Adrian Briggs

Adrian Briggs combines practice at the Bar with being Professor of Private International Law at the University of Oxford.  His practice is dominated by advisory work, especially in the broad field of private international law, and with particular emphasis on the law on jurisdiction and the enforcement of foreign judgments. He is frequently instructed to give expert evidence, in the context of proceedings before foreign courts (in particular in Australia, Canada, and the United States, but also in the Netherlands and Switzerland) on questions of English private international law, such as whether judgments or settlements in foreign proceedings would be regarded as conclusive in England, on whether causes of action pleaded before foreign courts could be asserted in English proceedings, on how English courts would interpret particular jurisdiction clauses, and so on. 

His writing and research in private international law takes two forms. As a member of the editorial team working with Lord Collins of Mapesbury on Dicey Morris & Collins, The Conflict of Laws, he is required to produce an account of the law which is wholly and completely faithful to what the statutes say and the cases have said. In his writing in other contexts, he is able to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the law and to probe where and how it may develop.  The two streams of thinking are brought together in his Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments, now in its fifth edition.

Publications

Books: 

• Briggs & Rees: Civil Jurisdiction & Judgments (Lloyds of London Press, 1993) (as author; edited by Peter Rees).  Second edition, 1997; third edition, 2002; fourth edition, 2005, fifth edition, 2009
• Briggs: Agreements on Jurisdiction and Choice of Law (Oxford University Press, 2008)
• Briggs:  The Conflict of Laws (Clarendon Press, 2002); Second edition, 2008
• Dicey, Morris & Collins, The Conflict of Laws (14th edn, 2006), and cumulative supplements: one of six editors under the general editorship of Lord Collins of Mapesbury)
• English Private Law (ed Birks, Oxford, 2000): Chapter 17, Private International Law; Second edition (ed Burrows, 2007): Chapter 20, Private International Law

Articles and surveys:

a) Conflict of jurisdictions: common law:

• ‘Forum non conveniens : now we are ten?’ (1983) 3 Legal Studies 74
• ‘No interference with foreign courts? (1982) 31 ICLQ 189
• ‘The staying of actions on the ground of forum non conveniens’ [1984] LMCLQ 227
• ‘Forum non conveniens: an update’ [1985] LMCLQ 360
• ‘The validity of floating choice of law and jurisdiction clauses’ [1986] LMCLQ 508
• ‘Forum non conveniens: the last word?’ [1987] LMCLQ 1
• ‘Which foreign judgments should we recognise today?’ (1987) 36 ICLQ 240
• ‘Restraint of foreign proceedings’ [1987] LMCLQ 391
• ‘Wider still and wider: The bounds of Australian exorbitant jurisdiction’ [1989] LMCLQ 216
• ‘Forum non conveniens in Australia’ (1989) 105 LQR 200
• ‘Foreign judgments: more surprises’ (1992) 108 LQR 549
• ‘Jurisdiction clauses and judicial attitudes’ (1993) 109 LQR 382
• ‘Note on The Indian Grace’ [1993] LMCLQ 451
• ‘Note on Seaconsar v Bank Markazi’ [1994] LMCLQ 1
• ‘The unrestrained reach of an anti-suit injunction’ [1997] LMCLQ 90
• ‘Self-restraint in the High Court of Australia’ (1998) 114 LQR 27
• ‘Note on Fiona Trust v Privalov’ [2008] LMCLQ 1
• ‘Anti-suit injunctions in a Complex World’: Chapter 12 of Lex Mercatoria : Essays in International Commercial Law, ed. Rose (2000)
• ‘Foreign Judgments and Human Rights: note on USA v Montgomery’ (2005) 121 LQR 185
• ‘Crossing the river by feeling the stones:  re-thinking the law on foreign judgments’ (2004) 8 Singapore Year Book of International Law 1
• ‘Recognition and enforcement of Russian Judgments in England’: Vyestnik 2006, 3, 77
• ‘Enforcing and reinforcing an English judgment’: [2008] LMCLQ 421

b) Conflict of Jurisdiction: Brussels Convention and Brussels I Regulation:

• ‘Spiliada and the Brussels Convention’ [1991] LMCLQ 10
• Survey of cases on the Brussels Convention in the Court of Justice of the EC:
  1988: (1988) 8 Yearbook of European Law 265
  1989: (1989) 9 Yearbook of European Law 323
  1990: (1990) 10 Yearbook of European Law 481
  1991: (1991) 11 Yearbook of European Law 521
  1992: (1992) 12 Yearbook of European Law 657
  1993: (1993) 13 Yearbook of European Law 511
  1994: (1994) 14 Yearbook of European Law 557
  1995: (1995) 15 Yearbook of European Law 487
  1996: (1996) 16 Yearbook of European Law 601
  1997: (1997) 17 Yearbook of European Law 515
• ‘Forum non conveniens and the Brussels Convention again’ (1991) 107 LQR 180
• ‘Foreign judgments and the Brussels Convention’ (1991) 107 LQR 531
• ‘The Brussels Convention reaches the House of Lords’ (1992) 108 LQR 186
• ‘Jurisdiction over restitutionary claims’ [1992] LMCLQ 283
• ‘Get your writs out?’ (Note on The Duke of Yare) [1992] LMCLQ 150
• ‘Note on Continental Bank v Aeakos’ [1994] LMCLQ 158
• ‘Note on Webb v Webb’ (1994) 110 LQR 526
• ‘Note on The Sargasso’ [1994] LMCLQ 470
• ‘Note on The Tatry’ [1995] LMCLQ 161
• ‘Note on Marinari v Lloyds Bank’ [1996] LMCLQ 27
• ‘Note on Pearce v Ove Arup and Suzo v Coin Controls’ (1997) 113 LQR 360
• 'Some points of friction between English and Brussels Convention jurisdiction': chapter 19 of Andenas & Jacobs, European Community Law in the English Courts
• Note on Réunion Européenne [1999] LMCLQ 333
• Anti-suit Injunctions and Utopian Ideals: note on Turner v Grovit (2004) 120 LQR 529
• Note on Owusu v Jackson (2005) 121 LQR 535
• Forum non conveniens and Ideal Europeans: [2005] LMCLQ 378
• The Impact of Recent Judgments of the European Court on English Procedural Law and Practice, [2005] Zeitschrift für Schweizerisches Recht (2005) 124 II 231
• ‘Learning to learn from others in Europe’: with B. Dohmann QC: festschrift für Peter Schlosser zum 70.  Geburtstag, p. 161
• ‘Jurisdiction over defences and connected claims’: [2006] LMCLQ 447
• ‘Who is bound by the Brussels Regulation?’ [2007] LMCLQ 433
• ‘Note on West Tankers’ [2009] LMCLQ 161

c) Conflict of laws:

• ‘Polygamous marriages and English domiciliaries’ (1983) 32 ICLQ 737
• ‘What did Boys v Chaplin decide?’ (1983) 12 Anglo-Am LR 237
• ‘Garnishment of an English debt: foreign complications’ [1988] LMCLQ 429
• ‘Tort in the conflict of laws’ (1989) 105 LQR 359
• ‘Conflict of laws: postponing the future’ (1989) 9 Ox JLS 251
• ‘The formation of international contracts’ [1990] LMCLQ 192
• ‘Note on Red Sea Insurance v Bouygues’ (1995) 111 LQR 18
• ‘Choice of law in restitutionary claims’ [1995] Restitution L.R.94
• ‘From complexity to anti-climax: restitution and choice of law’ [1996] Restitution L.R.88
• ‘The international dimension to contribution claims’ [1995] LMCLQ 437
• ‘Choice of law in Tort and Delict: The Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1995’ [1995] LMCLQ 519
• ‘In praise and defence of renvoi’ (1998) 47 ICLQ 877
• ‘Jurisdiction at common law over restitutionary claims’ (Ch 2 of Restitution & The Conflict of Laws ed Rose, 1995)
• ‘The Revenue Rule in the Conflict of Laws: Time for a makeover’ [2001] Singapore J.L.S. 280
• ‘Public Policy in the Conflict of Laws: A Sword and a Shield?’ (2002) 6 Sing J. Int & Comp L. 953
• ‘Choice of Choice of Law‘ [2003] LMCLQ 12
• ‘The Duke of Brunswick and defamation by internet‘ (2003) 119 LQR 210
• ‘The real scope of European rules for choice of law’ (2003) 119 LQR 352
• ‘On drafting agreements on choice of law’ [2003] LMCLQ 389
• ‘Owing, owning and the garnishing of foreign debts’ [2003] LMCLQ 418
• ‘Public-private law protective schemes and the conflict of laws’ [2004] LMCLQ 313
• ‘A Note on the Application of the Statute Law of Singapore within its Private International Law’ [2005] Sing JLS 189
• ‘The Meaning and Proof of Foreign Law’: [2006] LMCLQ 1
• ‘The further consequences of choice of law’ (2007) 123 LQR 18
• ‘The cost of suppressing insurrection’ (2007) 123 LQR 182
• ‘A Map or a Maze: Jurisdiction and choice of law in the Court of Appeal’: (2007) 11 Singapore Year Book of International Law 132
• ‘Contractual Agreements on choice of Law’ in (eds Burrows & Peel), Contract Terms (Oxford, 2007), Chapter 15
• ‘When in Rome, choose as the Romans choose’ (2009) 125 LQR 191
• ‘Misappropriated and Misapplied Assets in the Conflict of Laws’ in Unjust Enrichment in Commercial Law (eds Degeling & Edelman), 2008

d) Decisions of British Courts: Private International Law:

• 1996: (1996) 67 British Year Book of International Law 577
• 1997: (1997) 68 British Year Book of International Law 331
• 1998: (1998) 69 British Year Book of International Law 332
• 1999: (1999) 70 British Year Book of International Law 319
• 2000: (2000) 71 British Year Book of International Law 331
• 2001: (2001) 72 British Year Book of International Law 437
• 2002: (2002) 73 British Year Book of International Law 435
• 2003: (2003) 74 British Year Book of International Law 511
• 2004: (2004) 75 British Year Book of International Law 537
• 2005: (2005) 76 British Year Book of International Law 537
• 2006: (2006) 77 British Year Book of International Law 641
• 2007: (2007) 78 British Year Book of International Law 588
• 2008: (2008) 79 British Year Book of International Law 501
• 2009: (2009) 80 British Year Book of International Law (forthcoming)

Interesting cases:

• Kinnear v Falconfilms [1994] 3 All ER 42
• Kleinwort Benson v City of Glasgow DC [1996] QB 678
• Boss Group Limited v Boss France SA [1996] 4 All ER 970
• Sarrio SA v Kuwait Investment Authority 1999 1 AC 32
• Haji-Ioannou v Frangos [1999] 2 Lloyd's Rep 337
• Case C-68/93 Shevill v Presse Alliance [1995] ECR I–415
• Case C-432/93 SISRO v Ampersand [1995] ECR I–2217
• Base Metal Trading Ltd v Shamurin [2002] CLC 322
• Lewis v Eliades [2004] 1 WLR 692
• Deutsche Bank v APBW [2008] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 619
• see Spiliada v Cansulex [1987] AC 460 at 488
• and see The Sargasso [1994] 3 All ER 180 at 189