Michael D. Green – författare

Causal uncertainty is a wide-spread phenomenon. Courts are often unable to determine whether a defendant’s tortious conduct was a factual cause of a plaintiff’s harm. Yet, sometimes courts can determine the probability that the defendant caused the plaintiff’s harm, although often there is considerable variance in the probability estimate based on the available evidence. The conventional way to cope with this uncertainty has been to apply the evidentiary rule of ‘standard of proof’.

The application of this ‘all or nothing’ rule can lead to unfairness by absolving defendants who acted tortiously and may also create undesirable incentives that result in greater wrongful conduct and injustice to victims. Some courts have decided that this ‘no-liability’ outcome is undesirable. They have adopted rules of proportional liability that compensate plaintiffs according to the probability that their harm was caused by the defendant’s tortious conduct.

In 2005 the Principles of European Tort Law (PETL) made a breakthrough in this regard by embracing rules of proportional liability. This project, building on PETL, endeavours to make further inquiries into the desirable scope of proportional liability and to offer a more detailed view of its meaning, implications, and ramifications.

Where products develop ever more rapidly, the law may face difficulties in responding accordingly to new security threats which may arise. In the field of product liability, an extraordinary need for legal development has thus been perceived, with legislators and judges feeling compelled to find new solutions and to look across borders for these. In the detailed reports in this book, the World Tort Law Society proves that it is in an ideal position to examine the most significant concepts. The report on North America studies the special regime for product liability from its origin in the case law of the US; the European report is centred around the EU Product Liability Directive with its merits and faults; and the influence of these two systems as well as new answers are shown in the reports on Asia, Russia and four key jurisdictions in the rest of the world. Similar questions are discussed worldwide: How can a strict liability regime for products be justified, and can it be justified in all cases? How does the special regime relate to general rules of tort law? Should services be subject to a similar regime? The Members of the Society seek to provoke thought for solutions to these pervasive problems. In this spirit, the volume’s comparative conclusions invite discussion, and the book includes four responses to that call from eminent tort lawyers from different legal backgrounds.

Where products develop ever more rapidly, the law may face difficulties in responding accordingly to new security threats which may arise. In the field of product liability, an extraordinary need for legal development has thus been perceived, with legislators and judges feeling compelled to find new solutions and to look across borders for these. In the detailed reports in this book, the World Tort Law Society proves that it is in an ideal position to examine the most significant concepts. The report on North America studies the special regime for product liability from its origin in the case law of the US; the European report is centred around the EU Product Liability Directive with its merits and faults; and the influence of these two systems as well as new answers are shown in the reports on Asia, Russia and four key jurisdictions in the rest of the world. Similar questions are discussed worldwide: How can a strict liability regime for products be justified, and can it be justified in all cases? How does the special regime relate to general rules of tort law? Should services be subject to a similar regime? The Members of the Society seek to provoke thought for solutions to these pervasive problems. In this spirit, the volume’s comparative conclusions invite discussion, and the book includes four responses to that call from eminent tort lawyers from different legal backgrounds.

The topic of the symposium mirrors a particular interest of the activities of the SCCL covering regulatory as well as liability questions thus dealing with legal subjects which have also relevance to the Foundation. After World War II financial markets have gradually undergone huge differences depending on new financial devices, new financial markets and new financial actors evolving together with changes in regulation and supervision. These are circumstances which have together created new frames for the financial industry.

Table of contents: - Extraterritorial Financial Regulation: Why E.T. Can’t Come Home by John C. Coffee, Jr. - Generally on Risks and Liability – Directors’ Liability Under the Law and Regulation in Australia by Rowan Russell - South African Company Law – Directors’ Duty of Care and Skill and the Introduction of the Business Judgment Rule: Answering the Critics by Angela Itzikowitz - International legal risk for banks and corporates by Philip R Wood - Macro-prudential regulation from an English and European Perspective – The Legal and Institutional Dimension by Kern Alexander - Comment on the session on the risks and liabilities of financial markets by Jesper Lau Hansen - Handling Risks in Financial Markets Regulation: EMIR and the problem with CCPs being Too Big to Fail by Erica Johansson - Responsibility of Banks and Their Directors, Including Liability and Enforcement by Klaus J. Hopt - Is there a role for culture and ethics in financial regulation? By William Blair - Tort Law to the Rescue? By Michael D. Green & Brandon Jones - The (non)-liability of banks under English law by Ross Cranston - Implementing liability on the basis of model case procedures – the example of the German Capital Markets Model Case Act (“KapMuG”) by Brigitte Haar - Tort cases in Iceland after the bank crash in 2008 by Eiríkur Jónsson