The government has not given up on acceding to the Lugano convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments, a justice minister has said. 'We are trying to re-engage with our European counterparts,' Mike Freer MP, parliamentary under secretary of state for justice, told a Law Society event yesterday. 

Membership of the convention was formerly through the EU - which last year said it would oppose the UK’s accession in its own right. 'We have not written it off, but I think it will be a slow burn,' Freer conceded. 

Freer and Shuja

Mike Freer MP and Society president Lubna Shuja

Source: Michael Cross

Freer was speaking at a Law Society event to recognise the contribution of overseas law firms to the UK. The minister said that expanding the UK’s legal services exports was an important part of the growth strategy. He would ‘peel back’ existing trade deals to check if promises to open legal markets were becoming reality. 'We want to start to dig in to these market barriers: have they really provided access?', he said, hinting that Saudi Arabia might be one target.

He declined to comment on the reported negotiations towards an India trade deal, saying that discussions are ‘ongoing’. Playing down the importance of a US trade deal, he said that opportunities for legal services exist at a state level - for example in Texas, the world’s ninth largest economy. 

Law Society president Lubna Shuja told the event, attended by representatives of overseas firms and diplomats, that the UK was open to legal talent from around the globe. 'We would like to see this access reciprocated in jurisdictions around the world.'

 

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