Michael Jackson, Iran, and Anticipation

I know it's a big deal that Michael Jackson died, and it's a big deal in Germany too (they love him here), and that Iran is holding the world on edge, but I only care about one thing right now.

Counting the Days

Sunday is almsot here . . .

Public Service Announcement

1. Americans do not watch class action suits like they are the Roman games.
2. That woman burned by the McDonald's coffee? She was disfigured for life in some very sad, personal ways, and this had happened to more than McD's customer before. The jury smacked McDonald's because McDonald's was negligent and callous and disregarded basic standards of human decency.
3. We have a more or less non-existent social welfare system. When we get hurt and lose our jobs, we don't still get to take our two week national naptime (I'm looking at you, Holland).
4. Some of us have actually heard of your country and do know where to find it on the map.
5. You need immigrants, you idiots. Shut up and let them make money.
6. Seriously, guy - I know more about your country than you know about mine. Cut me some slack. I really like it here. I happily disfigure your language all the time. I even made a joke in German today. That's the second this week. Yes, dammit - I play soccer all the time . . . and, yes, I understand offsides.

German Legal Term of the Day

"Quotenkonsolidierungsverfahren" = pro rata consolidation procedure.

This is a very specific phrase/word having to do with consolidation of interests in banking. (Here's an old report discussing different views on the subject . . . if you're really that interested, the mention of pro-rata is at the very end.) In some ways, like with some of the other words I've shared, it's no different than shoving an entire English phrase into a single word. But in other ways, it sums up the German approach in one ten-syllable shot.

Despite the fact that German attorneys have all these long words, they use American nicknames for corporate take-overs. And they like them because they make it sound cool; poison pill, saturday night special, white night, black night, green mail, squeeze-out, etc. They make long words, we try and sound like gangsters.

Photo Album Updated

I fixed the problem with the photo links to the right. They're updated now with a lot more shots.

Feed the Birds

Went to London for the weekend. Three observations. First, Frankfurt-Hahn Airport is really a bus station with planes.

Second, if the coffee costs only 70p - don't buy it.

Third, when I woke up in the bus on the way back into town yesterday I actually saw the skyline and thought, "nice to be home."

The European Disunion

I haven't written about the recent EU elections yet (which wrapped up on Sunday after four days of voting) because, frankly, nobody was talking about it. There were articles in the papers but they were stuffed by news of the iminent (and now effective) insolvency of Anachron, the Opel deal, and the Air France search. Last week, one of the Frankfurt papers ran a double-spread about the European Parliament but it's tone was almost like a travelogue, a peek into a far-off alien world.

The Hearings That Weren't

If you haven't heard any of This American Life's coverage of the financial crisis, check it out. Teaming up with the folks from Planet Money, TAL does a great job. Their most recent broadcast deals with the government regulators and the credit rating companies. Both function - or are supposed to function - as gatekeepers. During the last decade or so, they did anything but.

If the latest episode doesn't clarify why some level of legal literacy is important in a democracy, I don't know what will. For years, under Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses, American kept saying they wanted less regulation. Based on their anger these days, it doesn't seem like they knew what they were asking for. But they got it, in spades.

German Legal Term of the Day

Hypothekenschuldverschreibung = "collateral mortgage bond"

I share my office with two other "trainees," Daniel and Nafissatou. Daniel is German and Nafissatou is Nigerien by way of France (that's Nigerien, not Nigerian - from Niger). Nafissa doesn't share my love of long German legal terms. She just shakes her head at them. Daniel is amused. As proud of the Bundesgesetz as German lawyers are, they have a very good sense of humor about some of its tics.

My boss once said he thought the only [European] language with longer words was Finnish. But then "you have no vowells." It's the tiny victories.

Sounds of Frankfurt

Also: more photos of Mainz and Frankfurt (including new graf) in the slide show on the right.

Me, Mainz, and I

Mainz is a small city not far west of Frankfurt, sitting at the point where the River Main flows into the Rhein.  The Rhein is one of Europe's major rivers, and always has been, so Mainz has hosted some illustrious guests; the Romans, Seubi, Alans, Belgae, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, every Holy Roman Emperor, Guttenburg, Napolean, Nazis, Patton, and Patrick.

I took the trian over to Mainz on Saturday.  It was raining, and cold, and majestic in its own way.  The cathedral is a towering heap of red stone hulking the middle of another recreated Altstadt.  It is not a charming building.  It is enormous and dark and full of great tombstones erected by the important that are covered with dancing skeletons.  But the other buildings run right up into it, right against the outside walls so that the entire place feels crowded in and it would seem perfectly reasonable if some 18th century prince turned the corner and looked down his inbred nose at you.

Up on the hill, above the cathedral is a citadel built during the mid-1600s.  It sits above the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, once the largest north of the alps (no, I have no idea if that's impressive - it looked small).  The entire citadel is preserved and you're free to wander the ramparts and look down at the Rhein, keeping an eye out for the Hessians (you could also walk over to the other side and watch out for Bonnie).

All this was great, despite the rain, but the actual reason I was there was the Roman fort.  There was - supposedly - a tower built by the Romans in the first century.  I walked around Mainz for three hours in the rain, asking docents and strangers and any one else if they knew where the Roman tower was.  No one knew.  Mainz has some great parks, by the way.

And there is a Roman tower, part of a fort built in the first century.  It is inside the citadel, in the southwest corner behind the old canteen.  The Romans built it as part of their attempt to link the Rhein and the Danube and keep all the Germans out of Gaul.  They weren't succesful.

You can keep your Franks, Carolingians, and all the rest.  Just trying to keep the tribes straight (why were the Belgae so far south, anyway?) is impossible.  Their names all sound familiar but none of the history makes any sense with everyone running back and forth across the river and moving from Poland to Spain and back again.  And here is this little tower, not much to look at, but still standing almost intact after two thousand years.  Good builders, the Romans.

I Miss You

School Daze

I was talking to some co-workers about the different European law school systems this afternoon, and after getting a handle on how the schools work (in France you declare a "major" in high school), I thought to ask how hard it is to get into law school.  They looked at me like that was a strange question.

Heidelberg, one of the world's oldest universities, is apparently pretty tough to get into because it's famous.  But my co-worker couldn't honestly tell me if it's a very good law school or not.  What's the best law school in Germany?  No real answer.  In France?  Doesn't really matter where you go, so long as it's in Paris.

Ask any US law student what the best law school in the country is and they know.  They know the top 5, top 10 and probably top 14 off the top of their head.  We know, and never stop talking about, how this affects hiring later on, market-rate first year salaries in the top five markets, your chances of being on the Supreme Court or teaching, etc.  It drives our friends and family nuts.

Of course, when you're spending/borrowing a small fortune to do something, you tend to get well acquainted with it.  But French law students also recently got pretty upset about their tuition, too.  Not long ago, final year's tuition shot up to 900 Euros.

German Legal Term of the Day

"Steuerhinterziebungsbekampfungsgesetz" = Act to Combat Tax Evasion

This is the name of an actual German law - very well known to tax attorneys here - designed to limit off-shore tax shelters such as Jersey or Malta. Not only is the word seriously impressive when spit out quickly by a co-worker, along with a "you don't know this?" tone, you have to hand it to the German Parliament for sticking to a simple, if long, name. If this were the product of our Washington Lovlies, it would have been named the Federal Defense of Apple Pie Freedom and Baseball Freedom Liberty Defense Act.

Or, to put it another way . . . "Bundeswacheäpfelkuchefreiheitundbaseballfreiheitunamhängingkeitwachegesetz."

Any Day Now

Any day now, Baby G, you're going to have a new baby brother!  You and your mom will both be big sisters.  I can't wait to meet the little guy when I see you again.  Your godfather misses you every day, Gabs.  I love you, your mom and dad and your little brother.

Love,

Uncle Patrick

Happy Birthday Zahra!

Happy Birthday, Zahra!  I miss you very much and hope you have an amazing day!  Give your Mom, Dad, Natasha and Saif big hugs for me.  

Love, Uncle Patrick

Bi-Lingual Credit Agreements

Friday was the first big translation exercise of my summer.  A US corporation is purchasing a German company and we're handling the credit side of things with the foreign bank.  Because the subsidiary, and a bunch of other holding companies are all registered in Germany, German corporate law applies.  But US law also applies to all the contracts.  So the credit agreement and all its parts have to be in step in two jurisdictions at once.

The hard thing about this is that you can't simply translate the documents.  In this case, I was translating from German to English.  The translation had to be effective in the US and also Germany.  So all the key legal concepts had to be recognizable to a German regulator and an American lawyer.

This is a lot easier said than done.  I thought it would take about an hour.  It took four.

The Botanical Gardens

German Legal Term of the Day

"Akkreditivwaehrungsdeckungskonto" = foreign currency credit cover account.

I think the printers used a small size font to keep this one on a single line.  Again, there's not really any shorter way to say this in English - not an official term, anyway.

Dear Germany . . .

Screens would keep the moths out of my room at night.  The moths are very large and aggressive.  Screens are also very cheap.  You are a wealthy nation capable of building electronic signs that tell me exactly how many available parking spots exist in multiple parking garages at once.  Screens, Germany.  Window screens.