This course is a general introduction to the nature and structure of national, international, and transnational legal systems. It introduces the students to the common law and civil law legal systems as well as the international and transnational organizations and structures of international and transnational business law such as the European Union, the World Trade Organization, and UNCITRAL.

This course introduces students to the various resources needed to identify and research domestic and international law related to international business transactions. Students will learn the core skills of finding and analyzing the application of domestic, foreign, and international law for use in a variety of transactional settings. For domestic law, students will utilize online resources to locate primary and secondary sources of federal and state law, e.g., constitutions, statutes, regulations, case law, legal encyclopedias, and treatises. For international law, students will become familiar with key resources for locating and reviewing: (i) bilateral and multinational treaties related to international business; (ii) European Union directives and decisions and other foreign legal sources; and (iii) decisions of international and transnational adjudicatory organizations.

This course initiates students into the differences between corporate law in civil law countries and corporate law in the Anglo-American world. Students gain an understanding of the different policy challenges legislators are facing stemming mainly from the size of the firms, their ownership structure and the position of labor within business organizations. The effects of regulatory competition in the field of corporate law inside the EU and the US are also analyzed, enabling students to understand the extent to which legal convergence has been spurred by such competition. Major aspects of corporate law that will be compared include: the corporate formation process, capital requirements and distributions, duties and liabilities of management, the powers of the general meeting vis-à-vis the powers of the management bodies (including principles of decision-making), minority shareholders’ protection, creditor protection (with emphasis on the concept of piercing the corporate veil), and labor rights.

This course provides an introduction to European Union (EU) Law. Students will learn the unique structure of the EU and the Common Market, including how directives are made and implemented. The course will then focus on a few specific areas of law including free movement of goods, employment, taxation, and competition law.

This course examines the legal frameworks that govern some of the key international payment systems: Letters of Credit, wire transfers, international netting, and the SWIFT system. The main themes will include risks associated with fraudulent transactions and the allocation of credit risk throughout the payment systems.

This course focuses on the legal aspects of commercial activity that takes place in two or more countries. It examines the sale of goods and services across national boundaries, licensing of intellectual property, foreign investment, and the core principles of international taxation and antitrust law.

This course introduces students to some of the main elements of the domestic and international legal frameworks intended to combat corruption, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and UN Convention Against Corruption. It is further intended to spark discussion about how successful various aspects of this framework have been, how they might be improved, and how individuals and companies can best operate within it. It also seeks to provoke broader discussion about the nature of corruption, and the kinds of anti-corruption objectives that make sense both from a governmental perspective and from the perspective of companies and individuals that do business internationally.

This course provides an overview of the international sanctions regimes. It explores the processes by which the UN and other multilateral and unilateral sanctions are imposed and how sanctions impact the way business is conducted. A few country-specific sanctions provisions will be explored.