Tag: Macau

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RCT Holdings v LT Game. Supreme Court of Queensland sees no reason to frustrate choice of court pro Macau even in times of Covid19..

Update 3 December 2020 see Sarah McKibbin meanwhile for further background here.

Thank you Angus Macinnis for flagging RCD Holdings Ltd & Anor v LT Game International (Australia) Ltd [2020] QSC 318 in which  Davis J upheld choice of court in favour of the courts at Macau and held against a stay. The judgment is a good one for comparative purposes.

Claimants, ePayment Solutions Pty Ltd (EPS) and RCD Holdings Ltd (RCD), in their contract with the defendant, LT Game International (Australia) Ltd (LT) (a BVI domiciled company), agreed that any dispute between them would be litigated in Macau. However, when a dispute did arise they commenced proceedings in Queensland. LT entered a conditional appearance and now applies to strike out the claim, or alternatively, to have it stayed as being commenced in this court contrary to the contract.

Article 10 of the contract carries the title Governing law but actually is a choice of court clause – an oddity one sees more often than one might expect in B2B contracts: ‘Any dispute or issue arising hereunder, including any alleged breach by any party, shall be heard, determined and resolved by an action commenced in Macau. The English language will be used in all documents.”

Comparative insight includes the issue of whether A10 us a non-exclusive (an agreement not to object when proceedings are brought in the court designated) or exclusive (an agreement only to bring proceedings in the court designated) choice of court. Davis J settled for exclusive which would also seem to have been the position of both parties, despite some ambiguity at the start of proceedings.

Lex contractus is disputed, and at 27 Davis J settles for Macanese law, based upon factual construct of the contractual intention of the parties. Clearly that choice of court was made for Macau was an important factor – as it is in Rome I for consideration of so-called ‘implied’ choice of law in the event of choice of court made.

A stay on the basis of Covid19 impracticability (ia because of alleged difficulties for witness testimony) is dismissed, ia (at 34) because it is uncertain whether current travel restrictions will still be in place when the case in Macau might be heard. Davis j does suggest that a renewed application for a stay must not be ruled out in light of Covid19 developments, however will be seen against abuse of process: in other words claimants had best not do so lightly.

Geert.

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Call for papers with tight deadline. Macao Writers’ Workshop for Early-Career Environmental Law Scholars.

I shall be spending a few weeks as a distinguished (yes, me!) visiting scholar at University of Macau in September. As part of my commitments there I shall be joining

  • Professor Paulo Canelas de Castro (University of Macau)
  • Professor Qin Tianbao (Wuhan University)
  • Professor Ben Boer (Wuhan University)
  • Professor Alexander Zahar (Wuhan University)
  • Professor Benoit Mayer (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

in the committee for a workshop on the writing of academic articles in the environmental law area. That’s quite a committee if you ask me.

We shall be assisting around twelve early-career environmental law scholars to publish an original research article on environmental law in English in an international top-tier journal.

At this moment we are looking in particular for a number of scholars based outside PRC to join the excellent Chinese candidates. All info is here. Deadline is tight: initial short abstract and CV are due Friday next, 7 June.

Geert.