Using data on all patent cases in front of German courts between 2010 and 2015 we find that plaintiffs in patentinfringement cases mainly chose the venue where to sue by the speed with which courts dispose of their cases. We also find that quality - measured, both, as the fraction of cases...

The employment share of legal services in the U.S. more than doubled during 1970–1990, in stark contrast to stability during 1850–1970 and after 1990. The relative wage of lawyers and law firm partners also doubled between 1970 and 1990. We argue that this demand shift was driven by...

This paper explores the positive governance effects of the Procuratorate's Public Interest Litigation System in China, which combines the powers of litigation and administrative supervision, on the quality of information disclosure by listed state-owned enterprises. We report several findings....

Recent experience in civil litigation, particularly with opt-out class actions against corporations for competition law offences, has highlighted the efficiency of 'dual enforcement' as a strategy for fighting corporate crime. The success of the opt-out class action regime has resulted in...

We study the effect of Department of Justice lawsuits in the 2010s against large lenders for alleged fraud in the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance program. The suits led to more than $5 billion in settlements and caused targeted banks and their peers to precipitously exit...

Amid ongoing discussion over the merits and demerits of litigation, this study addresses the impact of litigation risk on corporate innovation at Chinese listed firms from 2014 to 2022. We exploit Two-Stage GMM, DID model, and PSM techniques to address endogeneity. We find that both litigation...

The relevance of the study is due to the presence of some problematic aspects in the institute of representation of Kazakhstan, in connection with which the level of effectiveness of citizens' realisation of their inherent rights decreases. The study aims to evaluate recommendations for removal,...

Because judges exercise discretion in how they handle and decide cases, heterogeneity across judges can affect case outcomes and, thus, preferences among litigants for particular judges. However, selection obscures the causal mechanisms that drive these preferences. We overcome this challenge by...

This paper studies how litigation and settlement behavior is affected by agents motivated by spiteful preferences under the American and the English fee-shifting rule. We conduct an experiment and find that litigation expenditures and settlement requests are higher for more spiteful...

We analyze class action litigation as a corporate governance device. Firms that have lower internal governance standards and those with fewer external monitors are more likely to be indicted. Lawsuits announcements are salient information to the market, as firms, on average, lose 12.3% without a...

In response to the growing threat of climate change, the insurance industry has made significant investments in modelling and quantifying physical climate risks. However, the emerging risk of climate litigation has proven particularly difficult to model. In 2015 Mark Carney, then-Governor of the...

Using federal judge ideology as an exogenous measure of firms’ ex ante litigation risk, we document that the initial public offerings (IPOs) of the firms headquartered in more liberal circuits are more underpriced. The effect is mitigated when plaintiffs’ pleading standards are more...

We investigate whether board independent directors mitigate firm’s securities litigation risks. We further analyze this inquiry with special attention to firm’s complexity, monitoring costs, and the relative benefits and costs of board independence. Separate and combined analyses of these...

American households increasingly rely on employer-sponsored defined contribution retirement plans to fund consumption in retirement. I show that an important factor that impacts these plans is litigation risk. Using a new database of over 35,000 plans covering more than $5 trillion in assets, I...

Climate litigation is a broad term that captures cases involving both conventional and novel causes of actions and remedies.This chapter focuses on cases seeking to force stronger actions by public and private entities to reduce carbon pollution of the atmosphere.The treatment is necessarily...

The legal ethics of class actions is a mess, with many conflicting answers and lingering, unresolved questions. The culprit is a fundamental lack of agreement regarding the identity of the client, without which it is impossible to consistently resolve concerns about conflicts of interest and...

Who is responsible when a semi-autonomous vehicle crashes? Automobile manufacturers claim that because Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) require constant human oversight even when autonomous features are active, the driver is always fully responsible when supervised autonomy fails. This...

The aim of this study is to elucidate whether arbitration offers advantages compared to the patent litigation system which is currently existing in Germany. To answer this question three essential characteristics of the current German patent litigation system are presented, i.e. the economic...

Enforceability has long been arbitration’s trump card. When debating litigation vis-à-vis arbitration, proponents of the latter could simply cite the New York Convention – and its list of 154 contracting states – as proof that, for international business, arbitration was “the only game...

It is a significant responsibility of the national governments to protect their country’s interests and sovereignty over their territory. As part of their security responsibilities, they are required to impose restrictions on their borders and try to defend the state against threats. But,...