Jessica Berch Authors Article on the Need for Enforcement of U.S. Punitive Damage Awards by the E.U.

Jessica Berch, a new associate in the Phoenix office, recently published an article entitled "The Need for Enforcement of U.S. Punitive Damages Awards by the European Union" in the Minnesota Journal of International Law.  The article addresses the discrete problem of enforcing U.S. punitive damages awards in the courts of E.U. Member States.  After canvassing the state of the law regarding punitive damages in both the United States and Europe, the article suggests that the two powers do not have particularly divergent views about the propriety of punitive damages awards and urges the two sides to revise the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements to allow for the more liberal enforcement of U.S. judgments containing punitive damages awards.  The article concludes, "In a world with increasing amounts of cross-border transactions, it is imperative that judgments can be enforced in countries other than the one handing down the judgments. If another round of negotiations begins over the provisions of the Hague Convention, this author hopes that both sides will be more informed about the trends in punitive damages and will use that information to grant reciprocal, uniform, and liberal enforcement to all foreign judgments."