H.E. Mr Maris Klišans, Ambassador of the Republic of Latvia, signed and deposited the instrument of approval of the 2005 Choice of Court Convention on behalf of the European Union, as the Republic of Latvia currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. The approval of the 2005 Choice of Court Convention by the European Union will trigger the Convention’s entry into force on Thursday 1 October 2015. Twenty-eight States (all EU Member States except Denmark — as well as Mexico, which was the first State to accede to the Convention on 26 September 2007) will then be bound by the Convention.
This is the third out of four instruments of the Hague Conference (after the 2007 Hague Convention and Protocol on Maintenance) to which the European Union becomes a party as a Regional Economic Integration Organisation. In addition, the Apostille, Child Abduction, and Intercountry Adoption Conventions are also in force in all EU Member States.
The Convention promotes trade by clarifying the rules governing international trade disputes, where the parties involved have chosen a competent court. In detail, the Convention provides clarity on: jurisdiction rules, which court is competent and on the recognition and enforcement of judgments given by courts in the countries which apply the Convention. In practice, this will ensure that EU companies have more legal certainty when doing business with firms outside the EU: they will be able to trust that their choice of court to deal with a dispute will be respected by the courts of the countries that have ratified the Convention, and that the judgment given by the chosen court will be recognised and enforced in the countries which apply it.
The Hague Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements is aimed at ensuring the effectiveness of choice of court agreements (also known as “forum selection clauses“) between parties to international commercial transactions. By doing so, the Convention provides greater certainty to businesses engaging in cross-border activities and therefore creates a legal environment more amenable to international trade and investment.
The Choice of Courts Convention was drawn up by a group of countries and trading blocks such as the EU, the US, Canada, Japan, China, Russia, all of them members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law that develops multilateral legal instruments. The Convention therefore has the potential to become a worldwide legal basis for the recognition and enforcement of judgments resulting from a choice of court agreement between the EU and these countries. It was signed by the EU in 2009.
The reform of the so-called Brussels I Regulation paved the way for the ratification of the Choice of Courts Convention. This regulation determines which national court has jurisdiction in cross-border cases involving EU firms and how court judgments issued in one EU country are recognised and enforced in another. The reform of these EU-internal rules will ensure coherence with the Convention.