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Disentangling Legal Knots: Intersection of Foreign Law and English Law in Overseas Marriages

Written by Muhammad Zubair Abbasi, Lecturer at School of Law, Oxford Brookes University (mabbasi@brookes.ac.uk)

Introduction:

In a recent judgment Tousi v Gaydukova [2024] EWCA Civ 203, the Court of Appeal dealt with the issue of the relevance of foreign law to the remedy available under English law in respect of an overseas ceremony of marriage. Earlier the High Court had held that the foreign law determines not only the validity or invalidity of the ceremony of marriage but also the ramifications of the validity or invalidity of the ceremony. The Court of Appeal disagreed and reiterated the rule that lex loci celebrationis is limited to the determination of the validity or invalidity of the ceremony of marriage. Therefore, English law will apply to provide a remedy or relief upon the breakdown of the relationship of the parties to a marriage ceremony that took place abroad.

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Egyptian Supreme Court on the Enforcement of Foreign Judgments – Special Focus on the Service Requirement

I . Introduction

Egypt and its legal system occupy a unique position within the MENA region. Egyptian law and scholarship exert a significant influence on many countries in the region. Scholars, lawyers, and judges from Egypt are actively involved in teaching and practicing law in many countries in the region, particularly in the Gulf States. Consequently, it is no exaggeration to say that developments in Egyptian law are likely to have a profound impact on neighboring countries and beyond, and warrant special attention. Read more

International Jurisdiction between Nationality and Domicile in Tunisian Private International Law – Has the Perennial Debate Finally been Resolved?

I would like to thank Prof. Lotfi Chedly for providing me with the text of the decision on which this post is based.

I. Introduction

Scholars of private international law are well familiar with the classic debate on nationality and domicile as connecting factors in the choice of applicable law (see, for example, L. I. de Winter, “Nationality or Domicile? The Present State of Affairs” 128 Collected Courses III (1969) pp. 357 ff). In Tunisian private international law, this controversy has been particularly pronounced with regard to the role of nationality as a ground for the international jurisdiction of Tunisian courts. Since the enactment of the Tunisian Private International Law Code (“PILC”) in 1998 (for an English translation, see J. Basedow et al. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Private International Law – Vol. IV (Elgar Editions, 2017) 3895 and my own translation of the provisions dealing with international jurisdiction and the enforcement of foreign judgments in 8 Journal of Private International Law 2 (2012) pp. 221 ff)), the debate between opponents and proponents of nationality as a ground for international jurisdiction, especially in family law matters, has never ceased to be intense (for detailed analyses, see eg. Salma Triki, “La compétence internationale tunisienne et le critère de nationalité” in Ben Achour/Triki (eds.), Le Code de droit international privé – Vingt ans d’application (1998-2018) (Latrach edition, 2020) 119ff). This divergence in academic opinion is also reflected in the judicial practice of the courts, with the emergence of two opposing trends: one extends the international jurisdiction of the Tunisian courts when the dispute involves a Tunisian party, in particular as a defendant even when domiciled abroad. The other firmly rejects nationality as a ground for international jurisdiction.

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News

Call for Participants: Quo Vadis Preferential Law Approach? A Survey on the Interpretation of Article 6(2) Rome I Regulation Across EU Member States

Benedikt Schmitz (University of Groningen) has shared the following call for participants with us:

Quo Vadis Preferential Law Approach? A Survey on the Interpretation of Article 6(2) Rome I Regulation Across EU Member States

Project description:

The Rome I Regulation plays a crucial role in determining the applicable law in cross-border consumer contracts within the European Union. Article 6(2) Rome I Regulation allows parties to choose the governing law while ensuring that consumers do not lose the protection granted by mandatory provisions of the law that would apply in the absence of such a choice. Despite its significance, the interpretation of this provision varies across Member States, leading to questions about its practical coherence and effectiveness. Read more

Call for Papers: Contributions on Regulatory Initiatives on Ecodesign and Sustainable Products to the Journal of Law, Market & Innovation (JMLI)

We are happy to share the following call for papers by the Journal of Law, Market & Innovation (JMLI):

The JLMI invites contributions on the subject of “Regulatory Initiatives on Ecodesign and Sustainable Products”, to explore the legal frameworks, challenges, and opportunities related to ecodesign, with the goal of fostering an in-depth understanding of how it can influence economic growth and how it will be integrated in the current legal framework. This Special Section invites scholarly contributions examining the role of emerging sustainability initiatives, introducing new sustainability requirements and responsibilities, particularly in the EU regulatory framework. Read more

Out Now: Mazza, ‘Il foro dell’obbligazione nata in internet’

An impressive Italian monograph of more than 400 pages on jurisdiction in internet cases (‘Il foro dell’obbligazione nata in internet’) has just been published.

The author has kindly provided the following summary:

The book addresses the topic of civil jurisdiction over disputes arising on the Internet, observing it from different perspectives. In the first chapter the Author delves into the United States case law on the so-called “Internet torts”, reaching the conclusion that solutions based on the targeting test could be usefully employed to draft an international convention with the aim of establishing rules in the current confusing scenario. In the second and third chapters the doctrine of forum non conveniens and the phenomenon of libel tourism are explored in-depth. The fourth chapter examines the main decisions issued by the CJEU concerning jurisdiction over contractual and extracontractual liability (including cases such as eDate, Bolagsupplysningen, Pammer, etc.), while the fifth chapter is focused solely on Italian procedural rules and case law. In the last two chapters, starting from the assumed need to ensure the effectiveness of judicial remedies, the problems of the extraterritorial scope of online content removal orders as well as important EU Regulations (mostly the Digital Services Act and the GDPR) are examined, with finally a part on the “Schrems saga” and the EU-US agreements on the transfer of personal data (including the EU-US Data Privacy Framework).