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Implied Jurisdiction Agreements in International Commercial Contracts
Authors: Abubakri Yekini (Lecturer in Conflict of Laws at the University of Manchester) and Chukwuma Okoli (Assistant Professor in Commercial Conflict of Laws at the University of Birmingham, Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg).
A Introduction
In an increasingly globalised economy, commercial transactions often involve business entities from different countries. These cross-border transactions present complex legal questions, such as the place where potential disputes will be adjudicated. To provide certainty, commercial parties often conclude ex ante agreements on the venue for dispute resolution by selecting the court(s) of a particular state. However, what happens if no such express agreement over venue is reached for resolving a contractual dispute? Could consent to the venue be implicitly inferred from the parties’ conduct or other factors?
A note on “The BBC Nile” in the High Court of Australia – foreign arbitration agreement and choice of law clause and Article 3(8) of the Amended Hague Rules in Australia
By Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit
Lecturer in Maritime Law, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania
Introduction
On 14th February 2024, the High Court of Australia handed down its judgment in Carmichael Rail Network Pty Ltd v BBC Chartering Carriers GmbH & Co KG [2024] HCA 4. The case has ramifications on whether a foreign arbitration clause (in this case, the London arbitration clause) would be null and void under the scheme of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1991 (Cth) which makes effective an amended version of the International Convention on the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading, Brussels, 25 August 1924 (the “Hague Rules”). The argument focused on the potential effect of Article 3(8) of the Amended Hague Rules, which, like the original version, provides:
French Supreme Court ruling in the Lafarge case: the private international law side of transnational criminal litigations
In the Lafarge case (Cass. Crim., 16 janvier 2024, n°22-83.681, available here), the French Cour de cassation (chambre criminelle) recently rendered a ruling on some criminal charges against the French major cement manufacturer for its activities in Syria during the civil war. The decision addresses several key aspects of private international law in transnational criminal lawsuits and labour law.
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English and EU Perspectives on Hague 2019: Hybrid Seminar at UCL Laws
Ugljesa Grusic (UCL) has kindly shared the following invitation with us.
On 24 March 2025, at 6pm UK time, Marta Pertegás (Maastricht University; University of Antwerp; a fulltime member of the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law between 2008 and 2017) and Alex Mills (UCL; a Specialist Editor of Dicey, Morris and Collins on the Conflict of Laws, with particular responsibility for, inter alia, the rules on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments) will give a seminar on The 2019 Hague Judgments Convention – English and EU Perspectives at the Faculty of Laws, University College London. The event will be delivered in a hybrid format and the readers of the blog are welcome to join either in person or on line.
The seminar is part of the International Law Association (British Branch) Lecture Series and will be chaired by Ugljesa Grusic.
On 1 July 2025, the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters will enter into force in England and Wales. This historic regime establishes a general treaty basis for the recognition and enforcement of civil judgments between Convention States, supplementing the existing national rules and the Hague Choice of Court Convention 2005. Perhaps most significantly, it will provide common rules for the recognition and enforcement of judgments from England and Wales in EU Member States, and conversely, for EU Member State judgments to be recognised and enforced in England and Wales, to some extent filling a ‘gap’ created by Brexit.
This seminar will address the significance of this development from both an English and EU perspective, examining the main features of the 2019 Convention and considering the opportunities and challenges it presents.
To register, please follow this link.
U.S. District Court’s Order in the Venezuelan Deportees Case Was Not Extraterritorial
The following post was kindly provided by Hannah Buxbaum, Vice President for International Affairs, Professor of Law and John E. Schiller Chair, Indiana University, and is cross-posted on tlblog.org
As was widely reported yesterday, the Trump administration permitted two planes carrying Venezuelan deportees to continue on their way to El Salvador after receiving a judicial order to turn the flights back to the United States. A story in Axios quotes an administration official who explains that they were not in fact “actively defying” the judge—the order just came too late, since the planes were already out of U.S. airspace. This seems to be an extraterritoriality argument, suggesting that the judge lacks authority to order an action to take place outside U.S. borders.
The administration has this completely wrong. The judge is ordering the administration to take action inside the United States—that is, to instruct the planes to turn around. That instruction will in turn cause something to happen elsewhere (the pilots will change course), but that doesn’t make the order impermissibly extraterritorial. This is exactly the same the basis on which courts in garden-variety civil disputes order parties subject to their jurisdiction to procure evidence or turn over assets that are located abroad. Moreover, since the planes were reportedly over international waters at the time the order was entered, compliance would not have required any actions by a foreign actor or within the territory of another state—in other words, it wouldn’t have created a conflict of laws.
Now that the deportees are already in El Salvador, that picture is more complicated, since local authorities there might refuse to take action. Even the existence of such a conflict, though, doesn’t mean that Judge Boasberg’s order exceeds his authority. It remains to be seen whether any of the other justifications the White House offered up for ignoring that order are any more compelling, but the argument that it didn’t apply once the planes had left the United States is certainly not.
For further leading expert input on extraterritoriality see one of our previous posts here.
Reminder: 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 kindly shared the following reminder of his Call for Participants with us.
The project concerns the interpretation of Article 6 (2) Rome I Regulation in the EU Member States and is very limited in nature. Time commitments are therefore very limited. Click here for more information.
We are still looking for scholars from Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Malta, Romania, and Slovenia. Danish scholars may also participate on the basis of Article 5(2) Rome Convention. Read more