261.1S sec. 001 - International Business Transactions (Summer 2025)
Instructor: Katerina Linos (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
MTuWThF 09:00 AM - 12:10 PM
Location: Law 244
From July 28, 2025
To August 12, 2025
Class Number: Click to show Class Number
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 0
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 35
As of: 12/11 11:14 PM
This course analyzes the contractual and regulatory issues that might arise when a business transaction involves international elements. Typical examples of such transactions include: concluding a supply deal with foreign providers, acquiring a foreign company, seeking financing from foreign investors, and financing a foreign company through the U.S. markets.
We will examine the background rules governing international business, including the extraterritorial application of domestic law and the role of international law in the US system. We will also study parties’ freedom in choice of law and dispute resolution fora, including both courts and arbitral tribunals. We will discuss common transaction structures, as well as regulatory approvals needed to complete transactions, such as approvals from antitrust authorities or privacy regulators. We will then assess the main risks associated with a cross-border transaction, including foreign torts and dealing with sovereigns, and discuss contractual devices used to limit these risks’ impact.
At Berkeley Law, Professor Katerina Linos teaches international business transactions, international law, European Union law, and international organizations.
She is best known for her research on the diffusion of ideas around the world. Her book “The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion: How Health, Family and Employment Laws Spread Across Countries(opens in a new tab)” won three national awards. She documents that laws don’t spread only through expert networks, but also through popular movements. Politicians can win elections by advocating for tried-and-true, mainstream models. Therefore, the same law is often adopted around the world, even in countries for which it is a poor fit.
Linos also studies how information and misinformation shape refugee and migration law. Through a Carnegie fellowship(opens in a new tab), she studied how government and international organization reticence allows for misinformation(opens in a new tab) to spread among migrants, opening up space for rights violations and smuggling. In Digital Refuge(opens in a new tab), Linos presents the European refugee crisis from the perspective of migrants, drawing on thousands of interviews and Facebook posts. In Responsibility Sharing or Responsibility Dumping she evaluates both progressive and conservative innovations in refugee law.
Linos has researched how the media translate US Supreme Court opinions; how public opinion cleavages form around the world; how the European Union influences legislation not only through compliance mechanisms, but also through diffusion processes; and how UN General Assembly templates shape the design of institutions around the world.
Linos’ research is empirical and focused on developing and applying new qualitative and quantitative methods. Her work appears in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals, including the American Journal of International Law, the American Journal of Political Science, the American Political Science Review, the California Law Review, the Chicago Law Review, Comparative Political Studies, the European Sociological Review, and International Organization. Linos is the host of the international law podcast Borderlines.
Exam Notes: (TH) Take-home examination
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Business Law
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