Lawyers who make deals across borders and lawyers who litigate them, those interested to learn how to navigate the challenges and opportunities of language as it relates to law, and anyone simply passionate about language, will find this work a bridge to better understanding of how law and language interconnect.

Drawing on examples from English-, French-, Italian-, Portuguese-, and Spanish-speaking jurisdictions, this book takes a comparative look (intelligible to non-lawyers) at cross-border secured lending and commercial dispute resolution. It illustrates how governments might best promote languages and economic activity, and how parties to transactions can effectively structure their business to maximize their control of the choice of language in which they deal.

The book integrates investigations of national legal systems, the European Union, the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, to illustrate the new institutitional dynamics through which the languages of transnational commerce and finance are being defined.

The book covers:

• The benefits of a considered approach to the legal framework for transactional language choices
• English and translation in transnational business and finance
• Laissez-Faire approach of one English speaking country: United States
• Governmental trend towards choice
• Party work-arounds to governmental impositions of linguistic burdens
• Role of language in current models for development of legal frameworks to support transnational commercial and financial deals
• Effective strategies turning on language
• Language as empowermen