Human rights, CSR: Court of Appeal confirms lack of jurisdiction in Okpabi.

Update 12 February 2021: the UKSC has allowed the appeal. I shall have more analysis on  the judgment soon, but it might have to be next week: there is a lot going on.

Update 24 July 2019 the Supreme Court have granted to leave to appeal to it. Watch this space.

Update 16 May 2018 Vedanta have been given permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. Update 2019 see my review of eventual judgment in Vedanta here.

Update 7 March For a great supplement simply refer to Penelope Bergkamp’s post in which she discusses the wider issues of parent liablity v veil piercing etc.

The Court of Appeal, referring powerfully ia to VTB, has confirmed (albeit with dissenting opinion) lack of the English courts jurisdiction in [2018] EWCA Civ 191 Okpabi et al v Shell. I reviewed the High Court’s decision in same here. Plenty of the High Court’s considerations. e.g. (pro inspiratio) joinder under Brussels I Recast, and the optionally distributive lex causae rule under Article 7 Rome II, do not feature in the Court of Appeal’s approach.

The crucial take-away from the judgment is that the English courts do not believe that headquarter instructed mandatory compliance, equates control. This runs along the lines of Scheindlin USDJ’s approach in Apartheid.

Geert.

(Handbook of) European Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 8, Heading 8.3.