Agrégateur de flux

In [2017] EWHC 2401 (Comm) Team Y&R v Ghossoub, Laurence Rabinowitz QC discussed a number of issues, most particularly anti-suit in the context of an exclusive jurisdictional clause (anti-suit not granted). He summarised the applications as follows:

‘The first application, brought by the claimants to the anti-suit claim, is for an interim injunction seeking to restrain Mr Ghossoub, the defendant to those proceedings, from pursuing related proceedings commenced by him in Hong Kong against four of those claimants until the trial of the anti-suit claim. The second application, brought by Mr Ghossoub as defendant to the anti-suit claim, seeks to set aside two orders made by the Court related to service on him of the anti-suit claim. The first, made by Phillips J dated 20 May 2015, granted permission to serve the anti-suit claim out of the jurisdiction. The second, made by HHJ Waksman QC sitting as a High Court judge dated 8 September 2016, granted permission to serve the claim form and other documents by an alternative method of service. The third application, brought by Mr Ghossoub as defendant to the defaulting shareholder claim, in effect mirrors his application in the anti-suit claim to set aside the service out and service by an alternative method orders.’

Anti-suit would be aimed at courts ex-EU hence the Brussels I antimony against them (per Gasser, among others) does not apply. Incidentally, I do not think that necessarily needs to exclude any EU /CJEU grip on the substantive issue at all: in the current, Recast Regulation, neither party needs to be domiciled in the EU for choice of court to be made in favour of a court established in the EU. This does create an EU interest in the issue of third-party impact of choice of court, and consequently on the use of anti-suit to support or reject such impact.

Now, at para 78 ff Mr Rabinowitz considers the issue of third parties. Not at issue is whether choice of court is binding upon, or may be invoked by such parties (in EU law considered eg in Refcomp, Profit Sim, Assens Havn, Leventis). Rather, whether an exclusive jurisdiction clause should be understood to oblige a contractual party to bring claims relating to the contract in the chosen forum even if the claim is one against a non-contracting party. This would support the idea of ‘one-stop shopping’ which is prevalent eg in English law albeit mostly vis-a-vis the various litigious relations between two and the same parties.

One can see merit in obliging parties bound by choice of court, to bring all related claims to one and the same court. Except of course, as Mr Rabinowitz points out, third parties are quite likely to be in a position to be able to bring the case before a different court, thus putting the contractual party at a disadvantage; moreover, even if the contractual party does bring the claim to the courts at England, these may not in fact have jurisdiction: in such circumstances, insisting on third-party proceedings to be brought before the English courts becomes silly. (My words, not Mr Rabinowitz’).

Taking these and also the entire contractual context into account, the High Court holds that choice of court in the contract at issue does not extend to claims against non-contracting third parties, and dismisses anti-suit.

Take your time to read the judgment: it gives very good context to what to some might seem like a very awkward starting point.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.9.

Au visa de l’article 6, § 1, de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme, la Cour de cassation renforce son contrôle sur la durée raisonnable de la détention provisoire d’un accusé en attente de son procès en appel, obligeant les juges à caractériser les diligences particulières ou les circonstances insurmontables l’expliquant. 

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King’s College School of Law is organising a conference on Unity and Diversity in the Law of the International Sale of Goods. This conference will bring together prominent academics and practitioners from all over the world to discuss pressing issues pertaining to international sales transactions.The focus will be on the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The speakers will explore the current state of the law of sale of goods by examining how sales contracts, particularly those used in international trade, are governed in the modern world. The central theme concerns two competing forces within the sale of goods law:

• Those leading to disintegration,
• Those pushing towards uniformity, consolidation and standardisation.

The conference will take place on 16-17th of April 2018 at King’s College London.

For more information and the programme, please click here.

For the registration page, please click here.

Procédure civile

On 30 October 2017 the Jean Monnet Module on European Civil Procedure will host its annual conference on ‘Corti europee e giudici nazionali’ in Milan. The conference language is Italian. For further information see here.

On 3-4 November 2017 the LUISS «Guido Carli» University School of Law, with the support of the International Law Association (Italian Branch) and the auspices of the International Insolvency Institute, will host in Rome a conference on «Cross-Border Business Crisis: International and European Horizons».

Three bilingual (English/Italian) sessions are scheduled: I) International and European Policies on Business Crisis (Chairperson: Luciano Panzani); II) Regulation 2015/848 within the European System of Private International Law (Chairperson: Stefania Bariatti); III) Cross-Border Insolvency and Italian Legal Order: Old and New Challenges (Chairperson: Sergio M. Carbone).

Speakers include academics and practitioners (Massimo V. Benedettelli, Giorgio Corno, Domenico Damascelli, Luigi Fumagalli, Anna Gardella, Lucio Ghia, Francisco J. Garcimartín Alférez, Antonio Leandro, Maria Chiara Malaguti, Fabrizio Marongiu Buonaiuti, Alberto Mazzoni, Paul Omar, Antonio Tullio, Robert van Galen, Francesca Villata, Ivo-Meinert Willrodt).

Most of them are members of the ILA-Italy Study Group on «Cross-Border Insolvency and National Legal Orders» and will discuss the findings of their research during the conference.

Program and details on registration are available here

 

I reviewed the High Court’s decision in Lungowe here. The Court of Appeal has now confirmed jurisdiction against the non-UK based defendants on largely the same, if slightly more structured and expanded arguments as the High Court.  (Per Owusu, jurisdiction against the UK-based defendant is undeniable; the non-UK defendants need to be joined on the basis of residual English conflicts law).

Ekaterina Aristova has analysis of Simon LJ’s leading judgment here – I am happy to refer. Of particular note is the much more reserved approach of the Court of Appeal on the merits issue of the claim. As I noted in my review of Okpabi v Shell at the High Court, in that case Fraser J looked in serious detail into the issue of merits: not, I believe, justified at the jurisdictional stage. Appeal against Fraser J’s finding will be heard by the Court of Appeal.

Geert.

European private international law, second ed. 2016, Chapter 8, Headings 8.3.1.1., 8.3.2

Un acte de naissance établi aux Comores ne peut pas produire effet en France s’il n’est pas légalisé par le consul de France aux Comores ou par le consul des Comores en France.

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Cour d'appel de Paris, pôle 5, 27 mars 2017

Pourvoi c./ Cour d'appel de Paris, Pôle 2, 28 mars 2017

Cour d'appel de Cayenne, chambre sociale, 28 novembre 2016

Copropriété

Copropriété

Cour d'appel de Douai, 4e Chambre, 14 février 2017

Cour d'appel de Metz, Chambre des Appels Correctionnels, 29 mars 2017

Tribunal de grande instance/d'instance de Créteil, 10e correctionnelle, 02 octobre 2017

Tribunal d'instance de Paris, Vème, 11 octobre 2017

Hard to believe, but true: The Encyclopedia of Private International Law, published by Edward Elgar and edited by Jürgen Basedow (Max Planck Institute Hamburg), Franco Ferrari (NYU Law School), Pedro de Miguel Asensio (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and me, has finally been released end of September. Bringing together more than 180 authors from 57 countries the Encyclopedia sheds light on the current state of Private International Law around the globe and provides insights into how the discipline has been affected by globalization and increased regional integration over the last decades.

The Encyclopedia  is available both in print and via Elgaronline and consists of four volumes. The first two volumes describe topical aspects of Private International Law in form of 247 alphabetically sorted entries. The third volume describes the Private International Law regimes of 80 countries in form of national reports. The fourth volume contains a collection of national codifications and provisions of Private International Law in English translation. More information is available here and here.

I take the opportunity to thank everybody who has helped  to make the Encyclopedia come true, notably the authors and translators (many of them editors or readers of this blog), my fellow editors, my team at the University of Jena and last but not least the team over at Edward Elgar!

Should you be interested in receiving a review copy please send an email to reviews@e-elgar.co.uk.

Yanukovych / Conseil
Relations extérieures
La Cour confirme le gel de fonds de M. Viktor Yanukovych, ancien président de l’Ukraine, et de son fils Oleksandr pour la période allant du 6 mars 2015 au 6 mars 2016