Category: European Union

Post-Brexit UK Accession to Lugano Convention: The EU Commission’s Assessment

There has been a fair amount of speculation about the EU’s position regarding the application of the United Kingdom to accede to the 2007 Lugano, and we have tracked the topic fairly closely on the blog, including the latest press reports that the EU Commission might have changed its approach. Read More

Brexit and Lugano: First Anniversary of the UK’s Application

On 8 April 2020, the United Kingdom deposited an application to accede to the Lugano Convention, with the Swiss Federal Council, the depositary under the Convention. Acceding to the Lugano Convention as a replacement for the Brussels Regulation (recast) had emerged as the UK’s preferred strategy for judicial co-operation in civil and commercial matters (even though the European Court of Justice does have a role in the Lugano regime under Protocol 2 on the uniform interpretation of the Convention and on the Standing Committee). Read More

Federal Supreme Court: First Post-Brexit Decision on Procedural Issue

To the best of my knowledge, the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) decision of 1 March 2021 is the first one dealing with one of the procedural issues arising after Brexit, namely the question of security for costs to be posted by British plaintiffs in German proceedings pursuant to Section 110 German Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung, ZPO). In this case, proceedings were already pending before the United Kingdom’s effective withdrawal from the European Union. Implicitly, the Federal Supreme Court also addresses the question whether “old” multilateral treaties such as the 1968 Brussels Convention or bilateral treaties such as the 1960 British-German Convention were revived after Brexit. Read More

Intra-EU Investment Arbitration: Frankfurt Court of Appeals Finds BIT-Based Arbitration Inadmissible

An Austrian and a Croatian bank commenced arbitral proceedings against the Republic of Croatia seeking damages on the basis of the 1999 Agreement between the Republic of Austria and the Republic of Croatia for the Promotion and Protection on Investments (BIT); the arbitral tribunal was to be seated in Frankfurt am Main. Croatia applied to the Frankfurt Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) to find that the arbitral proceedings were inadmissible (Sec. 1032 para. 2 German Code of Civil Procedure, ZPO). Croatia relied on the 2018 Achmea decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – the well-known case which also originated in the Frankfurt Court of Appeals and came to the ECJ via a reference from the German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof). Read More