London as a Venue for International Business Dispute Resolution and the Impact of Brexit

fakultatywne

w sali

This course examines some of the factors that contribute to the popularity of the English

courts as a venue for the resolution of cross-border business disputes and considers the

impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union on the continued ability of the

English courts to compete for international business litigation.

The course provides an overview of those features of English law, procedure, and context that

have served to maintain London’s status as one of the preeminent venues for international

business dispute resolution. These matters will be examined not only from the perspective of

factors likely to influence litigation, debt restructuring, and arbitration choices made by

corporate managers and their legal advisers, but also with a view to the role that the English

courts have played in claims seeking to hold corporations accountable for harm caused by

their subsidiaries abroad. A recurring theme will be consideration of the extent to which

problems and opportunities for the continued role of the English courts in international

business dispute resolution have arisen from the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union

(‘Brexit’). The course is delivered in English and is open to both Polish and foreign students.

This course will focus on the following issues:

1. Factors leading international businesses to choose dispute resolution in England: the

High Court as an ‘international commercial court’.

2. Perspectives on ‘forum shopping’ versus ‘party autonomy’: is the phenomena of

competition among international commercial courts desirable?

3. Issues arising out of choice-of-court agreements and choice-of-law agreements in

favour of the English courts and English law.

4. The implications for the competitiveness of the English courts arising from the

increased complexity of enforcing English judgments in the EU after Brexit.

5. Reducing obstacles in relations with EU national courts through UK participation in

global instruments regulating jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments.

6. The post-Brexit relevance of the special regime for recognition and enforcement of

arbitral awards: the New York Convention of 1958

7. The ‘anti-suit injunction’: enforcement of jurisdiction and arbitration clauses in the

English courts after the UK’s exit from the EU

8. Corporate debt: an overview of forms of security interests and collateral under

English law

9. International use of UK insolvency procedures, schemes of arrangement, and

restructuring plans

10. The post-Brexit prospects for the UK as a favoured jurisdiction for cross-border

corporate workouts: the relevance of English law governed debt.

11. Reliance on the duty of care concept in the tort of negligence to impose intra-group

responsibility on desired target companies before the English courts.

12. The conditions for establishing the jurisdiction of the English courts in cases

concerning corporate groups and the doctrine of forum non conveniens.

13. Forum non conveniens: an examination of its strengths, drawbacks, and the

desirability of reform.

Reading will be provided to students as extracts from the following textbooks:

Brekoulakis, S. L., and Dimitropoulos, G. (2022). International Commercial Courts: The

Future of Transnational Adjudication. Cambridge University Press.

Dignam, A. and Lowry, J. (2022) Company Law (12 th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goode, R. and McKendrick, E. (2021). Goode and McKendrick on Commercial Law (6 th ed.).

London: Penguin.

Hartley, T. (2020). International Commercial Litigation: Text, Cases and Materials on

Private International Law (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Payne, J. (2021). Schemes of Arrangement: Theory, Structure, and Operation (2 nd ed.).

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This course aims to provide students with an understanding of the reasons for the prominent

role played by the English courts in the sphere of international business disputes and to

familiarise students with key contexts in which English jurisdiction and law is favoured. It

also seeks to equip students with the tools to evaluate the prospects for the continued

importance of the English courts to international business in the post-Brexit era.

grading