Non-U.S. clients, non-U.S. courts–and punitive damages.

Many clients from Europe loathe and avoid U.S. courts, especially state courts. They prefer arbitration panels, even when arbitration itself threatens to be trial-like and lengthy. The expensive and drawn-out American court litigation process and its hefty jury awards–which often include a huge punitive damages component–is feared. And foreign courts, when faced with enforcing American punitive awards, are just as skittish. At the same time, some countries are starting to experiment with punitives, a mutant and now barely recognizable creature of American and English common law. See in yesterday’s NYT “Foreign Courts Wary of U.S. Punitive Damages“.