International judicial assistance and the rule of law - A contribution to cope with judicial tensions between the U.S.A. and Germany

In the Napster–Bertelsmann case, the German defendant Bertelsmann AG tried to block service of a US class action suit for the sum of 17 billion US Dollar. The defendant filed a constitutional complaint. The German Constitutional Court (Second Senate) asked the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law for an expert opinion on the legal issues raised by the service of a US class action in Germany. The Institute recommended a return to the rather liberal approach to international judicial assistance adopted by the First Senate. The recent jurisprudence of the Second Senate follows this line of reasoning.