国际商务环境Legal Environment Facing International Business.ppt

International Business Environment Lecture 3: Legal Environment Facing International Business Monday, March 16, 2015 Overview Review: fundamentals of law Legal Systems: Common law vs. civil law International arbitration International legal issues: IPR protection Software piracy Innovation vs. immitation The Qualcomm case Components of modern legal systems Constitutional law (宪法) Criminal law (刑法) Civil and commercial laws (民法与商法) Types of legal systems Common law system (判例法系) Civil law or code law system (成文法系) Others Theocratic law system (神权法系), customary law (习惯法系), mixed system (混合系统) Common law vs. civil law Common law system: Based on judicial precedents (判决先例) Anglo-American origin (英美法系) Prevailing in UK, US, India, Austrialia, New Zealand, Hong Kong (China), etc. Civil law or code law Based on statutory laws (法律条文) Continental Europe origin (大陆法系) Prevailing in Germany, France, Mexico, Japan, etc. 70+ countries Contract enforcement Common law: contracts should be honored unless they are prevented by acts of God (extraordinary happenings of nature not reasonably anticipated by either party, like floods, earthquake, etc.) Civil law: Acts of God are not limited to acts of nature but are extended to unforeseeable human acts, like labor strikes (罢工) and riots (暴乱), etc. Case study A contract was entered into deliver a specific quantity of cloth (布料). Case A: an earthquake destroyed the cloth before it being delivered. Case B: pipes in the warehouse froze and broke, spilling water on the cloth and destroying it. Question 1: were the parties absolved (免除) the duty of delivering the cloth in each case? Answer to Question 1 Case A: Common law civil law: yes Case B: Common law: probably no, because the freezing of the pipe should have been expected given the climate. Civil law: probably yes, due to the extended definition of act of God and unpredictability. Question 2: consider case B, if one of the involved parties is from US, and the other from Ge