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Brexit, adverse costs & the threat from Europe

01 September 2018 / Craig Arnott
Categories: Opinion , Brexit , Legal services , Costs
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The adverse costs rule as well as Brexit may help push litigation work overseas, says Craig Arnott

As the UK prepares to leave the European Union, recent promotional activity from the continent is indicating that some of the UK’s £25bn legal industry could be lured overseas after Brexit.

Lured overseas?

As uncertainty surrounding the UK’s jurisdiction in Europe under the Brussels I Regulation continues, other European courts have in response begun adopting UK legal practices, offering proceedings in English and opening international courts in an attempt to attract the UK’s lucrative legal trade.

Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels are all jurisdictions that have received a boost from the Brexit decision, and have begun to make their own legal systems more attractive to the type of litigation that previously would have been pursued in London without a second thought.

As well as these challenges though, it’s not necessarily the case that the impact from Brexit will be entirely negative. The reality is it will bring uncertainty, which generally

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