A plaintiff in an English action had obtained an order against an American bank, served on its London office, requiring production of books and papers at its New York head office.
Held: The court pointed out the distinction between ‘personal jurisdiction, i.e. who can be brought before the court’ and ‘subject matter jurisdiction, i.e., to what extent the court can claim to regulate the conduct of those persons’. The court should not, save in exceptional circumstances, impose such a requirement upon a foreigner, and, in particular, upon a foreign bank. The principle is that a state should refrain from demanding obedience to its sovereign authority by foreigners in respect of their conduct outside the jurisdiction. The need to exercise the court’s jurisdiction with due regard to the sovereignty of others is particularly important in the case of banks. Banks are in a special position because their documents are concerned not only with their own business but with that of their customers. They will owe their customers a duty of confidence regulated by the law of the country where the account is kept. That duty is in some countries reinforced by criminal sanctions and sometimes by ‘blocking statutes’ which specifically forbid the bank to provide information for the purpose of foreign legal proceedings. If every country where a bank happened to carry on business asserted a right to require that bank to produce documents relating to accounts kept in any other such country, banks would be in the unhappy position of being forced to submit to whichever sovereign was able to apply the greatest pressure. An English court should not, except in connection with substantive litigation here or in exceptional circumstances, make orders seeking to control the conduct of foreigners abroad or affecting their assets abroad.
Hoffmann J
[1986] Ch 482
Bankers Books Evidence Act 1879 87
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Regina v Grossman CA 1981
An application was made against Barclays Bank in London to obtain inspection of an account held at a branch of the bank in the Isle of Man.
Held: The Civil Division of the Court of Appeal which determined the application was later held to have . .
Cited by:
Cited – Societe Eram Shipping Company Limited and others v Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd, Compagnie Internationale de Navigation HL 12-Jun-2003
The appeal concerned a final third party debt order (formerly a garnishee order). A judgment in France was registered here for enforcement. That jurisdiction was now challenged.
Held: A third party debt order is a proprietary remedy operating . .
Cited – BAS Capital Funding Corporation, Deutsche Bank Ag London, Paine Webber Capital Inc, PW Exe Lp, Pw Partners 1999 Lp v Medfinco Limited, Abacus Holdings Limited, Andreas W Gerdes, HTC Inc, etc ChD 25-Jul-2003
The claimants wanted to bring actions in respect of various matters under shareholders agreements in complex international joint ventures. Leave was given to serve English proceedings in Malta, and the claim form and particulars of claim were faxed . .
Cited – Mahme Trust v Lloyds TSB Bank plc ChD 29-Jul-2004
The claimant began an action in England. The defendant sought a stay, saying the appropriate forum was Switzerland.
Held: The defendant was a truly multi-national orgaisation and had branches in many countries. The choice of forum belongs to . .
Cited – Mitsui and Co Ltd v Nexen Petroleum UK Ltd ChD 29-Apr-2005
Mitsui sought disclosure of documents from a third party under the rules in Norwich Pharmacal.
Held: Such relief was available ‘where the claimant requires the disclosure of crucial information in order to be able to bring its claim or where . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Banking, Jurisdiction
Updated: 20 January 2022; Ref: scu.183552