Challenging court jurisdiction

When the claimant has commenced proceedings, the defendant(s) may seek to challenge the court’s jurisdiction to determine the issues in dispute. There are a number of considerations for both the claimant(s) and the defendant(s) in this regard. For understanding of what is meant by the term ‘jurisdiction’ when dealing with cross-border litigation, see Practice Note: Jurisdiction—a guide for dispute resolution practitioners. The Practice Note explains the importance of determining which court has jurisdiction and how the courts of England and Wales (English courts) will determine whether they have jurisdiction to determine a particular dispute. When determining jurisdiction, there are a number of jurisdictional regimes the courts may apply and sometimes it can be difficult to determine which is the appropriate one. Once the relevant jurisdictional regime has been identified, navigating through it in terms of both its scope and application is also not always straightforward. The Practice Note aims to assist with this process by identifying the main jurisdictional regimes and it also considers issues relevant to jurisdiction such as jurisdiction agreements, the domicile of the defendant, staying proceedings in favour of a court with jurisdiction