CYIL vol. 11 (2020)

CYIL 11 (2020) THE WITHDRAWAL ACT OF 2018 AND THE EUROPEAN JUDICIAL AREA … now exceeded by what is established in the Regulations themselves. Some of the other possible options require negotiation with the Union whose prospects for success appear difficult to assess for the time being. The solutions that may seem more plausible are essentially two: The accession of the United Kingdom to the Lugano Convention or a specific agreement between the United Kingdom, on the one hand, and the European Union – and possibly EFTA States – on the other, modeled on the text of the Regulation Brussels I-bis. The first option, certainly simpler, is allowed by the text of the Lugano Convention 31 , which in art. 70 regulates the accession of third States specifying in art. 72 of the procedure 32 ; the second possibility, which is more favorable than the first, cannot be excluded at present, but naturally requires specific negotiation. In both cases, one of the most difficult questions to address would be that of the value of the interpretative decisions of the CJEU. In the meantime, there is no doubt that the regime outlined by the Regulations (return to national law or, where they exist, to bilateral conventions and accession to the 2005 Hague Convention) marks a marked retreat from the current situation, as reported by many parties 33 . The exit of the United Kingdom from the Brussels-Lugano regime is not, moreover, seen as a solely negative fact in the other Member States, given the advantage that they could provide for the strengthening of their position in the so-called “Litigation market” potentially liable to derive from it. Precisely for this reason, some of these states have indeed already set up, or plan to set up, courts specially dedicated to international trade issues to which economic operators could be incentivized to appeal 34 . Born to offer an alternative commercial disputes: What are the legal consequences of Brexit?’, (2016), 27 EBLR 906ss. DICKINSON, A. ‘Back to the future-The UK’s EU exit and the conflict of laws’, (35/2016) OLSRP . DOUGLAS, M., BATH, V., KEYES, M., DICKINSON, A. Commercial issues in private international law. A common law perspective , op. cit., M. AHMED, The natural and enforcement of choice of court agreements. A comparative study, (Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, 2017). SACCO, M. Brexit: A way forward , (Vernon Press, Washington, 2019) 303ss. BIONDI, A., BIRKINSHAW, P.J., KENDRICK, M. Brexit: The legal implications , (Kluwer Law international, New York, 2018). 31 STONE, P. Stone on private international law in the EU , (Edward Elgar Publishers, Cheltenham, 2018). M. AHMED, The natural and enforcement of choice of court agreements. A comparative study , op. cit. 32 AHMED, M. ‘Brexit and English jurisdiction agreements: The post-referendum legal landscape’, (2016) 27 , EBLR 990ss. HESS, B. ‘The unsuitability of the Lugano Convention (2007) to serve as a bridge between the UK and the EU after Brexit’, (2018/2) MPILPLRPS . AHMED, M. The natural and enforcement of choice of court agreements. A comparative study , op. cit. 33 DANOV, M. ‘Cross-border litigation in England and Wales: Pre-Brexit data and post-Brexit implications’, (2018), 25 (2) MJECL 163ss. 34 REQUEJO ISIDRO, M. ‘International commercial courts in the litigation market’, (2019/2 ) MPILPLRPS . BIARD, A. ‘International commercial courts in France: Innovation without revolution’, (2019) 1 ELR 24ss, who believes that Brexit is the catalyst for these innovations. For a presentation of these new shorts: BELL, G.F. ‘The new international commercial courts-competing with arbitration. The example of the Singapore international commercial court’, (2018/2) CAAJ 193ss. However, these are initiatives that raise delicate political and legal issues: while the Commercial Court in London is an ordinary English jurisdiction, open to all, local and foreign (although in 70% of the cases discussed before it at least one of the parties is foreign), these new courts instead present themselves as specifically dedicated to international trade operators, use a language other than the official language of the country in which they sit and are distinguished by the presence of judges who are particularly competent in matters of international trade, sometimes even foreigners; they could therefore be perceived as dispensers of forms of “privileged” justice. VAN CALSTER, G. ‘The Brussels International Business Court. A Carrot Sunk by Caviar’, in KRAMER, X. SORABJI, J. (eds), International business courts. A European and global perspective , (Eleven Publishing, The Hague, 2019) 114ss, on the failure of the Belgian parliament to approve the international trade court project to be set up in Brussels: “The label that was used to sink the court

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