcing: industry segments, geographic regions, economics and legal/political issues.

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