Last month, international law firm Brown Rudnick announced the launch of an initiative to create standardised documentation for the litigation funding market. Teaming up with numerous funders, insurers, brokers and other associated professionals, it made reference to the standardisation of documentation in the syndicated loan market, driven by the Loan Market Association (LMA), as an example of how this initiative could evolve.
Under CPR 17.4(2), the court may allow an amendment to add or substitute an otherwise time-barred new claim but only if the new claim arises out of the same or substantially the same facts as an existing claim in proceedings.
In Libyan Investment Authority and others v King and others, the Court of Appeal held that facts in a statement of case which has been struck out are not facts which “are already in issue” for the purposes of allowing an amendment to an add an otherwise out of time claim under CPR 17.4(2) and section 35 of the Limitation Act 1980.
With the transition period following the UK’s exit from the EU having ended on 31 December, and no information on whether, and if so when, the UK might join the Lugano Convention 2007, attention has turned squarely to the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements 2005.
Where this Convention applies (that is, where there is an exclusive jurisdiction clause in favour of the courts of a contracting state), the position regarding jurisdiction and enforcement between the UK and the EU is similar (although not identical) to the position under the Recast Brussels Regulation (1215/2012) (RBR). A court must accept jurisdiction where it is the chosen court (and more importantly decline jurisdiction when it is not) and it must enforce judgments from other Convention countries, with limited defences to enforcement available.