I am grateful to Professor Hess for his comments on my 3 March 2010 blog. It greatly contributes to advancing the debate. However, it also perfectly illustrates the difficulties of a proposition – the total or partial deletion of the arbitration exception in Regulation 44/2001 – that has not been sufficiently thought through.
1. Professor Hess [...] read more »

Professor Hess is the author of the chapter of the Heidelberg Report on the interplay between arbitration and the Regulation 44/2001 (“the Regulation”). As such, and quite understandably, he actively promotes the suggestion that the arbitration exception should be deleted from the Regulation.
The Heidelberg proposal has been followed by a Green Paper of the European [...] read more »

My colleague Trey Childress has a nice summary of the recent decision by a federal court in Florida in Osorio v. Dole Food Company to refuse to enforce a $97 million Nicaraguan judgment. Here’s the key excerpt of the decision:
“the evidence before the Court is that the judgment in this case did not arise [...] read more »

In the recent decision in Youell v La Reunion Aerienne [2009] EWCA Civ 175 the English Court of Appeal applied the ECJ decision in West Tankers and upheld a Commercial Court decision holding that the mere fact that a contract contains an arbitration clause does not deprive the court of jurisdiction under the Brussels Regulation. [...] read more »

The relationship between Arbitration and European Judicial Private Law has not always been easy. The bedrock European Law principle in this field, as embedded in the European Council Regulation (EC) No. 44/2001 of December 22, 2000 on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (“the Judgment Regulation”), is the [...] read more »