In its simplest form, a transnational insolvency involves an insolvency1 proceeding in one country, with creditors located in at least one additional country.2 In the most complex case, it involves multiple proceedings, subsidiaries, affiliated entities, assets, operations, and creditors in dozens of nations. Complex international insolvencies continue to proliferate alongside a burgeoning world-wide free market economy that entails the globalisation of commercial and financial markets.3

In the post-World War II international economy, with its enormous growth in transnational trade and investment, multinational legal practice has become a functional reality.1 Within the last two decades, the volume of trans-border legal practice has grown enormously in fields such as trade law, international banking and finance, international arbitration and litigation, international contractual and joint venture arrangements, transborder acquisitions and mergers, international antitrust, international tax planning, and foreign investment counselling. Domestic law firms within the leading commercial nations have not only grown substantially in size, often by merger, they have also increasingly created networks of foreign branch offices, or entered into international association or joint venture relationships with firms in other countries.2

The period under consideration (mid-1995 to March 1998) was a relatively quiet one for Article 85. Note should be taken of the publication in 1997 of the Commission's Green Paper on vertical restraints in competition policy,1 which is likely to lead to a significant overhaul of a number of block exemption regulations. The existing block exemptions on patent licensing and know-how agreements2 were merged into a new single block exemption on technology transfer.3 Perhaps the most interesting and potentially far-reaching development was the Commission decision in Bayer/Adalat,4 in which the Commission characterised as agreements—and so falling within Article 85—attempts by the German chemicals group Bayer to limit supplies of a range of pharmaceutical products from its wholly owned distributors in other member States to wholesalers there in order to stem parallel exports. This was not an Article 86 case (Bayer was not dominant in the relevant product market), of which refusal to sell is more commonly a feature, and an agreement between manufacturer and distributor/wholesaler which prohibits re-export of the contract goods has long been recognised as falling within Article 85(1). But in Bayer/Adalat the wholesalers never agreed to the (alleged) export ban, and in fact resisted Bayer's attempts to limit supplies both directly and by subterfuge. Nevertheless, the Commission found an agreement between the Bayer distributors and the wholesalers, effectively simply in continuing to deal, the former having committed “an infringement of Article 85(1) by imposing an export ban as part of their continuous commercial relations with [the latter]”,5 the ban having “been agreed [sic] as part of their ongoing business relations”.6

Since 1 August 19861 the United Kingdom has been party to two international conventions on child abduction: the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and the European (Luxembourg) Convention of 20 May 1980 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Concerning Custody of Children and on Restoration of Custody of Children. While differing in various respects, each Convention seeks to tackle the problem of international child abduction by expediting the return of children under the age of 16 to their country of habitual residence following a wrongful removal to or retention in another contracting State. The principal difference between the Conventions is that while the Hague Convention deals with breaches of “rights of custody” or rights of access which may arise whether or not any court order exists with regard to the child, the European Convention is concerned solely with the recognition and enforcement of orders and decisions relating to custody and access.

In 1976 the UK ratified the ICCPR with a reservation that prevented individuals without the right to ‘enter and remain’ in the UK from invoking Article 12(4) and ‘other provisions’ of the covenant. Upon Hong Kong's reunification with China, the ICCPR ‘as applied to Hong Kong’ in accordance with the UK's ratification was constitutionally guaranteed. It will be argued that the legislation implementing the ICCPR does not reflect the constitutional guarantee ‘as applied to Hong Kong’ because it amounts to a blanket exclusion of all ICCPR rights in immigration matters, impermissibly going beyond the UK's reservation.

Since the last note on this subject,1 developments have focused on continuing problems: financing new infrastructure; allocation of the true costs of transport among those who generate them; and external relations. In addition, further more detailed legislative measures have been adopted for each mode of transport.

Burundi, a small State in Eastern Africa, has been suffering a repetitive cycle of interethnic violence since its independence in 1962. Tensions were ongoing, but never reached the scale of the Rwandese massacres of 1994. The Burundian conflict thus received less international attention. Hardly any academic writing exists on human rights violations in Burundi.1 International efforts to counter impunity remained half-hearted.

There are numerous publications on the interpretation of Article 30 of the EC Treaty by the European Court of Justice1 which for the last 20 years has been one of the most controversial issues in EC law. It is, however, surprising that there is much older, yet strikingly similar, case law of the US Supreme Court which has remained almost unnoticed in Europe. In this article the respective case law of the two courts will be compared. Such a comparison is not only of interest as such, but can also contribute to the discussion about the correct scope of Article 30—which has certainly not yet been exhausted.