Views
Staying Proceedings under the Civil Code of Quebec
Written by Professor Stephen G.A. Pitel, Western University
The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R.S. v P.R., 2019 SCC 49 (available here) could be of interest to those who work with codified provisions on staying proceedings. It involves interpreting the language of several such provisions in the Civil Code of Quebec. Art. 3135 is the general provision for a stay of proceedings, but on its wording and as interpreted by the courts it is “exceptional” and so the hurdle for a stay is high. In contrast, Art. 3137 is a specific provision for a stay of proceedings based on lis pendens (proceedings underway elsewhere) and if it applies it does not have the same exceptional nature. This decision concerns Art. 3137 and how it should be interpreted. Read more
HCCH Event on the HCCH Service Convention in the Era of Electronic and Information Technology and a few thoughts
Written by Mayela Celis
The Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) is organising an event entitled HCCH a / Bridged: Innovation in Cross-Border Litigation and Civil Procedure, which will be held on 11 December 2019 in The Hague, the Netherlands. This year’s edition will be on the HCCH Service Convention.
The agenda and the registration form are available here. The deadline for registrations is Monday 11 November 2019. The HCCH news item is available here.
A bit of background with regard to the HCCH Service Convention and IT: As you may be aware, the Permanent Bureau published in 2016 a Practical Handbook on the Operation of the Service Convention (available for purchase here), which contains a detailed Annex on the developments on electronic service of documents (and not only with regard to the Service Convention). In that Annex, developments on the service of documents by e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and its interrelationship with the Service Convention were analysed. Not surprisingly, cases where electronic service of process was used were rare under the Service Convention (usually, the physical address of the defendant is not known, thus the Service Convention does not apply and the courts resort to substituted service).
A more important issue, though, appears to be the electronic transmission of requests under the Service Convention. According to a recent conclusion of the HCCH governance council, it was mandated that:
Electronic transmission of requests
“40. Council mandated the Permanent Bureau to conduct work with respect to the development of an electronic system to support and improve the operation of both the Service and Evidence Conventions. The Permanent Bureau was requested to provide an update at Council’s 2020 meeting. The update should address the following issues: whether and how information technology would support and improve the operation of the Conventions; current practices on the electronic transmission of requests under the Conventions; legal and technological barriers to such transmission and how best to address these; and how a possible international system for electronic transmission would be financed. “
In contrast, the European Union seems to be at the forefront in encouraging electronic service of documents as such, see for example the new proposal for Regulation on the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters, click here (EU Parliament, first reading).
Article 15a reads as follows:
“Electronic service
1. Service of judicial documents may be effected directly on persons domiciled in another Member State through electronic means to electronic addresses accessible to the addressee, provided that both of the following conditions are fulfilled: [Am. 45]
(a) the documents are sent and received using qualified electronic registered delivery services within the meaning of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and [Am. 46]
(b) after the commencement of legal proceedings, the addressee gave express consent to the court or authority seized with the proceedings to use that particular electronic address for purposes of serving documents in course of the legal proceedings. [Am. 47].”
By adding the word “both” the European Parliament seems to restrict electronic service to documents after service of process has been made (see previous European Commission’s proposal). This, in my view, is correct and gives the necessary protection to the defendant. In the future and with new IT developments, this might change and IT might be more widely used by all citizens (think of a government account for each citizen for the purpose of receiving government services and service of process -although service of process comes as a result of private litigation so this might be sensitive-), and thus this might provide more safeguards. In my view, the key issue in electronic service is to obtain the consent of the defendant (except for cases of substituted service).
Reform of Singapore’s Foreign Judgment Rules
On 3rd October, the amendments to the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (“REFJA”) came into force. REFJA is based on the UK Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, but in this recent round of amendments has deviated in some significant ways from the 1933 Act. The limitation to judgments from “superior courts” has been removed. Foreign interlocutory orders such as freezing orders and foreign non-money judgments now fall within the scope of REFJA. So too do judicial settlements, which are defined in identical terms to the definition contained in the Choice of Court Agreements Act 2016 (which enacted the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements into Singapore law).
In relation to non-money judgments, such judgments may only be enforced if the Singapore court is satisfied that enforcement of the judgment would be “just and convenient”. According to the Parliamentary Debates, it may not be “just and convenient” to allow registration of a non-money judgment under the amended REFJA if to do so would give rise to practical difficulties or issues of policy and convenience. The Act gives the court the discretion to make an order for the registration of the monetary equivalent of the relief if this is the case.
An interlocutory judgment need not be “final and conclusive” for the purposes of registration under REFJA. The intention underlying this expansion is to allow Singapore courts to enforce foreign interlocutory orders such as asset freezing orders. This plugs a hole as currently Mareva injunctions are not regarded as free-standing relief under Singapore law. It has recently been held by the Court of Appeal that the Singapore court would only grant Mareva injunctions in aid of foreign proceedings if: (i) the Singapore court has personal jurisdiction over the defendant and (ii) the plaintiff has a reasonable accrued cause of action against the defendant in Singapore (Bi Xiaoqing v China Medical Technologies Inc [2019] SGCA 50).
New grounds of refusal of registration or to set aside registration have been added: if the judgment has been discharged (eg, in the event of bankruptcy of the judgment debtor), the damages are non-compensatory in nature, and if the notice of the registration had not been served on the judgment debtor, or the notice of registration was defective.
It is made clear that the court of origin would not be deemed to have had jurisdiction in an action in personam if the defendant voluntarily appeared in the proceedings solely to invite the court in its discretion not to exercise its jurisdiction in the proceedings. Henry v Geoprosco [1976] QB 726 would thus not apply for the purposes of REFJA although its continued applicability at common law is ambiguous (see WSG Nimbus Pte Ltd v Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka [2002] 1 SLR(R) 1088).
All along, only judgments from the superior courts of Hong Kong SAR have been registrable under REFJA. The intention now is to repeal the Reciprocal Enforcement of Commonwealth Judgments Act (“RECJA”; based on the UK Administration of Justice Act 1920) and to transfer the countries which are gazetted under RECJA to the amended REFJA. The Bill to repeal RECJA has been passed by Parliament.
The amended REFJA may be found here: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/REFJA1959
News
“Who’s Afraid of Punitive Damages?” – Now in Hybrid Format
Due to massive strikes in Germany’s public transport sector, we have made the decision to move the conference on “Who’s Afraid of Punitive Damages?”, to take place in Augsburg on 8/9 March (originally announced here), to a hybrid format.
Accordingly, everyone interested in the topic is welcome to join some (or all) presentations via this Zoom link (ID: 624 2497 5622; password: &ZB&%1).
The latest version of the conference programme can be found here.
Connection in a divided world: Rethinking ‘community’ in international law – 9th Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture, 25 April 2024
On 25 April, Fleur Johns (University of New South Wales) will deliver the 9th Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. The organizers have kindly shared the following abstract (and this invitation) with us.
The concept of ‘community’ (as in the ‘international community’ or the ‘community of nations’) has been a cornerstone of international law, sometimes aiding the articulation and promotion of public interests. For example, recent attempts to forge international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response have been spurred by governments acknowledging ‘the catastrophic failure of the international community’ to ensure solidarity and equity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And lately, international legal litigants have invoked ‘community interest’ in seeking to hold states accountable for alleged violations of international law. Such claims have been central to recent proceedings brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging genocide or torture: by The Gambia against Myanmar; by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian Republic; and by South Africa against Israel.
Nonetheless, international legal notions of ‘community’ have also served racist, exclusionary purposes. The 19th century international lawyer James Lorimer famously argued that some religious and racialised peoples could never be full members of a community of nations under international law. Current international legal vocabularies, such as the ICJ Statute’s reference to the ‘law recognized by civilized nations’ for example, remain redolent of this racist idea of community-as-privilege.
In view of their ambivalence, claims about ‘international community’ should be made with caution. They often imply commonality of experience and shared value on a global scale when the experiences and values at issue may, in fact, be partial or contested, perhaps increasingly so. Digital technologies have changed how nations and peoples are brought together or connect, creating new disparities between those made more vulnerable to violence and injustice by digital connectivity, and those who benefit from the uneven global spread of computation.
This lecture will examine the concept of ‘community’ in today’s international law, especially in the context of humanitarianism and the growing use of technology. We will revisit key texts such as Georges Abi-Saab’s 1998 article, ‘Whither the International Community?‘. Ideas of ‘community’ have long played a role in making insiders and outsiders in international law, and continue to do so. Yet techniques of community-making in international law may nevertheless present egalitarian possibilities—or so this lecture will show.
Seats can be booked via this link.
Workshop on International Investment Contracts in Lillehammer, December 2024
On 6 December 2024, Yuliya Chernykh (Norway University of Applied Sciences) is going to host a workshop on international investment contracts in Lillehammer, Norway. She has kindly shared the Call for Abstracts with us.