Jurisdiction Clause in UK Law

The rule is that the court must be satisfied, or as satisfied as it can be having regard to the limitations which an interlocutory process imposes, that factors exist which allow the court to take jurisdiction. In practice, what amounts to a "good arguable case" depends on what requires to be shown in any particular situation in order to establish jurisdiction.

If contracting parties agree to give a particular court exclusive jurisdiction to rule on claims between those parties, and a claim falling within the scope of the agreement is made in proceedings in a forum other than that which the parties have agreed, the English court will ordinarily exercise its discretion (whether by granting a stay of proceedings in England, or by restraining the prosecution of proceedings in the non-contractual forum abroad, or by such other procedural order as is appropriate in the circumstances) to secure compliance with the contractual bargain, unless the party suing in the non-contractual forum (the burden being on him) can show strong reasons for suing in that forum.

Whether a jurisdiction clause applies to a dispute is a question of construction. Where the parties have entered into a complex transaction it is the jurisdiction clauses in the agreements which are at the commercial centre of the transaction which the parties must have intended to apply to such claims as aremade in the New York complaint and reflected in the draft particulars of claim in England.

The next proposition is that a jurisdiction clause, like an arbitration clause, is a separable agreement from the agreement as a whole. It is only if the jurisdiction clause is itself under some specific attack that a question can arise whether it is right to invoke the jurisdiction clause. Examples of this might be fraud or duress alleged in relation specifically to the jurisdiction clause.

In my opinion the construction of an arbitration clause should start from the assumption that the parties, as rational businessmen, are likely to have intended any dispute arising out of the relationship into which they have entered or purported to enter to be decided by the same tribunal. The clause should be construed in accordance with this presumption unless the language makes it clear that certain questions were intended to be excluded from the arbitrator's jurisdiction.

In my judgment, where an injunction is sought to restrain a party from proceeding in a foreign court in breach of an arbitration agreement governed by English law, the English Court need feel no diffidence in granting the injunction, provided that it is sought promptly and before the foreign proceedings are too far advanced.

Under English law, a person has no right not to be sued in a particular forum, domestic or foreign, unless there is some specific factor which gives him that right. The applicant does not have to show that the contractual forum is more appropriate than any other; the parties' contractual agreement does that for him.