Pulling rank

I hesitated before alluding to the ‘Brexit dividend’ at the outset of this column. Please hold your fire, dear reader, while I find my tin helmet…

In the sphere of commercial law, though, the term is apposite. In recent years City firms in particular have benefited from a surge in need for legal help: in restructuring, IP, employment law, rewriting contracts and so on.

In commercial litigation the situation remains uncertain, though apocalyptic predictions of London’s displacement as forum of choice have yet to be realised. Back in 2018 the then president of the Paris Commercial Court claimed London was guilty of ‘wishful thinking’ in assuming it would retain its hegemony in big-ticket disputes. Judgments by the London Commercial Court would no longer enjoy automatic enforceability in EU member states, he stressed.

A valid point, but it may have been Monsieur Le President who was guilty of wishful thinking. We hear less these days about the anglophone courts specifically established in EU countries with the aim of reaping their own ‘Brexit dividend’. At a time of acute geopolitical instability, the City’s reputation as a centre for dispute resolution remains very strong.

For now, anyway. London has no cause to be complacent.

As esteemed Gazette columnist Jonathan Goldsmith tells me, the trends relating to London as a forum of choice remain complex, with strong currents for and against. The traditional arguments in favour continue to exist, with English law seen as flexible, fair, predictable and adapted to commercial arrangements. And large UK law firms have excellent reputations which are attractive to clients.

The threats arise partly from Brexit, but mainly from the fact that competitors are growing stronger. The lord chief justice made precisely this point in a February speech, when he said we cannot take the primacy of English law ‘for granted’.

The dispute resolution centres competing strongly for international arbitration, for example, stretch beyond Europe: Dubai and Singapore, of course, but also centres in China. A recent report showed that while London remains at the top of the international arbitration rankings, it now shares first place with Singapore. And our popularity is falling. There is much to play for.