Tag Archive for: common law

Implied Jurisdiction Agreements in International Commercial Contracts

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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?

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Not So Fast: Canadian Courts Cannot Sit Everywhere

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In an earlier post I discussed three first-instance decisions of Canadian courts, one from each of Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec, holding that the court could, at its discretion, sit outside the province.

Two of those decisions were appealed and one appeal has now been decided.  In Endean v British Columbia, 2014 BCCA 61 (available here) the Court of Appeal has reversed the lower court’s decision in British Columbia and called into question the other two lower court decisions.

The court held (at para 82) that “British Columbia judges cannot conduct hearings that take place outside the province. Such a major law reform is for the legislature to determine.”  The court did note that “There is, however, no objection to a judge who is not personally present in the province conducting a hearing that takes place in a British Columbia courtroom by telephone, video conference or other communication medium”.

The reasoning of the Court of Appeal echoes that in a comment written about the three first-instance decisions by Vaughan Black and Stephen G.A. Pitel entitled “Out of Bounds: Can a Court Sit Outside its Home Jurisdiction?” (currently available only through access to (2013) 41 Advocates’ Quarterly 503).