Document Translation Services for International Litigation
We’ve blogged about multilingual legal translation and interpretation services in the context of corporate and legal translations in alien tort statute cases, and about legal language services in cases involving tortuous interference with a contractual relationship. Mass tort lawsuits are never easy to settle, and become all the more difficult when occurring in an international setting. One issue of particular contention is conflict of interest rules. In one particular case, various groups of freelance writers from around the world brought a class action suit for copyright infringement against major publishers. In this particular case, the class action was rejected on the grounds of inadequate representation of one subclass. However, there is question on whether the decision applies only to a formal class action suit or to any case involving mass torts.
One predominant issue in the court’s decision was a question as to whether or not all the various parties were adequately represented during mediation. This concern came from the fact that the groups themselves represented a diverse, unassociated collection of freelance writers, often coming from various countries and having different language abilities. Without significant evidence in the form of foreign language translations and foreign language interpretation in every step of the mediation and for every individual member of every group within the international class action – it would be difficult to rule any other way.