Weber on Universal Jurisdiction in Brussels I Reform

by Gilles Cuniberti on April 15, 2011
Johannes Weber (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and PIL) has posted Universal Jurisdiction and Third States in the Reform of the Brussels I Regulation on SSRN. The abstract reads:
In December 2010, the European Commission published a Proposal for a reform of the Brussels I Regulation on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. One of the cornerstones of the Proposal is the operation of the Regulation in the international legal order, a subject which has proven to be one of the most intricate issues in European international civil procedure. The following paper will give a first assessment of the Commission Proposal as regards third State scenarios. After a brief discussion of the Union’s competence and the Union’s interest to legislate in this field, it will turn to the extension of special heads of jurisdiction to third State defendants, the decline of jurisdiction in favour of third States and the proposal for new subsidiary grounds of jurisdiction, before briefly concluding on recognition and enforcement of third State judgments.
The paper is forthcoming in the Rabels Zeitschrift für Ausländisches und Internationales Privatrecht.
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Illmer on Arbitration and Brussels I Revisited

by Gilles Cuniberti on April 15, 2011
Martin Illmer (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and PIL) has posted Brussels I and Arbitration Revisited – The European Commission’s Proposal COM(2010) 748 final on SSRN. The abstract reads:
In December 2010, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal for a reformed Brussels I Regulation. One of the cornerstones of the proposal is the interface between the Regulation and arbitration. In the first part, the article sets out the development of the exclusion of arbitration from the Regulation’s scope up to the West Tankers and National Navigation cases. In the second, main part, the author, who is a member of the Commission’s Expert Group on the arbitration interface, provides a detailed account and evaluation of the new lis pendens-mechanism established by the Commission proposal in order to effectively prevent parallel proceedings in the arbitration context. In the third, final part, the author scrutinizes the Commission proposal against the background of the Commission’s Impact Assessment before concluding with a short resumé.
The paper is forthcoming in the Rabels Zeitschrift für Ausländisches und Internationales Privatrecht.
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Kessedjian on the Brussels I Review

by Gilles Cuniberti on April 14, 2011
Catherine Kessedjian (Paris II University) will publish a comment (in French) on the Brussels I review proposal in the next issue of the Revue trimestrielle de droit européen.
It is already available here.

UK Government Opts In to the Revision of the Brussels I Regulation

by Martin George on April 8, 2011
The UK has written to the Hungarian Presidency and European Commission, confirming its intention to opt in to the revised Brussels I Regulation (see our focus group on the Green Paper and Report) and participate in the negotiations. The relevant Ministerial Statements were made in the Houses of Commons and Lords on 5th April 2011. You can also read the general debate that was had in the House of Commons by the European Committee. Unsurprising news, perhaps, but news all the same.
[Many thanks to Jean McMahon at the Ministry of Justice.]