International Business Transactions

This course analyzes the international law, United States law, and selected foreign law issues regarding doing business abroad. The course is conceptually organized into three primary areas: international sales, international licensing of intellectual property, and foreign direct investment. We will examine particular sub-issues related to and arising out of these three primary areas of focus. The course is taught with a particular emphasis on planning and structuring an international business transaction, using actual contracts for purposes of illustration. The course emhasizes a transactional (not litigation) approach to the practice of law, that is, advising clients, planning and structuring a transaction, drafting contracts. Because this is an internationally oriented class, transactions studied will be those that involve issues that cross national boundaries (ie buyer and seller, licensor and licensee are in different countries). Students who have taken IBT in the Madrid Summer Program are not prohibited from taking this course.