In recent years, the Netherlands and Germany have added themselves to the ever-growing number of countries opting for the creation of an international commercial court. The Netherlands Commercial Court (NCC) and the German Chambers for International Commercial Disputes (Kammern für internationale Handelssachen, KfiH) will conduct proceedings entirely in English and follow their own, diverging rules of civil procedure. Aspiring to become the future venues of choice in international commercial disputes, the NCC law and the legislative proposal for the establishment of the KfiH allow parties to agree on their jurisdiction and entail detailed provisions regulating such agreements. In particular, the NCC requires the parties’ express and in writing agreement to litigate before it. In a similar vein, the KfiH legislative proposal requires in some instances an express and in writing agreement. Although such strict formal requirements are justified by the need to safeguard the procedural rights of weaker parties such as small enterprises and protect them from the peculiarities of the NCC and the KfiH, this article questions their compliance with the requirements upon choice of court agreements under Article 25 (1) Brussels Ibis Regulation. By qualifying agreements in favour of the NCC and the KfiH first as functional jurisdiction agreements and then as procedural or court language agreements this article concludes that the formal requirements set by the NCC law and the KfiH proposal undermine the effectiveness of the Brussels Ibis Regulation, complicate the establishment of these courts’ jurisdiction and may thus threaten their attractiveness as future litigation destinations.

The prospect of attracting foreign commercial litigants to German courts in the wake of Brexit has led to a renaissance of English-language commercial litigation in Germany. Leading the way is the Frankfurt District Court, where – as part of the ‘Justizinitiative Frankfurt’ – a new specialised Chamber for International Commercial Disputes has been established. Frankfurt’s prominent position in the financial sector and its internationally oriented bar support this decision. Borrowing best practices from patent litigation and arbitration, the Chamber offers streamlined and litigant-focused proceedings, with English-language oral hearings, within the current legal framework of the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO).¹xZivilprozessordnung (ZPO).
However, to enable the complete litigation process – including the judgment – to proceed in English requires changes to the German Courts Constitution Act²xGerichtsverfassungsgesetz (GVG). (GVG). A legislative initiative in the Bundesrat aims to establish a suitable legal framework by abolishing the mandatory use of German as the language of proceedings. Whereas previous attempts at such comprehensive amendments achieved only limited success, support by several major federal states indicates that this time the proposal will succeed.
With other English-language commercial court initiatives already established or planned in both other EU Member States and Germany, it is difficult to anticipate whether – and how soon – Frankfurt will succeed in attracting English-speaking foreign litigants. Finally, developments such as the 2018 Initiative for Expedited B2B Procedures of the European Parliament or the ELI–UNIDROIT project on Transnational Principles of Civil Procedure may also shape the long-term playing field.

Noten

• 1 Zivilprozessordnung (ZPO).

• 2 Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz (GVG).

France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands have taken concrete steps to design and develop international commercial courts. Most of the projects claim to be building courts that match the preferences of court users. They also try to challenge England and Wales, which evidence suggests is the most attractive jurisdiction in the EU. For the success of these projects, it is important that their proposed courts corresponds with the expectations of the parties, but also manages to attract some of the litigants that go to London. This article argues that lawyers are the most important group of choice makers, and that their preferences are not sufficiently matched by the new courts. Lawyers have certain litigation service and court perception preferences. And while the new courts improve their litigation service, they do not sufficiently addressed these court perception preferences.

The Rome I Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations contains several provisions aimed explicitly at the protection of ‘weaker’ contracting parties, such as consumers and employees. However, in addition to this, the interests of weaker parties are sometimes also safeguarded through the application of ‘overriding mandatory provisions’, which are superimposed on the law applicable to the contract to protect a fundamental interest of a Member State. This article is an attempt to clarify the extent to which the concept of overriding mandatory provisions may serve as a vehicle for weaker party protection. To do this, it examines the definition and limitations of the concept and its relation to conflict of laws rules based on the protective principle. Finally, the article seeks to establish whether the doctrine of overriding mandatory provisions remains relevant in the case of harmonisation of substantive law at the EU level, for which it will differentiate between full and minimum harmonisation.