Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
CIVIL JURISDICTION AND JUDGMENTS—RECENT DECISIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT
P.A. Stone1
1. Introduction
The EEC Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom to the 1968 Convention, entered into force for the United Kingdom on 1 January 1987.2 The 1968 Convention in its original form had been in force between the original six EEC Member States since 1 February 1973, and the 1978 Convention had come into force for these states, together with Denmark, on 1 November 1986. But the 1968 Convention does not yet extend to Ireland (since it has not yet ratified the 1978 Convention), nor to Greece (since there have not yet been sufficient ratifications of the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of Greece to the 1968 Convention),3 nor to Spain and Portugal (for whom a further Accession Convention is under negotiation).4 So at present for the purpose of the 1968 Convention the relevant Contracting States are France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
Before the entry into force of the 1978 Convention, over 40 preliminary rulings on the interpretation of the 1968 Convention had been given by the European Court as a result of references by courts of the original Member States under the
1. Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Exeter. This article seeks to update the commentary on the EEC Conventions on civil jurisdiction and judgments contained in D. Lasok and P. A. Stone, Conflict of Laws in the European Community (1987) (hereafter “Lasok and Stone”), Chaps. 5–7.
2. See S.I. 1986 No. 2044, which brought the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 fully into operation. For the texts of the 1968 Convention, the Protocol of 3 June 1971 on its Interpretation (which is similarly extended and amended by the 1978 Convention) and the 1978 Convention, see [1978] O.J.E.C. L304 or Scheds. 1–3 of the 1982 Act.
Also brought into force on 1 January 1987 was the Convention of 24 April 1984 between the United Kingdom and Canada providing for the Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters; see Cmnd. 9337 (1984) and S.I. 1986 No. 2027. The Anglo-Canadian Convention, as well as providing for the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of judgments between the United Kingdom and Canada, operates in conjunction with Art. 59 of the 1968 Convention to prevent the recognition and enforcement in the United Kingdom of judgments given in other Contracting States to the 1968 Convention against defendants domiciled or habitually resident in Canada if jurisdiction was assumed on an “excessive” ground. There is also a Convention of a similar nature between Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland, signed on 11 October 1977.
3. For texts, see [1982] O.J.E.C. L388 and [1983] O.J.E.C. C97.
4. See Art. 3(2) of the Act of Spanish and Portuguese Accession to the Communities. In addition, a parallel Convention, designed to extend the 1968 Convention to the EFTA States, is currently under negotiation between the EEC and EFTA countries. See Parallel Convention to the Judgments Convention: Consultative Paper (1988), Lord Chancellor’s Dept.
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