The “Accidents Abroad” Division of practitioner text Butterworths Personal Injury Litigation Service has for some years now been written and edited by members of 12 King’s Bench Walk’s International & Travel Team.
Earlier this year, I worked with cross-border guru Philip Mead on the first post-Implementation Period version of the Division, building on last year’s excellent work by Elizabeth Boulden, Charley Turton, Spencer Turner, and Christopher Fleming, with oversight from David Green.
It is one of the first major personal injury law textbooks dealing with the changes brought about by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the new rules on service, and the complex transitional procedural provisions following the UK’s ejection from the Brussels-Lugano system.
The key change we have made is that the Section dealing with “Accidents with a foreign element” no longer includes a structure based on a core division between accidents falling under the Brussels-Lugano regime and accidents falling under the CPR service gateways.
The new structure is instead split into easily identifiable scenarios, with a focus on providing practical advice for lawyers who encounter these claims. The scenarios are:
- Defendant domiciled in Scotland or Northern Ireland
- Jurisdiction in relation to consumer contracts and in relation to individual contracts of employment
- Proceedings against EU and EFTA-domiciled defendants issued and served by 31 December 2020
- Proceedings against EU and EFTA-domiciled defendants issued but not served by 31 December 2020
- Proceedings against (i) all non-EU and non-EFTA-domiciled defendants and (ii) EU- and EFTA-domiciled defendants issued after 31 December 2020
The new edition is available online on the LexisNexis website. Any comments or requests for the inclusion of additional content in the next edition are of course always gratefully received.