Patrick Dahm

That German-Singapore Lawyer

Tag: Civil Law & Common Law

Expenses, Not Damages

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On 26 August 2026

In Germany, Publications & Talks, Shipping & Maritime

In March 2026, I presen­ted a paper at the 23rd Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress of Mari­time Arbit­rat­ors (ICMA XXIII) in Singa­pore on recov­er­ing the cost of pre­vent­ing a loss from a con­trac­tu­al breach that has not yet happened. The paper has now been pub­lished, in expan­ded form, in the Ger­man trans­port law journ­al Trans­port­recht: ‘The Cost of Pre­ven­tion – Expense Recov­ery in Mari­time Logist­ics Under Ger­man Law, Cor­rectly Applied’, TranspR 2026, 296–302 (issue 7–8) (sub­scrip­tion required).

The article ‘The Cost of Prevention – Expense Recovery in Maritime Logistics Under German Law, Correctly Applied’ by Patrick Dahm, as printed in Transportrecht 2026, 296–302 (issue 7–8)

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Blockchain: The Roll of Deeds of the Internet

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On 13 January 2017

In Technology & Law

After read­ing Caitlin Moon’s instruct­ive blog Block­chain 101 for Law­yers I com­men­ted that we should ‘think of it as a cybernot­ary who can authen­tic­ate — everything’.

I’ve changed my mind.

For the avoid­ance of doubt, I’m all for catchy ana­lo­gies. They help under­stand much of what’s going on in cyber­space. Even bet­ter than a catchy ana­logy, though, is an ana­logy that’s catchy and apt.

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‘Language’ Difficulties between Civil Law and Common Law

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On 28 November 2014

In Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, Publications & Talks

Parties to a leg­al dis­pute may believe they under­stand each other’s legalese or the leg­al ‘etiquette’ applic­able. When really they don’t. This may hap­pen when a party from a civil law jur­is­dic­tion sets foot in a com­mon law envir­on­ment, or vice versa. In inter­na­tion­al arbit­ra­tion pro­ceed­ings, for example.

Appar­ently the High Court of Singa­pore had to decide a case just like this.

Court scene: a barrister (cross-)examining a witness

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A Grain of Civil Law – Some (Not So) New Chords for the International Arbitration Jazz

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On 1 October 2014

In Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, Publications & Talks

Scene in Italy: group of children free-riding the tram
Faster, cheap­er

Inter­na­tion­al arbit­ra­tion has a prob­lem: pro­ceed­ings that take too long and are too expens­ive. To help solve this we should com­bine the best aspects of civil law and com­mon law pro­ced­ure better.

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