In The Courts: Civil Procedure

Jurisdiction and Forum

When a Russian company brings a claim in the BVI against two Russian employees, employed under Russian law service agreements, it is perhaps not surprising that a forum challenge would ensue. In Livingston Properties Equities Inc et al v. JSC MCC Eurochem, the respondent, Eurochem, was the Russian company concerned, and the claim related to the alleged receipt of bribes. Eurochem had also sued the BVI companies that were said to have been the recipient of those bribes. The suitability of the BVI as the forum to decide a dispute, and the relevance to that consideration of the need to plead matters of foreign law, was considered by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal, which held that Russia was clearly an available forum and, applying VTB v. Nutritek, held that it was also clearly the most appropriate forum, to determine the claims against the BVI companies. The Court of Appeal has since given leave to appeal to the Privy Council on the basis