Litigation With a Foreign Aspect: A Practical Guide

This is a practical guide to the problems which arise when litigation has a foreign element, for example:
i?? The defendant is resident abroad: do the English courts have jurisdiction?
i?? Is it best to bring proceedings in England or in another country?
i?? How do you enforce a foreign judgment in England?
i?? Can you get security for costs because the defendant is resident abroad?
i?? When do the English courts apply foreign law?

This area is a minefield. It may require navigating through complex EU instruments -the Judgments Regulation, the Brussels or Lugano Conventions - and working out how they relate to each other and to the traditional common law rules. Difficult tactical points may arise, such as whether to ignore foreign proceedings on the basis that a foreign default judgment may be unenforceable in England. Practical issues may include how to serve process in any particular foreign country - can you do it by post, or through agents? Must you serve through official channels?

This book deals with these matters in a practical non-academic way, with detailed guidance to procedure. It sets out the jurisdictional rules in alphabetical order based on the type of claim - contract, insurance, land etc - and clearly explains the inter-relation of the different regimes. It addresses controversial issues such as whether the English courts can ever decline to exercise jurisdiction derived from the EU instruments. It has a focused treatment of specialist areas such as insolvency, employment and shipping. It makes extensive use of tables, flow charts and examples.

Michael James was born in 1953 and educated at Hertford Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was an open scholar. After a commercial pupillage in the Temple, he worked for a shipowners' mutual insurer in London and Hong Kong, and then practiced as a solicitor for ten years. He returned to the Bar in 1993, when he joined Enterprise Chambers, in Leeds and London. His practice covers all areas of commercial chancery litigation, with an emphasis on international disputes and commercial contracts. Recent heavyweight appearances include a four month commercial fraud trial, and a complex and high value agency dispute which occupied the Court of Appeal for three days. According to the Legal 500 he has a "winning record in commercial litigation".