Governing law is the law stipulated in a contract to determine a dispute. Where there is no valid governing law clause, the law to be applied, the applicable law, will be determined in accordance with the relevant regulation, convention, legislation or common law rules.

Elected or appointed group of persons who have the responsibility to manage a school.

This Checklist of resources sets out some of the issues to consider when drafting and negotiating governing law and jurisdiction clauses in the context of commercial B2B contracts. Governing law and jurisdiction clauses are categorised as boilerplate clauses in an agreement. For more information on boilerplate clauses, see: Boilerplate clauses—overview. For details about the role of boilerplate clauses and approaches to reviewing and drafting common boilerplate clauses, see Practice Note: The role of boilerplate. A governing law clause (also known as an applicable law clause) is used to allow the parties to specify the substantive law that will apply to the interpretation of an agreement and, in the event of a dispute, in relation to it. For an example of a governing law clause, see Precedent: Governing law clause. The applicable law clause in a contract will usually be set out alongside a jurisdiction clause. It is important to note that jurisdiction and governing law are separate issues.  A jurisdiction clause is necessary to allow the parties to specify the courts that are to

Option 1—trading only in England and Wales 1 Governing law 1.1 The laws of England and Wales apply to this contract. 2 Jurisdiction 2.1 Any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. This means that you can only bring a claim in the

This Practice Note examines the extent to which traders based in England and Wales can make their contracts with consumers based in other UK jurisdictions subject to the governing law and/or jurisdiction of England and Wales. It considers the laws which determine governing law and jurisdiction (in respect of both contractual and non-contractual obligations) in the UK in business-to-consumer (B2C) contracts. For the purposes of this Practice Note, a ‘consumer’ is a natural person acting for purposes outside of their trade or profession. Brexit This Practice Note contains references to retained EU law (REUL) and associated terms introduced by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 in connection with Brexit. Assimilated law is the name given to REUL which remains in force after the end of 2023. The re-categorisation of REUL (and associated terms) to assimilated law reflects a change in its status and treatment under UK law, in that it is generally to be interpreted according to ordinary domestic law and principles. From 1 January 2024, REUL is ‘assimilated’

Dispute Resolution analysis: the High Court considered whether Kennedys Dubai LLP (Kennedys Dubai) could rely on a £3m liability cap in its retainer with Convrgnt Value Engineering LLC (CVE). The court held that the relevant provisions of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (UCTA 1977) did not apply because, without the parties’ express choice of English law, the retainer would have been governed by Dubai law. The judge nevertheless said that, had UCTA 1977 applied, the £3m cap would have been unreasonable. The court also held that the cap covered CVE’s restitutionary claims and rejected CVE’s arguments that misrepresentation or estoppel prevented Kennedys Dubai from relying on it.

Islamic finance contracts typically provide that the laws of England and Wales will govern agreements performed in the UK. However, on cross-border transactions, particularly transactions involving finance parties from major Western economies, the governing law clause may also be English law. A number of factors have given rise to this: • most of the parties to such contracts reside in the UK (in the case of UK-based transactions), and understand the legal regimes of such jurisdictions • Islamic financial institutions (IFIs), which are often banks or other financial institutions, and other institutions insist on this choice of law • disputes regarding these agreements will likely, as a matter of convenience, be heard by an English court, and these courts function best when interpreting their own law, and • no superior alternative to such bodies of law is available Some Islamic finance commentators have criticised the use of English law and courts on the grounds that they lack the capacity to correctly interpret Islamic finance agreements. While this may be

This Practice Note discusses governing law and jurisdiction in the context of finance transactions. It explains: • what is meant by governing law and jurisdiction • governing law in more detail, including how the relevant governing law will be determined • jurisdiction in more detail, including applicable rules for determining jurisdiction • governing law clauses in finance transactions and when English law might not be appropriate • jurisdiction clauses in finance transactions, and considerations when deciding on whether to include an exclusive, non-exclusive or asymmetric jurisdiction clause • service of process and process agents, and • arbitration clauses Information on governing law and jurisdiction can be found in the following Practice Notes: • Applicable law—a guide for dispute resolution practitioners, and • Jurisdiction—a guide for dispute resolution practitioners What is meant by governing law and jurisdiction? Governing law and jurisdiction are two fundamentally different concepts. Governing law The governing law (sometimes referred to as the applicable law) is the law applied by the courts to determine a dispute between

Commercial analysis: Rachelle Sellek, partner at Acuity Law, considers whether it is time for English and Welsh law to go their separate ways.

A government department that provides actuarial advice and guidance to the government and public sector schemes.

The Government Actuary's Department has published an update to the Ogden Tables, specifically revising the Additional Tables to include multipliers at +0.5%. This adjustment aligns with the current applicable rate in England & Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The updated 8th edition of the Ogden Tables and the revised Additional Tables provide actuaries, lawyers and other professionals with current data for calculating lump sum compensation in personal injury and fatal accident cases. The Additional Tables now offer multipliers for capitalising multiplicands payable from any age at the date of trial to any future age up to 125, as well as for deriving multipliers for multiplicands payable starting from a future age.

Law360: The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) said in a press release on 9 January 2024 that it has set up a tool to aid pension schemes in plugging an estimated £1.5bn shortfall in retirement benefits of women, following landmark court rulings relating to guaranteed minimum pension (GMP) equalisation.