Cross-Border Disputes With UK Parties

Jurisdiction after Brexit

Since the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020, the EU’s Brussels I Recast Regulation and the Lugano Convention no longer govern jurisdiction and judgments between the United Kingdom and EU or EFTA States. Jurisdiction over foreign defendants in the courts of England and Wales turns on the Civil Procedure Rules — including the gateways for serving a claim out of the jurisdiction — and on the parties’ jurisdiction agreements. Exclusive agreements are given effect between Contracting States by the HCCH 2005 Choice of Court Agreements Convention, to which the United Kingdom has been a party in its own right since 1 January 2021.

The Hague Judgments Convention

The HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention entered into force for the United Kingdom on 1 July 2025. It opens a treaty route for recognising judgments between the UK and the Convention’s other Contracting Parties — the European Union (except Denmark), Ukraine and Uruguay among them — where the proceedings were instituted after it took effect between the two States concerned.

Registration and the common law

Judgments from many Commonwealth countries can be registered under the Administration of Justice Act 1920, within twelve months of the judgment unless the court allows longer, and judgments from the countries designated under the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 within six years. Other foreign money judgments are enforced at common law by a claim on the judgment as a debt: the judgment must be final and conclusive and for a definite sum, and the foreign court must have had jurisdiction under English rules — in practice, the defendant’s presence in the foreign country when proceedings began or its submission to the foreign court. The defences are narrow — fraud, breach of natural justice and public policy — and judgments for multiple damages cannot be enforced, under the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980.

Interim relief and disclosure

The courts of England and Wales grant worldwide freezing orders, and can grant interim relief in support of proceedings in other countries (section 25 of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982) and of arbitrations seated elsewhere (section 44 of the Arbitration Act 1996). Norwich Pharmacal orders compel third parties mixed up in wrongdoing to disclose information; after judgment, a debtor — or a company’s officers — can be ordered to attend court and give information about its assets (CPR Part 71).

The London seat and the Arbitration Act 2025

For arbitrations commenced on or after 1 August 2025, the Arbitration Act 2025 provides that the arbitration agreement is governed by the law of the seat unless the parties expressly agree otherwise, codifies arbitrators’ duty of disclosure, gives tribunals power to make awards on a summary basis and clarifies the courts’ support for emergency arbitrators. Awards can be challenged for lack of substantive jurisdiction (section 67) or serious irregularity (section 68), and appealed on a point of English law (section 69) unless the parties have excluded appeals — as the LCIA and ICC rules do. See LCIA arbitration.

Enforcing awards

The United Kingdom has applied the New York Convention since 1975, with the reciprocity reservation. Convention awards are enforced in England and Wales under sections 100 to 104 of the Arbitration Act 1996 — see award enforcement.