This is the first episode in the new series of The Fountain Court Podcast. This episode looks at the implications of a post-Brexit world for civil litigation, particularly when it comes to issues such as jurisdiction and enforcement.

Taking part in the conversation are:

  • Alexandra Whelan: A barrister who has been with Fountain Court since 2016, having previously practiced as a solicitor in Australia. Alexandra has a general commercial practice also covering financial and professional regulatory work and is currently working on a number of fraud and banking cases. She has dealt with jurisdictional issues in all areas of her practice and was recently led by Stephen Moriarty QC and Giles Robertson in a successful challenge to jurisdiction on the basis that, amongst other things, there was no serious issue to be tried because the claim was issue estopped.
  • Louise Merrett: A fellow barrister at Fountain Court who has been with Chambers since 1995 and, since 2003, has combined her practice with an academic career. She is currently a Professor of International Commercial Law at the University of Cambridge with the focus of both her academic work and her practice being conflict of laws. Louise’s recent work includes being involved in an application for an anti-suit injunction against US discovery proceedings, an alternative service application in relation to a large insurance claim against insurers in Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar and she will be appearing in the Court of Appeal in December in connection with a very large multi-party bribery claim arguing about the applicability of a Swiss jurisdiction clause.

In this episode, Alexandra and Louise discuss the ‘new law’ on jurisdiction post-Brexit, how the Hague Convention works and how this might all come together in practice. They also speak about the impact of Brexit on choice of law rules and parallel proceedings in the UK and Europe, how the enforcement of English judgments in the EU has changed and what we might expect to see in the future.

We hope you enjoy the episode.