Amendment 121 and choice of court agreements

On Tuesday 25 September 2012 the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs issued its latest amendment, Amendment 121, to the European Commission’s proposal for a recast of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (hereafter the Brussels I Regulation).

The main aim of the proposal and amendment is to facilitate the free movement of judgments; one way it aims to do this is by abolishing the exequatur procedure. Given the importance of jurisdictional clauses in shipping and trade contracts, this article will focus on the European Parliament’s amendment in relation to article 23 (choice of court agreements) and its relationship with the lis pendens provision dealing with concurrent proceedings involving the same cause of action and between the same parties.