Deposit or registration in the United Kingdom

The Convention gives international jurisdiction in such proceedings to the courts of the United Kingdom. If this happens, it is a matter of internal United Kingdom law to allocate the case to the internal, national, jurisdiction of the courts of a part of the United Kingdom. The answer is found in the Patents Act 1977, Trade Marks Act 1994, Registered Designs Act 1949' and Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Enforcement of judgments from Lugano States: Article 22(5)

Article 22 of the Convention goes on to provide:

The following courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction, regardless of domicile:

(5) in proceedings concerned with the enforcement of judgments, the courts of the State bound by this Convention in which the judgment has been or is to be enforced.

And in relation to this, Article 32 provides that:

For the purposes of this Convention, judgment' means any judgment given by a court or tribunal of a State bound by this Convention, whatever the judgment may be called, including a decree, order, decision or writ of execution, as well as the determination of costs or expenses by an officer of the court.

General

The manner and form of, and disputes which arise incidentally in the context of, the enforcement and execution of judgments from Lugano States are so closely connected to the State in which enforcement is being sought that they fall within the exclusive jurisdiction provisions.^[1] The Convention defines ‘judgment’ as a judgment from a court or tribunal of a Lugano State. According to Jenard, the corresponding rule in the Brussels Convention was intended to cover disputes as to methods of execution in the course of enforcement: practical enforcement, rather than the theoretical right to enforce. The European Court followed this expression of opinion in Reichert v Dresdner Bank (No2),^w in ruling that the Article had no application to (and therefore furnish no jurisdictional objection to) proceedings brought to obtain relief prior to the obtaining of judgment, even though the purpose of making the application was to pave the way to a more effective enforcement of a judgment in the fullness of time. The Article is therefore, and entirely in accordance with principle, of relatively narrow scope.

The provision applies to the enforcement of judgments regardless of the domicile of the person against whom they are to be enforced. Although the Court of Appeal questioned whether that was correct, there is no reason to doubt that the language of the Article means what it says. It does not matter where the judgment debtor is domiciled; Article 22(5) applies to the enforcement in England of judgments from Lugano States, including English judgments. It applies to application to commit for contempt; and it follows that service out of the jurisdiction, if any is needed, does not require permission.

The most problematic part of the rule is that it supposes that judgments are easily seen as being enforced in one or another State. It is not clear that matters are quite so straightforward. It is not unusual for orders to be made in relation to or aid of enforcement, whose effect is to be felt overseas, but whose purpose is to assist the enforcement of a judgment which might or might not take place in England. The short point is that judgments are enforced, or are enforced by processes; it is not always possible to say that they are enforced in a particular place. The point is developed in relation to the orders which can be made to assist the enforcement of judgments; the position is subtler and more complex than Article 22(5) might suggest.

• [1] See 220/84 A-S Autoteile Service GmbH v Malhe [1985] ECR 2267; C-129/92 Owens Bank Ltd v Bracco [1994] ECR 1-117. 2 [1979] OJC59/1,36. 3 C-261/90, [1992] ECR 1-2149. To the same effect, C-722/17 Reitbauer v CasamassimaEV:C:20l9:517, [2019] ILPr 880; C-186/19 Supreme Site Services GmbH v SHAPE EU:C:2020:638. 4 Choudhary v Bhatter [2009] EWCA Civ 1176, [2010] 2 All ER 1031. Various criticism of the decision was described as ‘compelling’ in Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Co v Al Refai [2014] EWCA Civ 715, [2015] 1 WLR 135; in Deutsche Bank AG v Vik [2017] EWHC 459 (Comm), [2017] 1 WLR 3056 the judge proceeded as if Choudhary was not good law, as well he might. But Choudhary was considered to be binding on the High Court in Integral Petroleum SA v Petrogat FZE [2018] EWHC 2686 (Comm), [2019] 1 WLR 574, which is wholly unsatisfactory. 5 Integral Petroleum SA v Petrogat FZE [2018] EWHC 2686 (Comm), [2019] 1 WLR 574. 6 Deutsche Bank AG v Vik [2017] EWHC 459 (Comm), [2017] 1 WLR 3056. 7 See C-186/19 Supreme Site Services GmbH v SHAPE EV:C:2020:C>28 (suggesting that the making of garnishee orders is not the enforcement of a judgment in the sense of Article 22(5)).