| PRACTICE — Stay of proceedings — Jurisdiction under European Convention — English insurers seeking declaration of non-liability in contract with French insurers — French insurers asserting lack of jurisdiction of English court — Whether claim covered by arbitration agreement — Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, Sch 1, art 5(1)
Youell v La Reunion Aerienne [2009] EWCA Civ 175; [2009] WLR (D) 95
CA: Rix, Jacob, Lawrence Collins LJJ: 11 March 2009
Where a court could otherwise determine the substance of a claim, the mere fact that the claim was the subject of an arbitration agreement did not deprive the court of its jurisdiction under Council Regulation (EC) 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. What was critical was the nature of the claim.
The Court of Appeal (Rix, Jacob and Lawrence Collins LJJ) so held on 11 March 2009 dismissing an appeal by the defendants, La Reunion Aerienne and other members of the French insurance market, from a judgment of Tomlinson J in the Queen’s Bench Division on 22 October 2008 rejecting their challenge to the jurisdiction of the English courts, in an action by the claimants, JRL Youell and 13 other members of the English insurance market, for a declaration of non-liability related to an insurance claim brought against Turbomeca, an aeronautical engineering company.
LAWRENCE COLLINS LJ said the French market asserted that it was relying on a contract containing a French arbitration clause which was covered by the exclusion in art 1(2)(d) of Council Regulation (EC) 44/2001. If the claim was subject to an arbitration agreement the defendants’ remedy was to seek a stay. It was the nature of the claim which was critical. The claim form stated that the English market was liable to pay US$245m by way of contribution to the settlement of a claim against Turbomeca by victims of a helicopter accident in the United States, that the London market was entitled to a declaration of non-liability to the French market. On the facts, the claims were not covered by the arbitration clause in the agreement, and the mere fact that the claims were mirror images of claims which were being asserted by the French market in a French arbitration to which the London market said it had not agreed did not make them claims to which the exclusion applied. There was no basis for applying the principle in Boss Group Ltd v Boss France SA [1997] 1 WLR 351 that it did not matter for the purposes of art 5(1) whether the claimant was denying or affirming a contractual claim. The French market’s claim was a debt claim based on an indemnity arising from an alleged mandate give by the London market to the French market. All that the London market was saying was that the French market was wrongly asserting the existence of an obligation to pay under a contract between the French market and the London market. The right which it sought to protect was the right not to be sued on a claim which it denied. |
