Consistent with recent authority, the Court of Appeal has given primacy to an English jurisdiction clause in an ISDA Master Agreement (overturning the first instance decision that had declined to do so), in circumstances where there was a "theoretically competing" jurisdiction clause in a separate agreement governing the wider relationship: Deutsche Bank AG v Comune di Savona [2018] EWCA Civ 1740.
The appellate decision contributes to market certainty in respect of contracting parties' choice of jurisdiction and therefore represents good news for derivative market participants. The Court of Appeal commented that it would have been "startling" if the bank's claims for declaratory relief falling squarely under the relevant swap contracts could not be brought in the forum selected by the parties in the ISDA Master Agreement.
The approach taken by the Court of Appeal focused on determining the "particular legal relationship" to which the dispute related for the purpose of Article 25 of the Recast Brussels Regulation, which deals with jurisdiction agreements. In circumstances where there were two contracts (with theoretically competing jurisdiction clauses), it held that there was a distinction to be drawn between a generic wider relationship on the one hand, and a specific interest rate swap relationship governed by the ISDA Master Agreement on the other. It concluded in general terms that disputes relating to the swap transactions were therefore governed by the jurisdiction clause in the ISDA Master Agreement.
While it may be expected that disputes relating to a specific transaction should be governed by the contract for that transaction, the position had been undermined by the High Court decision in the instant case (which considered a number of points of Italian law and the effect of the declarations sought by the bank on any potential claims in Italy). The Court of Appeal noted that while each case should be considered on its own terms, it agreed in principle with the approach in the recent case of BNP Paribas SA v Trattamento Rifiuti Metropolitani SPA [2018] EWHC 1670 (Comm) which focused on the question of whether the English court had jurisdiction under the relevant agreements, rather than to trying to predict whether the declarations sought, if made, would act as defences in another jurisdiction (read our e-bulletin on that decision). Given that there had been conflicting first instance decisions on this issue, it is helpful to have this clarification from the Court of Appeal.
For more information, see our Banking litigation e-bulletin.
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