Brexit Bites: UK Choice of Court after the Transition Period

This presentation will outline the fate of choice of court agreements in favour of the UK civil and commercial courts after the Brexit transition period, which ends on 31 December 2020. It will entertain whether the courts of the EU Member States will continue to defer to the UK courts as of 1 January 2021, as they had been doing under the Brussels Ia Regulation, and whether UK judgments will continue to be enforced in the EU. Besides its apparent technical import, this topic touches upon the attractiveness of the UK forum and the English forum in particular. Studies (such as this one conducted by BIICL) demonstrated that the English courts are a popular forum for international litigation. Part of the attractiveness is the enforceability of English judgments, which is ensured in the EU by the Brussels Ia Regulation. The English forum’s leading position in transnational litigation will be contingent, at least in part, on the continued respect for English choice of court agreements and the enforceability of English judgments in the EU after the transition period.