The Brussels Regulation concerning European jurisdiction will be amended with effect from 10 January 2015. The changes made to Articles 25, 29 and 31 (2) were made " in order to enhance the effectiveness of exclusive choice-of-court agreements and to avoid abusive litigation tactics...."
The new exception to the lis pendens rule deals with a situation where a court not designated in an exclusive choice-of-court agreement has been seised of proceedings and the designated court is seised subsequently of proceedings involving the same cause of action and between the same parties. In such a case, the court first seised should be required to stay its proceedings as soon as the designated court has been seised and until such time as the latter court declares that it has no jurisdiction under the exclusive choice-of-court agreement. This is to ensure that, in such a situation, the designated court has priority to decide on the validity of the agreement and on the extent to which the agreement applies to the dispute pending before it. The designated court should be able to proceed irrespective of whether the non- designated court has already decided on the stay of proceedings.
The detail of these and other important changes can be found within the 'recast' regulation here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:351:0001:0032:En:PDF"
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