PRACTICE.

Lugano Convention - jurisdiction - domicile of principal defendant to be established as at date of issue of claim formCanada Trust Co and others v Stolzenberg and others (No 2): HL (Lord Steyn, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Cooke of Thorndon, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough): 12 October 2000

The claimants issued a claim form claiming damages against the first defendant.

At that time he was domiciled in England.

Pursuant to art.6 of the Lugano Convention on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, which had the force of law in the United Kingdom by virtue of s.3A of and Sched 3C to the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 and which provided that a person domiciled in a contracting state could be sued in the courts of a state where another defendant was domiciled, the claimants added several other defendants domiciled in Switzerland, which was a contracting state.

By the time the claim form was served on them the first defendant's whereabouts were unknown.

A number of defendants sought declarations that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the action against them on the ground that the relevant date for the purposes of art.6 was the date of service of the claim form on them and that it could not be shown that the first defendant had been domiciled in England at that date.

Rattee J dismissed the application.

The Court of Appeal, by a majority, [1998] 1 WLR 547 upheld his decision.

The defendants appealed.

Elizabeth Gloster QC and Edmund Nourse (instructed by Colman Coyle) for the defendants.

Christopher Carr QC and Philip Marshall (instructed by Llewelyn Zietman) for the claimants.

Held, dismissing the appeal, the date upon which it was necessary for a person's domicile to be established for the purposes of art.6 was the date of the initiation of the proceedings, which in English proceedings was the date when a claim form or originating summons was issued; and that accordingly, since the first defendant's domicile in England on that date had been established, the other defendants came within the High Court's jurisdiction.

(WLR)