Forum Non Conveniens in UK Law

Leading Cases
  • Spiliada Maritime Corporation v Cansulex Ltd
    • House of Lords
    • 19 November 1986

    (1) The basic principle is that a stay will only be granted on the ground of forum non conveniens where the court is satisfied that there is some other available forum, having competent jurisdiction, which is the appropriate forum for the trial of the action, i.e. in which the case may be tried more suitably for the interests of all the parties and the ends of justice.

    So it is for connecting factors in this sense that the court must first look; and these will include not only factors affecting convenience or expense (such as availability of witnesses), but also other factors such as the law governing the relevant transaction (as to which see Credit Chimique v. James Scott Engineering Group Ltd. 1982 S.L.T. 131), and the places where the parties respectively reside or carry on business.

    In this enquiry, the court will consider all the circumstances of the case, including circumstances which go beyond those taken into account when considering connecting factors with other jurisdictions.

  • Spiliada Maritime Corporation v Cansulex Ltd
    • House of Lords
    • 19 November 1986

    In the result, it seems to me that the solution of disputes about the relative merits of trial in England and trial abroad is pre-eminently a matter for the trial judge. Commercial court judges are very experienced in these matters. An appeal should be rare and the appellate court should be slow to interfere.

    I feel bound to say that I doubt whether the Latin tag forum non conveniens is apt to describe this principle. For the question is not one of convenience, but of the suitability or appropriateness of the relevant jurisdiction.

    Now, to take some extreme examples, suppose that the plaintiff allowed the limitation period to elapse in the appropriate jurisdiction, and came here simply because he wanted to take advantage of a more generous time bar applicable in this country; or suppose that it was obvious that the plaintiff should have commenced proceedings in the appropriate jurisdiction, and yet he did not trouble to issue a protective writ there; in cases such as these, I cannot see that the court should hesitate to stay the proceedings in this country, even though the effect would be that the plaintiff's claim would inevitably be defeated by a plea of the time bar in the appropriate jurisdiction.

  • Lucasfilm Ltd v Ainsworth
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 16 December 2009

    We do not have decide whether that was correct, though we note that, if he his right, there is this oddity: that there is a clear lis pendens rule, with associated court first seized rule, for parallel cases within the EU but none for parallel cases where one is running within an EU Member State and one without. What Barling J did not decide was that Art. 2 conferred extra-EU subject matter jurisdiction generally.

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