The in personam jurisdiction of equity: a cross-border mechanism to control corporate malfeasance

The purpose of this dissertation is to set out a novel legal mechanism by which the actions of multinational corporations can be legally controlled, when they operate in jurisdictions that lack either the institutions of state or the political will to regulate corporate malfeasance.  The problem arises because the power of a sovereign state and hence its ability to apply its law generally extends only as far as its territorial boundaries but multinational corporations operate globally.  The general law jurisdiction of equity is suited to this task because equity is concerned with both property rights and the personal conduct of defendants.<br><br> The relevant jurisdiction of equity dates from a rule of private international law established in the seminal 1750 case of Penn v Lord Baltimore.  This was a protracted dispute over the location of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that was eventually settled in an English court.   Equity was able to act extra-territorially because equity acts on the person of the defendant.<br><br> This dissertation has argued that the in personam jurisdiction has been unduly restricted in its operation by the Mozambique Rule, as well as by excessive deference to the executive in relation to state immunity and the act of state doctrine.   Released from these fetters, this jurisdiction can operate as it once did in Penn to provide justice for litigants in complex modern disputes in the extractive industries where the technical application of the common law and the complexities of transnational litigation deny justice to plaintiffs in host states.