Going Dutch

Tim Reid, Partner, Ashurst, UK
Ingeborg Kuyvenhoven, General Counsel, Petrobras Oil & Gas B.V., Netherlands

In an era where the location of the commercial centre of Europe remains to be determined, we look at the position of the English Commercial Court (ECC) and that of the newly established Netherlands Commercial Court (NCC) and those of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) and the ICC International Court of Arbitration (ICC). This article will consider whether in the future commercial enterprises will be attracted to a purpose built judicial process tailored to the need of European and wider based corporations in preference to an entity based upon the application of common law principles and which will, when looking at English law matters, no longer take full (or possibly any) cognisance of European law or whether organisations with arguably greater flexibility will be of interest. As well as identifying procedural elements of each system, we will also consider what underlying principles of common law and civil law may make each system more, or less, attractive than the other. In common parlance we shall consider whether the English Commercial Court has grounds to fear "the new kid on the block" or its arbitration rivals.