The English courts have been stripped of their discretion to allow disputes involving European defendants to be heard in jurisdictions outside the European Union, following a judgment in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last week.


The judgment in Owusu v Jackson and others will see an end to the flexible approach adopted by the English courts where they have allowed a case to be heard in whichever jurisdiction is more appropriate.



Instead, the ECJ ruled that article 2 of the Brussels Convention - which precludes a court of a member state from declining jurisdiction in favour of a court outside the EU - cannot be overruled.


Patrick Sherrington, head of the dispute resolution practice at City firm Lovells, who acted for five of the parties involved, said: 'This case will have a very significant impact. There are many who would say the English courts had developed an effective, flexible and practical system to ensure cases are heard in the most appropriate forum. It was controlled forum shopping.'


He added: 'The ECJ is hostile to discretionary powers by national courts because it regards the EU rules as designed to achieve certainty. This will lead to more cases that would have been heard elsewhere being heard in the English courts.'