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Do German Judges Compete for Litigation by Offering Plaintiff-Friendly Procedures?

Document Type

Blog Posting

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

2021

Publication Title

Faculty of Law Blogs / University of Oxford

Abstract

The most important function of judges is to decide cases brought to them by litigants. By contrast, they are not commonly seen as participants in a market for litigation, competing to ‘sell’ their forum to litigants.

Nevertheless, previous research has shown that some American judges actively try to extend their influence by making their courts attractive to plaintiffs. This phenomenon is known as ‘forum selling’. Before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland, the most striking example of such behavior was the Eastern District of Texas, whose judges managed to attract a significant share of all patent infringement proceedings filed in the United States through a range of plaintiff-friendly tweaks to procedural rules. For arbitrators, in some situations, similar behavior can be observed.

Keywords

Courts, Judges, Forum Selection, Forum Selling, Patents, Antitrust

Publication Citation

Jens Frankenreiter, Bechtold, Stefan, & Klerman, Daniel, Do German Judges Compete for Litigation by Offering Plaintiff-Friendly Procedures?, Faculty of Law Blogs / Oxford Law Faculty (Nov. 26, 2018), https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/blog/2018/11/do-german-judges-compete-litigation-offering-plaintiff-friendly

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