The Commercial Court has just released its 2022 Guide (found here). The new focus on the post-Brownlie approach to foreign law disputes is immediately mentioned in the Introduction: There are two other areas to which the judges of the Court would particularly draw attention. The first is the consideration which is given to the options…
Read moreThe Montreal Convention and the “fifth jurisdiction”
In Akulinina and Kondrashova -v- Ifly S.A. the High Court considered, for the first time, the jurisdiction provisions in Article 33(2) of the Montreal Convention. These provisions are often referred to as providing the Convention’s “fifth jurisdiction” (being an additional basis of jurisdiction beyond the four identified in Article 33(1)). Spencer Turner considers the important…
Read moreAppeals against findings of foreign law
The appeal courts have repeatedly emphasised that a dissatisfied party seeking to overturn a finding of fact will face an uphill battle. Central to this analysis is the trial judge’s role as the master of fact-finding. The trial judge carries out this role in an atmosphere and setting which simply cannot be recreated on an…
Read moreNo foreign law evidence? No problem.
In Soriano v Forensic News LLC & Ors [2021] EWCA Civ 1952, the Court of Appeal considered an appeal relating to service abroad in a cross-border claim for libel (and various other things). It raised issues about s. 9 of the Defamation Act 2013, which contains a special test for jurisdiction over libel claims against…
Read moreOdenbreit rule covers subrogated claims
Today we have another “historical interest” case to be filed away with last week’s CJEU ruling on parasitic claims against policyholders. Hill v Generali Zrt [2021] EWHC 3381 (QB) concerned an English motorist who was involved in an accident with a car in Germany. The other car was insured by the Defendant. This was a…
Read moreCJEU: Keefe was wrong
The CJEU has today handed down judgment in Case C-708/20, BT. We blogged on the background to this judgment here. The CJEU held that an injured party bringing a direct claim in the injured party’s domicile against an insurer cannot use article 13(3) of Brussels I (Recast) to establish jurisdiction against the insured in the…
Read moreCJEU to rule on Keefe question
The CJEU is coming to town with an early Xmas present: I am of course talking about the much anticipated ruling on the so-called “Keefe question” as referred by DJ Hennessy at the last possible moment in Tattersall v Seguros Catalana Occidente SA and Basque (Unreported) Birkenhead County Court, 31 December 2020. The question concerns whether…
Read moreCourt of Appeal: English judges can exercise former CJEU powers
The first signs of divergence between the UK and EU legal systems are starting to emerge in cases based on the proper approach to retained EU law. In Open Rights Group & Anor, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2021] EWCA Civ 1573, the Court of…
Read moreDon’t hold out hope for future UK Lugano accession
It is old news that the UK’s bid to join the Lugano Convention has stalled and been kicked into the political long grass. We previously blogged about the reasons given by the EU Commission for opposing UK Lugano Convention membership. Specifically: For the European Union, the Lugano Convention is a flanking measure of the internal…
Read moreBrownlie II mini-series: (3) Foreign law
This is the third and final instalment in our Brownlie II mini-series. The judgment can be found here. Our first article on the background and decision itself is here. The second article on the future implications of the tort gateway ruling can be found here. In this third article, Patrick Vincent QC considers the many…
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