Enforceability of Jurisdiction Arbitration Clauses

Talk by Simon Salzedo of Brick Court Chambers given to Pinsent Curtis Biddle on 18^th September 2002

1. The enforceability of jurisdiction and arbitration clauses is a very wide area. In the space and time available, it is not possible to cover many subtleties and exceptions to the rules stated. This is intended to be a crib to the basic rules and some recent case law, but not a text of the whole field.¹

2. The effectiveness of a jurisdiction or arbitration clause may well depend on the view taken of it by any court before which it comes for decision. In an ideal world, no such clause would be drafted or agreed without advice being taken in each jurisdiction where the clause may be tested. This talk is confined to the approach which the English court will take when it is applying English law.