Institute Organises a Great One Day Seminar in London
The Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law (IISTL) at Swansea Law School enjoys close links with both legal practices and other international associations. Both these links were fully evident in its very successful one-day seminar on “Arbitration, Enforcement and Jurisdiction in a Commercial Setting: Anglo, Euro and Chinese Perspectives” at the London offices of HFW on 21 February.
The event, which sold out two weeks in advance, attracted delegates from legal practice, the worlds of P&I and insurance, and academia. The topics covered were topical and very varied. They included such matters as the law applicable to arbitration agreements; the approach of English courts to arbitration appeals on jurisdictional grounds under s.67 of the 1996 Arbitration Act; jurisdiction clauses and third parties; anti-suit Injunctions and their availability extra-contractually; the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in China, Germany, Greece and Turkey; the enforcement of exclusive jurisdiction clauses; and the impact of BREXIT on maritime disputes generally.
The following speakers either wrote papers or chaired sessions: Professor Lia Athanassiou (Professor of Commercial Law, Athens University); Professor Simon Baughen (IISTL); Simon Croall QC (Head of Quadrant Chambers); Mr Paul Dean (Global Head of Shipping, HFW); Dr Tobias Eckardt (Partner, Ahlers & Vogel Reschtsanwälte, Hamburg); Dr Shengnan Jia (Tahota Law Firm, Chengdu); Associate Professor George Leloudas (IISTL); The Hon Mr Justice Picken (Judge of the Commercial Court and Presiding Judge of the Wales and Chester Circuit); Mr Nicholas Poynder (Partner, HFW); Simon Rainey QC (Quadrant Chambers and IISTL); Professor Bulent Sozer (Professor of Law, Director of the Maritime Research Centre, Piri Reis University and IISTL); Professor Andrew Tettenborn (IISTL); Dr Lijie Song (University of Essex); Mr Patrick Zheng (Partner, Llinks’ Law, Shanghai).
Speaking after the event, Professor B. Soyer, IISTL Director, said:
“The kind of shipping and commercial law the IISTL is involved in is overwhelmingly transnational in character. It follows that delicate questions of interaction are unavoidable between choice of law, jurisdiction and arbitration clauses on one hand, and the activities of courts and arbitrators in other jurisdictions on the other hand. Our objective, which we amply fulfilled, was to consider legal problems that can arise with regard to arbitration and jurisdiction in the commercial context, with particular reference to developments in the UK, China and Europe.
I would like to thank all the speakers and chairpersons who made this event an amazing one from the perspective of delegates participating. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank to our partners, namely HFW and the China-Europe Commercial Collaboration Association, for their extremely generous support. The IISTL strives to bridge the gap between academia and legal practice and brings lawyers from different jurisdictions together to deliberate common problems. I can safely say that this event has more than achieved both objectives.”
