Via jurabilis: link to the weblog ‘Der Staat, das Recht und mehr’ (The state, law and more) of Dr. Johannes Rux.

He is now at the Fernuni Hagen law department, which has an LL.B. course (and which never replied to my inquiry about arrangements for doing units thereof as a guest – Gasthörerin).

I mentioned in an earlier entry the translation of the director’s words in the film ‘Lost in Translation’. Actually, it was originally posted in the New York Times:

bq. With wholehearted feeling, slowly, look at the
camera, tenderly, and as if you are meeting old friends, say the
words. As if you are Bogie in “Casablanca,” saying, “Cheers to you
guys,” Suntory time!

Chris Durban in the ITI Bulletin (not online) quotes a later letter in the New York Times from Manako Ihaya, an ATA member in California, explained that even here something went wrong.

The famous line in Casablanca, ‘Here’s looking at you, kid’ is translated into Japanese as something like ‘Cheers to your eyes’ (Kimi no hitomi ni kanpai). This is regarded as a brilliant translation and it is this to which the director in ‘Lost in Translation’ refers. Bob was to imitate Bogart saying ‘Here’s looking at you, kid,’ not ‘Cheers to you guys’.

I think I should have guessed this.

Another thing: the meaning of the English is something like ‘I drink a toast to your looks’. So it sounds as if the Japanese really is a good translation. But the German version, equally often praised as brilliant and almost as well-known in Germany as ‘Dinner for one’ is ‘Schau mir in die Augen, Kleines’ (Look into my eyes, little one). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: condescending, self-centred, jokey, and completely lacking in romance. But famous.

A Google search will show thousands of uses of this hackneyed sentence. Here’s even a sermon (in German) based on this misconception. To which I can only say, ‘My brother is a hairy man, but I am a smooth man’.

Übersicht zum Betäubungsmittelstrafrecht im JuraWiki.

Ralf Zosel in LAWgical announces a summary (in German) of drugs offences in JuraWiki.

This is highly valuable for anyone interpreting in German courts or attending them as a visitor, as I can confirm from many years of visiting the courts with groups of students. It may look like a summary of the statute, but it is reorganized in a logical approach to the topic.

Link via Vertretbar Weblawg, a reincarnation of vertretbar.de, which has moved and is using WordPress instead of Movable Type.

Here are some links on drugs offences in the UK, for example this informative site.

The following extract by Selcuk Gultaslı from Zaman Online (almost) speaks for itself:

bq. Is This a Translation Error or is it Valid?

bq. According to the news, because the intelligence-gathering form, sent to the districts by the Istanbul Second Armored Brigade Command, demanding pro-European Union (EU) people be listed, was directly translated from English, this caused collective mistakes. For example, the intelligence-gathering form was not adapted to Turkey’s realities and thus the [white supremacist] Ku Klux Klan organization was included in the form. Due to the translation error, opinion leaders were written as high society in the form. I think this is an issue of a vital translation rather than a translation error.

The writer appears (as far as the text can be understood) to query whether the ‘mistranslation’ was in fact done deliberately in order to spoil Turkey’s chances of joining the EU.

The English intellectual property law firm Blair & Co. has teamed up (not merged) with the patent attorneys Marks & Clerk. It now calls itself Marks & Clerks Solicitors (no relation to me). Joint website here.
According to Edward Fennell’s In the City section of the Times Online Tuesday law section (free registration required):

bq. The two firms regularly work together. Insiders suggest that the rebranding, unprecedented in the UK, stems from European and US clients who prefer a one-stop-shop for their IP and trademark services. My view is that the name “Blair” is no longer quite the selling point as once it was for anything to do with the law.

Beim Übersetzen ins Englische des Wortes Vertragsstrafe ist Vorsicht geboten: liquidated damages sind erlaubt, a contractual penalty nicht. Daher wird Vertragsstrafe oft mit liquidated damages übersetzt. Natürlich sollte es dem Gericht nicht auf das Wort, sondern auf den Inhalt ankommen, aber das Gericht soll lieber gar nicht auf die Idee kommen.

The German word Vertragsstrafe is often translated as liquidated damages, because in common-law jurisdictions liquidated damages are permitted, whereas a contractual penalty is prohibited. At the request of a client, I once wrote ‘a contractual penalty (Vertragsstrafe, permitted under German law)’, since after all the contracts I translate remain subject to German law. But the argument ‘It doesn’t matter how you translate it, because only German law applies’ is not a good one if the translation is going to be seen by English or U.S. lawyers.

Das Thema bespricht die deutsche Ausgabe vom German American Law Journal blog anhand eines Falls in Arizona.
The German edition of the German American Law Journal Blog discusses this with reference to Winthrop Resources Corporation v. Eaton Hydraulics, Inc., AZ: 03-1790.

Eaton als Mieter von Ausrüstungen beantragte, die Liquidated Damages Klausel aus dem Mietvertrag nach erfolgter Vertragsverletzung für nichtig zu erklären, weil sie wegen ihrer Höhe eine Penalty Clause darstelle. Das Gericht lehnte diese Auffassung ab. Eine Liquidated Damages Klausel dürfe selbst das Fünffache des beim Vertragsbruch messbaren Schadens ausmachen, ohne zu einer Penalty Clause zu werden. Der Sinn der Klausel bestehe darin, beiden Vertragsparteien zu ermöglichen, einen etwaigen Schaden schon bei Vertragsschluss zu schätzen und gerecht auszugleichen.

The court held that where the precise amount of damages is hard to calculate, the fact that the liquidated damages were so much higher than the actual damage does not prove that this was a penalty clause.

The GALJ adds that the court of second instance refuses to accept new evidence because it deals only with an appeal on a point of law (German Revision).

Das Urteil spricht auch andere, im deutsch-amerikanischen Verhältnis gelegentlich missverstandene Fragen an. So lehnt die zweite Instanz die Verwertung neuer Beweismaterials ab, weil diese Instanz lediglich eine Revision, also eine reine Rechtsprüfung, zulässt.

Das Wort liquidated (liquidated damages: bezifferter Schaden(s)ersatz)

The word liquidated may be mystifying to some. In this context it means ‘agreed in advance’. Liquidated damages of £1000 per day means the exact sum has been decided in advance. In England and Wales we used to talk about liquidated and unliquidated claims: if you sued someone for a precise sum of money, it was liquidated, but this did not imply any agreement between the parties. It’s now called a specified claim (see court service glossary).