London as a Venue for International Business Dispute Resolution and the Impact of Brexit 2200-1I112-ERA

The course provides an overview of those features of English law, procedure, and context that
have served to maintain London’s status as one of the preeminent venues for international
business dispute resolution. These matters will be examined not only from the perspective of
factors likely to influence litigation, debt restructuring, and arbitration choices made by
corporate managers and their legal advisers, but also with a view to the role that the English
courts have played in claims seeking to hold corporations accountable for harm caused by
their subsidiaries abroad. A recurring theme will be consideration of the extent to which
problems and opportunities for the continued role of the English courts in international
business dispute resolution have arisen from the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union
(‘Brexit’). The course is delivered in English and is open to both Polish and foreign students.
This course will focus on the following issues:
1. Factors leading international businesses to choose dispute resolution in England: the
High Court as an ‘international commercial court’.
2. Perspectives on ‘forum shopping’ versus ‘party autonomy’: is the phenomena of
competition among international commercial courts desirable?
3. Issues arising out of choice-of-court agreements and choice-of-law agreements in
favour of the English courts and English law.
4. The implications for the competitiveness of the English courts arising from the
increased complexity of enforcing English judgments in the EU after Brexit.
5. Reducing obstacles in relations with EU national courts through UK participation in
global instruments regulating jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments.
6. The post-Brexit relevance of the special regime for recognition and enforcement of
arbitral awards: the New York Convention of 1958
7. The ‘anti-suit injunction’: enforcement of jurisdiction and arbitration clauses in the
English courts after the UK’s exit from the EU
8. Corporate debt: an overview of forms of security interests and collateral under
English law
9. International use of UK insolvency procedures, schemes of arrangement, and
restructuring plans
10. The post-Brexit prospects for the UK as a favoured jurisdiction for cross-border
corporate workouts: the relevance of English law governed debt.

11. Reliance on the duty of care concept in the tort of negligence to impose intra-group
responsibility on desired target companies before the English courts.
12. The conditions for establishing the jurisdiction of the English courts in cases
concerning corporate groups and the doctrine of forum non conveniens.
13. Forum non conveniens: an examination of its strengths, drawbacks, and the
desirability of reform.