Research On Related Litigation Issues In Foreign-related Civil And Commercial Litigation

Generally speaking,in foreign civil and commercial litigation,one action belongs to one litigation department,and in the situation of parallel litigation,one action belongs to several litigation departments.In essence,related action is an independent action,each action has a litigation department,because the subject of action,the cause of action or the object of action or the request of action are related.In order to prevent the conflict of judgment and improve the efficiency of the action,it is possible to combine multiple suits into one suit.Based on this,the article is around these two parts.The first part mainly discusses the definition of relevance by the European Union,France,Germany,China and the United States.And the second part discusses the coordination of the jurisdiction of related cases and the trial of related cases.Finally,it returns to the legislation and judicial practice of China and puts forward some suggestions for the deficiency of the system of related litigation in China.As for the relevance,the European Court of Justice examines it from the parties and the cause of action.For the parties,the related action does not take the same parties as the constitutive elements,which makes it different from the rules of pending action.The cause of action includes the facts and the legal rules.If the facts are the same,but the legal rules are different,the cause of action is related.France has put forward “Indivisibility” standard of the claim.Germany claims the subject matter of the action for the same or similar factual or legal reasons.China has put forward two views,one is that the objects of actions are same or the same kind,and the other is that the claims arise from the same fact.Based on the difference of the types of joinder,the United States put forward two standards: the same transaction or occurrence or series transactions or occurrences and the common fact or legal question.The related action is an independent action,which contains the tendency of separation of procedure.Only when the following conditions are met can the combination of procedure be realized:(1)the Merged Court has jurisdiction over the related action;(3)the Merged Court may render a judgment that can be enforced by other courts;(4)other courts may,on request or ex officio,suspend proceedings or waive jurisdiction.The ways to coordinate the jurisdiction conflict of related litigation are first-in-time rule,forum non convenience and theory of recognition prognosis.As a measure of self-restraint and comity,the theory of recognition prognosis is adjunct to the first two.