Corporate Crime analysis: Are the courts showing signs of relaxing the stringent threshold to be met when resisting extradition? Helen McDowell, business crime managing partner, and Emily Wilson of Peters & Peters, advise that it’s worth considering new human rights angles in extradition cases.

Private Client analysis: Providing important clarification to practitioners dealing with non-domestic law matters, the Privy Council confirms the approach which appellate courts should take when asked to review findings of fact about foreign law and its application to the facts of a case. The Privy Council also declined to hear a challenge to the Supreme Court’s decision in Pitt v Holt because the appellants had not sought to pursue their argument in the lower courts and, even if they succeeded on this ground, their appeal overall would fail on the facts determined at first instance. Written by Katharine Elliot, barrister at Landmark Chambers.

This Practice Note is concerned with challenges to funding arrangements associated with retainers and considers: • what is a funding arrangement? • why would you challenge a funding arrangement? • how to challenge a retainer-based funding arrangement For more information on challenging contracts generally, see: Terminating contracts—how and when a contract ends—overview. For further information on litigation funding in general, consider Practice Notes: • Litigation funding—introduction to funder's perspective • Litigation funding application process What is a funding arrangement? There are two forms of funding arrangement: • a funding arrangement which works as, or in conjunction with, a retainer between solicitor and client (retainer-based funding arrangement) • a contractual agreement between a litigant and a third-party funder who provides funding for the litigation (third-party litigation funding) It is important to recognise the distinction between the two, as they are challenged in different ways and different costs recovery rules and principles apply in respect of different types of funding arrangements. Retainer-based funding arrangements Retainer-based funding arrangements typically take the form of or are incidental

This Practice Note considers the issues of arbitral jurisdiction in the Netherlands and discusses the options available to the party seeking to stop the court proceedings. Introduction When court litigation is started in the Netherlands in breach of an arbitration agreement, Dutch law is generally very protective of arbitration. The main framework is Book 4 of the Dutch Code of Civil Procedure (DCCP), which is also referred to as the Netherlands Arbitration Act. Challenging the jurisdiction of the court Challenging the jurisdiction of the court is the primary and most effective mechanism for a party against whom court proceedings have been initiated contrary to the existence of an arbitration agreement. Articles 1022 DCCP (for Netherlands seated arbitrations) and 1074 DCCP (for foreign seated arbitrations) provide that the state court before which a dispute is brought must decide that it has no jurisdiction if a party timely invokes the existence of an arbitration agreement. The state courts will consider the arbitration agreement valid if it is valid either under

This Practice Note considers challenging arbitral jurisdiction and the availability of anti-suit relief under Austrian law. Note: The decisions of the Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof) (OGH) referred to below are not reported by LexisNexis®. Determination of jurisdiction by the arbitral tribunal Power of arbitrators to rule on their own jurisdiction/Principle of Kompetenz-Kompetenz In line with international arbitral practice, the Austrian Arbitration Law, in section 592(1) of the Austrian Civil Code of Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung or the ACCP), which follows in essence Article 16 of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law, establishes the competence of the arbitral tribunal to rule on its own jurisdiction (principle of Kompetenz-Kompetenz). This competence includes the arbitral tribunal’s competence to rule on the existence and validity of the arbitration agreement. ACCP, s 592 (Competence of the Arbitral Tribunal to Rule on its own Jurisdiction) reads as follows: ‘(1) The arbitral tribunal shall rule on its own jurisdiction. The decision may be made together with the decision on the merits or

This Practice Note considers challenges to the jurisdiction of arbitral tribunals under the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (the Arbitration Law). This Practice Note has been updated to take into account the amended law of 2025 which came into effect on 1 March 2026 The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. All references to articles of the Arbitration Law is as amended. Challenging the jurisdiction of a Chinese arbitration institution to hear a matter usually involves challenging the binding force of an arbitration agreement. Article 5 of the Arbitration Law (as amended in 2025) gives arbitral tribunals exclusive authority to hear cases when the parties ‘have concluded an arbitration agreement’. At the same time, Article 5 of the Arbitration Law prohibits the PRC court from accepting a litigating case involving any arbitration agreement ‘unless the arbitration agreement is null and void’. Chinese law envisages two types of challenges to the jurisdictions of arbitral tribunals, namely: • total challenges—as the name implies, are challenges

Arbitration seated in Japan is governed by the Arbitration Act (Act No. 138 of 2003) (the ‘Arbitration Act’), which is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (1985). The Act was amended by Act No. 15 of 2023, in force on 1 April 2024, to reflect the 2006 revisions to the Model Law, in particular as regards interim measures and their enforcement, the writing requirement for arbitration agreements, the concentration of arbitration-related court business in designated courts, and the courts’ discretion to dispense with Japanese translations of certain documents. Japan, like other Model Law jurisdictions, fully embraces the principle of Kompetenz-Kompetenz: an arbitral tribunal may rule on its own jurisdiction, including on the existence or validity of the arbitration agreement (Article 23(1) of the Arbitration Act). There is no rule that the courts enjoy priority over the tribunal in deciding jurisdictional questions, and no system of internal ‘prior reporting’ within the court hierarchy before

An important aspect of giving effect to an agreement to arbitrate is preserving the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal seized of the dispute. There are a number of remedies available in New Zealand to protect the exclusive jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal from both domestic and overseas court proceedings. In addition, there are also remedies available to a party where the arbitral tribunal is improperly seized of jurisdiction. Accordingly, this Practice Note considers the following issues: • applying for a stay of court proceedings in favour of arbitration • applying for an injunctions in the New Zealand courts to restrain foreign court proceedings in breach of an arbitration agreement (known as the ‘anti-suit’ injunction), and • challenging jurisdiction of an arbitral tribunal in New Zealand Both international and domestic arbitration in New Zealand is governed by the Arbitration Act 1996. The Arbitration Act largely implements the UNCITRAL Model Law as Schedule 1 to the Act. Additional optional procedural

This Practice Note considers issues relating to arbitral tribunal jurisdiction under Russian law. Note: the Russian court judgments referred to in this Practice Note are not reported by LexisNexis®. Determining tribunal jurisdiction under Russian law Russian law upholds the principle of kompetenz-kompetenz, allowing arbitral tribunals to decide whether or not they have jurisdiction to hear a dispute. The principle is set out in paragraph 1 of Article 16 of the Law of 7 July 1993 No. 5338-I. On International Commercial Arbitration (as amended) (the Law on ICA), which translates as: ‘The arbitration tribunal may rule on its own jurisdiction or to resolve any objections with respect to the existence or validity of an arbitration agreement. In order to do so an arbitration clause which forms part of a contract shall be treated as an autonomous provision. The decision of the arbitral tribunal that the contract is null and void shall not entail

Following the provisions of section 6.3 of the Spanish Civil Procedure Rules 2000 (CPR) and section 11.1 of the Spanish Arbitration Act 2003 (AA), if a claimant files a claim before the first instance courts to hear a dispute that should be heard by an arbitral tribunal, given the existence of a valid arbitration agreement, the defendant may challenge the court jurisdiction through the ‘declinatoria de jurisdicción’ or simply ‘declinatoria’ (‘the jurisdictional challenge application’ or ‘the declinatoria application’), which is an application for an order affirming that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case, thereby enforcing the arbitration agreement. Procedure for disputing the court’s jurisdiction Considering that the court cannot seek to assert a jurisdictional objection by itself (‘de oficio’), the defendant must raise such objection. The defendant has a short lapse of ten working days, which runs from the date of service of the claim on the defendant by the court, to object to the court’s jurisdiction

This Practice Note is produced in partnership with Laure-Hélène Gaicio-Fievez, Fabio Trevisan, Javier Garcia-Olmedo, and Francesca Mastragostino at BSP, Luxembourg. Note: the Luxembourg cases referred to below are not all reported by Lexis+® UK. The Luxembourg New Code of Civil Procedure ('Nouveau Code de Procédure Civile' or the 'NCPC') contains the procedural framework which is applicable to arbitration in Luxembourg. The Law of 19 April 2023 amending Part Two, Book III, Title I of the New Code of Civil Procedure in order to reform arbitration was published in the Mémorial A on 21 April 2023 (hereinafter the ‘New Arbitration Law’). The purpose of the New Arbitration Law was to establish a set of coherent rules known for their effectiveness and accepted as satisfying the requirements and constraints of a useful and efficient arbitration procedure, drawing inspiration from the UNCRITRAL Model Law, as well as French and Belgian law and Luxembourgish practice. These new provisions apply to any award handed down after 19 April 2023. Determining the Arbitral Tribunal’s jurisdiction under Luxembourg

The framework for international arbitration in Canada Canada has adopted the 1985 United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law (the Model Law) (The Model Law). Because Canada is a federation, a different international arbitration statute applies at the federal level and in each province and territory. These statutes either include the Model Law, for example, Ontario’s International Commercial Arbitration Act, 2017, SO 2017, c 2, Sch 5 (the ‘International Commercial Arbitration Act 2017’) includes the Model Law as a Schedule, or import its principles. Federally, Canada has not yet adopted the 2006 revisions to the Model Law. Provincially, Ontario and British Columbia are currently the only provinces to have done so as seen respectively in the International Commercial Arbitration Act 2017, at Schedule 2 and the International Commercial Arbitration Act, RSBC 1996, c 233. Challenging the jurisdiction of an arbitrator In Canada, provincial, territorial, and federal international arbitration legislation preserves arbitral jurisdiction and protects it from inappropriate