The lecture on business forms will introduce students to the legal and practical concepts of corporations and partnerships. Students will be able to distinguish between the available business forms and to judge on their specific advantages depending on the needs of a particular business as well as on risks for shareholders and creditors dealing with the company. While the emphasis is on German law, the perspective of Continental company law will also be discussed, especially by means of a comparison to the main differences in Anglo-American company law.

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This course examines three documents that are indispensable to international trade: the bill of lading, the bill of exchange and the documentary credit. The course also considers non-paper, computer-based alternatives to these documents.

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The legal systems of different countries resemble each other in some ways, but, despite the globalization that has taken place in the past years, are still significantly different.  Attorneys and businesspeople in different countries are often unaware that legal structures and concepts that they take for granted in their home countries are not shared elsewhere.  An awareness of these similarities and differences is particularly important for attorneys and businesspeople working in the international arena.  The Comparative Law course introduces students to the differences and similarities in the concepts, organization, and functioning of national legal systems.

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The legal core of the European Union is the European Community. The EC was created by law; it is a source of law; and it uses law as its main instrument to achieve the increasingly ambitious political and economic goals of the European Union. This course introduces students to the history and development of the European Union 'project'. It then reviews and analyses the institutional and constitutional foundations of the EU. Who 'makes' the law and how is it enforced?  How does law bind the EU and the Member States together? What kind of law is it?  

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In the past 25 years, international arbitration has become a major method of international dispute resolution, whether between businesses or between business and government.  Despite this popularity, many lawyers and businesspeople remain unclear as to exactly what international arbitration is and how it differs from court-based international litigation.  The International Arbitration I course examines a number of major topics in the field, including the nature of arbitration, its strengths and weaknesses, the validity and reach of international arbitration agreements, the role of international arbitral institutions, ad hoc arbitration, and transborder arbitration regimes

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Conflict of Laws, often also referred to as Private International Law, deals with the special legal problems that arise from facts relating to more than one legal system, in particular the question of which law applies and which courts have jurisdiction. The course deals with the basic principles relevant for international business transactions. It addresses in particular also the interplay between jurisdictional questions and the law applicable to substantive questions. The focus will be primarily on the principles relevant within the various countries of the European Union which are, however, exemplary for the rules in many other jurisdictions. The course is also intended to serve as a foundation for the various courses in international disputes resolution, i.e. arbitration and litigation, as well as for the course on international sale contracts.

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This introductory course intends to familiarize students with the different forms of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and the International, European and German legal system governing such rights. It focuses on patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright. The course has two main fields. First, from the point of view of a natural or legal person residing in Germany, the course teaches the legal rules that determine the obtaining of the aforementioned IPRs and discusses the different substantive and formal conditions for protection. Secondly, effective remedies for the protection of IPRs (civil and criminal offenses) is crucial to each right owner and an IPR – system without such remedy is of little value. Therefore, the course examines the provisions on remedies contained in the International, European and German legal sources. From the point of view of a lawyer based in Germany, certain infringement scenarios are analyzed and professional written legal documents are assessed (e.g. request for information, formal warning letter, application for an interim injunction). Furthermore, traditional legal recourse to state courts is compared to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods in IPR conflicts. The course gives an overview of such alternative methods and explores the method of mediation in some more detail. Throughout the course, students apply the lessons learned in workshop sessions and present their results to the class.

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