International Business Transactions

This course will give students a broad overview of the law—domestic, foreign, and international—governing international business transactions. There are no prerequisites. The course first examines several issues that cut across many types of international transactions: the role of international lawyers, international dispute resolution, corporate social responsibility, the place of international law in the U.S. legal system, the extraterritorial application of domestic law, and international trade law. These introductory sessions are followed by eight problems, each focused on a different type of transaction: transnational sales, agency and distributorship agreements, licensing of intellectual property, foreign direct investment, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, concession agreements, and international debt instruments. Along the way, we will look at some of the principal kinds of regulation, foreign and domestic, that apply to each; including antitrust law, securities law, tax, and anti-corruption legislation.