Apr 2012
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
HIGH COURT
ENFORCEMENT OF JUDGMENTS – SUBMISSION TO FOREIGN JURISDICTION
This was an Application made without notice to register a money Judgment of the English High Court in the British Virgin Islands. The issue was whether the Applicant could be said to have voluntarily appeared or otherwise submitted or agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of the English Court. If it did not then since the Respondent neither carried on business nor was ordinarily resident in England, Section 3(2)(b) of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act, 1922 (Cap 65) would preclude registration.
The Court concluded that the Respondent had submitted to the jurisdiction of the High Court of England by actively participating in post-judgment freezing order proceedings taken by the Applicant. In doing so it applied Paragraph 14-067 of Dicey, Morris & Collins, The Conflicts of Law, 14th Edn., which states that such an intervention would constitute submission. More importantly the Court held that acknowledging service and seeking unsuccessfully to challenge jurisdiction to argue forum could not be seen as submission to the jurisdiction. In so doing the Court declined to follow the decisions in Harris -v- Taylor [1915] 2 KB 580 and Henry -v- Geopresco [1976] 1 QB 726.