Cross-Border Civil Jurisdiction - The Rules for Suing Overseas Defendants - Learn Live

Introduction

As a claimant’s lawyer, conducting claims is hard enough but, add a foreign element and it moves into decidedly difficult territory. Suing overseas defendants introduces new aspects: do the English and Welsh courts have jurisdiction to hear a claim against a foreign defendant; and will permission to serve a claim form out of the jurisdiction be given?

In the case of defendants located in the European Union, the Brexit fallout means that the Judgments Regulation ceased to apply a few years back. More applications to the English court before the claim form can be served are now needed. But there are exceptions: knowing when these apply will save worry, time and costs.

Where does the notion of forum non conveniens fit in?

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive course will cover the following:

• The process for obtaining permission, including the jurisdiction gateways introduced in 2022
• Claims not requiring permission to issue a claim against a foreign defendant
• Cases referring to the sections inserted in the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 post Brexit relating to consumer and employment claims
• A treaty to fall back on - Hague Convention, Choice of Courts Agreements 2005?
• Jurisdiction challenges 1 - under the jurisdictional gateways (Four Seasons Holdings Incorporated v Brownlie; Manek v IIFL (Wealth) UK Limited)
• Jurisdiction challenges 2 - the process for challenging the forum
• Jurisdiction challenges 3 - resorting to the substantial risk of injustice argument (Lungowe v Vedanta Resources plc, applied in Mousavi-Khalkai)
• The problem of having asymmetrical jurisdiction clauses in a contract (Hipgnosis)
• The Champions League Final - what happens in Paris may be litigated in London
• Other recent cases - the Fundao dam case; Al Aggad v Al Aggad; and Alesayi

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.