Conflict of laws

Where, on an application for permission to serve a party out of the jurisdiction, the court was considering whether England and Wales was the proper place to bring the claim, it was well established that the relevant principles to be applied were that:

(i) the court would only grant permission to serve out where England was the most appropriate forum to try the action; (ii) the burden of proof rested on the claimant to persuade the court that England was the most appropriate forum and he had to show that that was clearly so; (iii) the question was to identify the forum in which the case could be suitably tried for the interests of all the parties and for the ends of justice; and (iv) the natural forum was the one with which the action had the most real and substantial connection, including factors affecting convenience or expense (such as availability