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Session 1999-2000

HOUSE OF LORDS

Lord Steyn Lord Hoffmann Lord Cooke of Thorndon Lord Hope of Craighead Lord Hobhouse of Wood-borough

OPINIONS OF THE LORDS OF APPEAL FOR JUDGMENT

IN THE CAUSE

CANADA TRUST COMPANY

(ACTING IN ITS CAPACITY AS TRUSTEE OF THE CHRYSLER CANADA LIMITED'S BENEFIT PLAN, THE CHRYSLER CANADA LIMITED MASTER TRUST FUND, THE CHRYSLER CANADA LIMITED NON-CANADIAN MASTER TRUST FUND AND THE HOLME FOUNDRY DIVISION MASTER TRUST FUND) AND OTHERS (RESPONDENTS)

v.

STOLZENBERG AND GAMBAZZI AND OTHERS

(APPELLANTS)

ON 12 OCTOBER 2000

   LORD STEYN
   My Lords,
1.   This appeal is concerned with the interpretation and application of provisions of the Lugano Convention, which for present purposes is in identical terms to the Brussels Convention. English texts of these Conventions are set out as Schedules to the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982Acts as amended. The principal objective of the earlier Convention, the Brussels Convention, was to facilitate the enforcement of judgments between Members States of the European Economic Community. The economic context was the aim of inspiring business confidence and encouraging the right conditions for trade. This Convention entered into force in the United Kingdom in 1978. The purpose of the Lugano Convention was to promote the same purpose between Members States of the European Communities and Member States of the European Free Trade Association, viz Austria, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It entered into force in the United Kingdom in 1992. A major difference between the two Conventions is that the European Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to rule on questions of interpretation under the Lugano Convention. Subject to this qualification the differences are minor. Together the two Conventions not only facilitate the enforcement of judgments but provide a sophisticated system of direct jurisdictional rules to which courts in the countries concerned must adhere. It involves a system of required and prohibited jurisdiction of courts.
2.   Under both Conventions the primary ground of jurisdiction of those domiciled in the Contracting State is the domicile of the defendant. In addition there are special grounds of jurisdiction, in matters in respect of contract, delict (tort) and quasi-delict, as well as special provisions for the joinder of defendants, which may displace the general principle. There are also special provisions dealing with jurisdiction in matters relating to insurance and consumer contracts. Finally, there are tie-break rules dealing with the position where proceedings are brought involving the same cause of action between the same parties, or related actions, in the courts of different contracting states.
3.   The present case is concerned with Articles 2 and 6 of the Lugano Convention. Article 2 states the general principle in the following terms:
  
   "Subject to the provisions of this Convention, persons domiciled in a Contracting State shall, whatever their nationality, be sued in the courts of that State.
   Persons who are not nationals of the State in which they are domiciled shall be governed by the rules of jurisdiction applicable to nationals of that State."
4.   Article 6 contains a special rule of jurisdiction. It provides, so far as material, as follows:
  
   "A person domiciled in a Contracting State may also be sued:
  
1.   where he is one of a number of defendants, in the courts for the place where any one of them is domiciled. . . ."
5.   The principal question of law before the House is whether the concept "sued" in Articles 2 and 6, when applied to legal proceedings taken in England, means the date of issue of the writ (as the plaintiff respondents contend) or the date of service of the writ (as the appellants contend). At first instance the judge decided this question against the appellants. They appealed. By a majority (Nourse L.J. and Waller L.JJ.) the Court of Appeal ruled that the date of issue of the writ is the critical date: Canada Trust Co v Stolzenberg (No. 2) [1998] 1 W.L.R. 547. The leading judgment was given by Waller L.J. In a dissenting judgment Pill L.J. came to the opposite conclusion on this point.
   The forensic story in a nutshell
6.   On 1 August 1996 the plaintiffs, Daimler-Chrysler Canada (formerly called Chrysler Canada Ltd.) and the trustees of certain pension and other benefit funds established by Daimler-Chrysler Canada Ltd. for its employees, issued a writ against Wolfgang Otto Stolzenberg as first defendant and 36 other defendants. Mr. Stolzenberg was the President and Chief Executive of the Castor Group Companies. The plaintiffs pleaded case was that Mr. Stolzenberg was principally responsible with others for inducing the plaintiffs by fraud to make investments amounting to some 240 million Canadian dollars (equivalent to about £120m.) in a group of companies called the Castor Group. All those companies are now insolvent. It is alleged that some of the defendants were implicated in the fraud perpetrated by Mr. Stolzenberg and other defendants have been joined in respect of claims tracing assets.
7.   Mr. Stolzenberg was known to have owned and resided in a house in London until August 1996. He then sold that house. He moved to another house in London. At that stage he was domiciled in England but on a date which is not known he departed from England to reside in Germany. His domicilary position in the period immediately after the issue of the writ was therefore uncertain. The plaintiffs asserted that at the time of the issue of the writ, which they contended was the relevant date, Mr. Stolzenberg was an anchor defendant entitling them to sue other defendants in England.
8.   The appeal before the House is only concerned with six defendants. The other defendants are no longer being actively pursued, have submitted to the jurisdiction or have had judgments entered against them. The six defendants, who are the appellants on the present appeal, fall into two categories, namely:
  
(1)   The second defendant (a Swiss lawyer) and the sixteenth defendant (a Swiss company) are domiciled in Switzerland. The jurisdiction over them of the English courts is dependent on the proper construction of Article 2 and Article 6.1 of the Lugano Convention. I will call these defendants "the Convention appellants."
(2)   The fifth, seventh, tenth and fifteenth defendants (respectively entities based in Panama, Liechtenstein and Netherlands Antilles) are domiciled in non-Convention countries. The jurisdiction over them of the English courts is governed by RSC Ord. 11, r. 1(l)(c). I will call them "the non-Convention appellants."
9.   After the issue of the writ Mr. Stolzenberg took active steps to avoid being served in England. On 11 March 1997 there was purported service of the writ on Mr. Stolzenberg by post and by insertion through a letter box. On the same day the present appellants were served with the writ. On 21 March 1997 Mr. Stolzenberg issued proceedings in Germany for declarations that he was not liable. On 11 April 1997 the appellants challenged the jurisdiction of the English court over them by issuing a notice of motion under RSC Ord.12, r. 8.
   The decision of Rattee J.
10.   The case came before Rattee J. Three principal legal issues were debated before the judge. The first was whether a test of more than a good arguable case had to be applied in deciding the question whether Mr. Stolzenberg was domiciled in England at the critical time. The second was whether the domicile of Mr. Stolzenberg had to be established on the date of the issue of the writ or on the date of service of the writ on the appellants, the latter being the contention advanced by the appellants. Thirdly, the appellants contended that Article 6(1) could only be relied on if Mr. Stolzenberg had already been served before the issue or service of the proceedings on the co-defendants. In an unreported judgment the judge ruled against the appellants on all three questions. Central to his judgment was the conclusion that under Articles 2 and 6 of the Lugano Convention "sued" in relation to England means the time of the issue of the writ. The judge observed that Mr. Stolzenberg had not been properly served with the writ. On 3 June 1997 he made an order for substituted service on Mr. Stolzenberg. On 13 June 1997 the judge declared that steps taken by the plaintiffs pursuant to the order for substituted service constituted good and sufficient service of the writ. The challenge to jurisdiction before the judge had failed. On 5 February 1998 the German Court stayed the proceedings to await the outcome of the challenge to English jurisdiction. On 24 April 1998 final judgment was entered against Mr. Stolzenberg in England.
   The Court of Appeal judgments
11.   The appellants appealed to the Court of Appeal. On 28 to 30 July 1997 the Court of Appeal heard the appeal against the issues of principle decided by Rattee J. In its judgment delivered on 29 October 1997 the Court of Appeal dealt with these matters: [1998] 1 W.L.R. 547. The Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that the standard of proof which the plaintiffs were required to satisfy in order to establish jurisdiction was that of a good arguable case and not the civil standard of a balance of probabilities. By a majority the Court of Appeal ruled that the date upon which Mr. Stolzenberg was required to have had an English domicile was the date of issue of the writ and not the date of service upon him. On this issue Pill L.J. dissented. The majority ruled further that it was not necessary under Article 6 of the Convention for Mr. Stolzenberg to have been served before service upon the Convention defendants. Pill L.J. did not address this issue. In the light of these rulings the Court of Appeal dismissed the appellants' appeal. The Court of Appeal found it unnecessary to deal with a Respondents' Notice which sought affirmation of the judge's order on the alternative basis that even if the date of service was the critical date, that date was 11 March 1997 when Mr. Stolzenberg was domiciled in England. This issue was not before the House.
12.   Subsequently, on 6 May 1998, the Court of Appeal gave a second judgment dealing with applications to adduce new evidence challenging the judge's finding of fact. In an unreported judgment the Court of Appeal dismissed these applications. The correctness of this judgment was not debated before the House.
   The issues
13.   The issues before the House relate only to points of legal principle considered and decided by the Court of Appeal: [1998] 1 W.L.R. 547. It is not suggested that in this case there has been an abusive resort to Article 6: see Mölnlycke A. B. v Proctor & Gamble Ltd [1992] 1 W.L.R. 1112.
14.   The major question involves the application in English law of the concept of being "sued" in Articles 2 and 6 of the Lugano Convention. In considering the position of the six defendants the House must act on the premise that Mr. Stolzenberg was domiciled in England at the date of the issue of the writ but may not have been domiciled in England after that date. I will deal with this question first and then deal later in this judgment with subsidiary issues.
   The approach
15.   The problem inherent in the application of the concepts of the Convention in national legal systems requires a twofold classificatory enquiry. In the first place it is necessary to interpret a particular concept used in the Convention independently by reference to the language, structure, system and objectives of the Convention. Secondly, recognising that a concept of the Convention may have a different content in various national legal systems, it is necessary to apply it to the procedural regime of the particular legal system: see Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. v Treuhand Für Vermögenswaltung & Betechigungen mbH (TVB)(Case C89/91) [1993] E.C.R. 1-139 (para.13). The starting point is therefore the ascertainment of the meaning of the concept of being "sued" in Articles 2 and 6.
   The meaning of "sued" in Articles 2 and 6
16.   In examining the problem before the House one can safely proceed from two premises. First, the word "sued" must bear the same meaning in Articles 2 and 6. Secondly, in a Convention of which the major purpose is the attainment, so far as possible, of certainty and uniformity, it is obvious that the search must be for a single meaning of the concept "sued" which can apply across the spectrum of national legal systems and the diversity of procedures potentially involved.
17.   The answer to the central question must be found in the principal sources of treaty or convention interpretation, viz the text, its context and the object and purpose of the treaty or convention: see Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties; Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice 184-191. I turn first to the language and structure of the Convention. One can perhaps accept as a general proposition that the word "sued" as used in Articles 2 and 6 and elsewhere in the Convention is equally capable as a matter of language of indicating the moment of initiation of the proceedings or the date of service of the initiating process. But the Convention also uses the concept that a party may "bring proceedings" in a number of articles: see Articles 10, 11, 12, 14, 21 and 22. The words "to bring proceedings" in the context of the Convention appear to point to the initiation of the proceedings. Moreover, as my noble and learned friend Lord Cooke of Thorndon pointed out during the argument the point is reinforced by the contextual meaning of Article 14. It reads as follows:
  
   "A consumer may bring proceedings against the other party to a contract either in the courts of the Contracting State in which that party is domiciled or in the courts of the Contracting State in which he is himself domiciled.
   "Proceedings may be brought against a consumer by the other party to the contract only in the courts of the Contracting State in which the consumer is domiciled."
18.   Given that consumers are accorded a more favourable regime than other parties, and are given an option, the sense of Article 14 points to the date upon which the consumer initiates proceedings. Moreover, the Convention uses yet other language as pinpointing the time for the coming into operation of the various rules, viz the concept of "instituting" legal proceedings: see Articles 6 and 20. Where this language is used it points tolerably clearly to the initiation of proceedings. Standing back from this review of the particular provisions of the Convention one is entitled to make the provisional judgment that the concepts "sued", "bring proceedings" and "instituted proceedings" have been used interchangeably. Significantly, that is how the matter was viewed in the Jenard Report O.J. 5.3 79/No. C59/1, Chapter IV, Section B (Jurisdiction in matters relating to insurance). If this view is correct , as it appears to be, it may afford a substantial basis for concluding that "sued" in Articles 2 and 6 refer to the initiation of the proceedings.
19.   But there were arguments to the contrary based on the language of the Convention. Counsel for the appellants relied positively on a number of provisions. She referred to Article 20 which reads as follows:
  
   "Where a defendant domiciled in one Contracting State is sued in a court of another Contracting State and does not enter an appearance, the court shall declare of its own motion that it has no jurisdiction unless its jurisdiction is derived from the provisions of this Convention."
20.   Counsel suggested that the reference to entry of appearance involves prior service. I am not satisfied that this premise is necessarily correct. In any event, in the scheme of the Convention, this argument (if valid) cannot outweigh the indications in favour of the date of the initiation of the proceedings In my view Article 20 does not in the present context warrant the weight counsel put on it. The next provision called in aid by the appellants is Article 52. It reads as follows:
  
   "In order to determine whether a party is domiciled in the Contracting State whose courts are seised of a matter, the court shall apply its internal law.
   "If a party is not domiciled in the State whose courts are seised of the matter, then, in order to determine whether the party is domiciled in another Contracting State, the court shall apply the law of that State."
21.   Emphasising the present tense "is" in the second sentence, counsel submitted that the reference must be to the date of service. This is literally correct. But if this argument is accepted it would lead to the absurd consequence that the operative date is variable depending on fortuitous procedural events. This unacceptable consequence can be avoided by reading "is" as "was" to further the objective of certainty of the Convention. Given that the Convention was not drafted with the precision of a statute, this interpretation can readily be accommodated in the Convention system.
22.   Counsel for the appellants put in the forefront of her argument in favour of the date of service the tie-break provisions of Articles 21 and 22 of the Convention. Article 21 provides as follows:
  
   "Where proceedings involving the same cause of action and between the same parties are brought in the courts of different Contracting States, any court other than the court first seised shall of its own motion stay its proceedings until such time as the jurisdiction of the court first seised is established.
   "Where the jurisdiction of the court first seised is established, any court other than the court first seised shall decline jurisdiction in favour of that court."
23.   This article is cast in mandatory terms. By contrast Article 22, which deals with "related actions", creates a discretionary power to stay proceedings. It reads as follows:
  
   "Where related actions are brought in the courts of different Contracting States, any court other than the court first seised may, while the actions are pending at first instance,stay its proceedings.
   "A court other than the court first seised may also, on the application of one of the parties, decline jurisdiction if the law of that court permits the consolidation of related actions and the court first seised has jurisdiction over both actions.
   "For the purposes of this Article, actions are deemed to be related where they are so closely connected that it is expendient to hear and determine them together to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments resulting from separate proceedings".
24.   Counsel for the appellant relies on three matters. First, in Zelger v Salinitri (Case 129/83) [1984] E.C.R. 2397 (at 2408, paras. 14-16), the European Court of Justice observed that, while there is no uniformity under national laws as to when a court became seized, the court first seized "is the one before which the requirements for proceedings to become definitively pending are first fulfilled, such requirements to be determined in accordance with the national law of each of the courts concerned." Secondly, in the Court of Appeal in Dresser U.K. Ltd v Falcongate Freight Management Ltd [1992] Q.B. 502 in a detailed and careful judgment Bingham L.J. (now Lord Bingham of Cornhill) held that under Articles 21 and 22 in England seisin occurred upon service. Subject to a relatively narrow point, a differently constituted Court of Appeal of which I was a member in Neste Chemicals S.A. v D.K. Line S.A. (The Sargasso) [1994] 3 All. E.R. 180 adopted the reasoning in the Dresser case as correctly stating the position in English law. This line of authority states the present practice and law in England: see also Arab Monetary Fund v Hashim (No. 4) [1992] 1 W.L.R. 1176. Thirdly, counsel for the appellants referred in the context of Articles 21 and 22 to the statement in the Schlosser report (O.J. 5.3.79/No. C59), 71, at para. 182 (at p. 125) that:
  
   "In the original Member States of the Community a claim becomes pending when the document instituting the proceedings is served. Filing with the court is sometimes sufficient".
25.   She also referred your Lordships to the statement in Dicey and Morris, The Conflict of Laws, 13th ed., (2000), at pp. 410-411, para. 12.050 that: "In some countries (e.g. France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) an action is considered pending only from the date of service of proceedings. In others (such as England and Belgium) an action is, for some purposes at least, regarded as pending once proceedings are issued." Counsel for the respondents invited your Lordships to hold that the Dresser case and the Sargasso case were wrongly decided and that under Articles 21 and 22 the initiation of the proceedings was the critical time. The strongest point made by counsel for the respondents is the risk of fragmentation of proceedings in multi-party disputes: see Grupo Torras S.A. v Sheikh Fahad Mohammed Al-Sabah [1996] 1 Lloyd's Rep 7, at 21-22; The Maciej Rataj [1995] 1 Lloyd's Rep. 302. Since the hearing of the appeal I have also become aware of a detailed academic critique of the decisions in Dresser and The Sargasso: see Peter Kaye, The Date upon which an English Court becomes "seised" of proceedings under the Brussels Convention: Issue or Service of Process?, 1995, Journal of Business Law 217. It is unnecessary to discuss these issues. Moreover, it would also not be right to express views on the correctness of Dresser since your Lordships indicated to counsel for the appellants that she need not reply on the point. It is essential to keep firmly in mind that this case is only concerned with the interpretation and application of Articles 2 and 6. And in my view the contrast between on the one hand, suing, bringing proceedings and instituting proceedings and, on the other hand, the stronger concept of a court being first seized and proceeding becoming "definitively pending", as explained in Zelger, militates against rather than in favour of the appellants' argument. Moreover, there is a fundamental difference, reflected in the language of the Convention, between a jurisdictional rule which determines when a court has jurisdiction to take cognizance of a case and a tie-break rule which governs when two courts are in the process of proceeding as if they had jurisdiction. In my view therefore the arguments based on the language and structure of the Convention tend to favour the date of initiation of the proceedings.
26.   It is also necessary to consider the rival arguments from the point of view of the attainment of the principal objectives of the Convention. The preamble of the Lugano Convention records the desire "to ensure as uniform an interpretation as possible of this instrument": see also Protocol No. 2. on the Uniform Interpretation of the Convention, Articles 1 and 2. It may be that either interpretation would meet this criterion. Certainly, the date of initiation of proceedings can meet this criterion in all national systems albeit that the point may be differently determined in different countries. The second major aim of the Convention is the achievement of predictability and certainty at all stages for all concerned, viz at the time of the conclusion of the transaction, when the dispute has arisen and when it has to be ruled on. In Mullox IBC Ltd v Hendrick Geels (Case C-125/92) [1993] E.C.R. 1-4075 the European Court of Justice said (at p. 1-4103, para. 11) of its judgment that the aim is to allow "the plaintiff easily to identify the court before which he may bring an action and the defendant reasonably to foresee the court before which he may be sued." From this perspective there is an advantage in selecting the time of lodging of the process with the court as the operative time. It will presumably be a matter of record in all national legal systems. It will have the advantage of certainty. On the other hand, proof of valid service depends on evidence. Moreover, even if there are differences between systems as to how proceedings are initiated, the date of initiation appears to a readily available point of reference. On balance selecting the time of initiation of the proceedings as the critical point promotes certainty.
27.   It also seems right to consider on a broader basis the balance of merits and demerits of the two interpretations. A relevant practical consideration is that the date of initiation of the proceedings represents the last opportunity for the plaintiff to check the facts and examine the law on which the claim is based. There is, however, force in the argument that a date of issue rule causes substantial inconvenience to a defendant who bona fide changes his domicile after commencement of the proceedings. But this factor is outweighed by the consideration that date of service of process as the operative date will enable some defendants to evade the service of process when they become aware of the incipient proceedings. This risk is particularly significant in a claim against a multiplicity of defendants. The present case is a good example of such evasion of service by a change of domicile. The majority in the Court of Appeal rightly regarded this as an important factor. Indeed the idea that the domicile of Mr. Stolzenberg would have had to be checked upon every occasion when it was sought to serve a Convention-defendant is singularly unattractive. Such an outcome of the appellants' argument by itself tends to cast doubt on its feasibility in the framework of a Convention which aims at legal certainty.
28.   Looking at the matter in the round I am satisfied that "sued" in Articles 2 and 6 should be interpreted as referring to the initiation of the proceedings.
   The application in England
29.   It is now necessary to apply the Convention concept to English legal proceedings. This is straightforward. It is trite law that an action is begun in the High Court when a writ of originating summons is issued. This requirement was satisfied on 1 August 1996.
   The Second Issue: Service on the Convention Appellants
30.   The next question is whether Article 6 requires there to have been prior service on an anchor defendant domiciled in the state courts in which the proceedings have been brought. This question arises because the two Convention appellants were served before Mr. Stolzenberg was served. The majority in the Court of Appeal ruled that under Article 6 there is no requirement of prior service upon an anchor defendant.
31.   Article 6 fulfils a similar function to RSC Ord. 11, r. 1(i)(c) which expressly requires the claim to have been brought against a person "duly served within or out of the jurisdiction" as well as the intended defendant to have been a necessary or proper party. There are, however, significant differences. Under Order 11, r. 1(i)(c) leave must be obtained on an ex parte basis. As Waller L.J. observed "one can see that insistence on service on another defendant prior to obtaining leave may provide some practical safeguard": 568C. By contrast Waller L.J. pointed out that [568D-F]:
  
   "article 6 does not provide for the service of proceedings on one defendant before the issue and joinder of others, because no practical safeguard would be provided by so insisting. The first time that a court will review the question of whether article 6(1) provides jurisdiction is on an inter partes application contesting that jurisdiction. At that stage sufficient protection is available to a defendant and the order in which defendants have been served or whether one was served before the issue of proceedings against another has no materiality whatever. The proper question at that stage under article 6(1) is simply whether a defendant domiciled within the jurisdiction is a party and a genuine party, and whether the Convention is in any way being abused".
32.   There is therefore no basis for implying a requirement that the anchor defendant must be served first. The submissions of the appellants must be rejected.
   The Third Issue: Service on the Non-Convention Appellants
33.   One of the principal defendants, namely the Third Defendant, has submitted to the jurisdiction and has served a defence. The claims against him involve each of the non-Convention appellants. These are claims to which those appellants are necessary and proper parties. It follows that jurisdiction against the non-Convention appellants can be maintained irrespective of any issue over service on Mr. Stolzenberg. There is therefore no independent argument available to the appellants under this heading.
   The relevant standard of proof
34.   The judge and all members of the Court of Appeal held, contrary to the submissions on behalf of the appellants, that a test of good arguable case is the appropriate standard of proof to apply to the question whether a defendant is domiciled in England on an application under Order 12, r. 8 involving issues arising under Article 6. In their written case, which was not supported by oral argument, the appellants contested the correctness of this ruling. Their Lordships did not call on counsel for the respondents to deal with the issue. In a purely internal English case the test of a good arguable case had been laid down by the House of Lords as applicable also in respect of domicile as a ground of jurisdiction: Seaconsar Far East Ltd v Bank Markazi Jomhouri Islami Iran [1994] 1 A.C. 438. The question is whether in the context of Article 6 the more stringent test of a balance of probabilities should apply. The adoption of such a test would sometimes require the trial of an issue or at least cross examination of deponents to affidavits. It would involve great expense and delay. While it is true that the jurisdictional issues under the Conventions are very important, they ought generally to be decided with due despatch without hearing oral evidence. In my view Waller L.J.'s judgment correctly explained on sound principled and pragmatic grounds why the appellants argument is misconceived.
   Disposal of the appeal
35.   For the reasons I have given I would dismiss the appeal.
   LORD HOFFMANN My Lords,
   1. The Issue
NN   The main issue in this appeal can be shortly stated. Article 2 of the Brussels and Lugano Conventions requires that, subject to exceptions, a person domiciled in a Contracting State should be sued in the courts of that State. Article 6.1 is one such exception. It provides that a person domiciled in a Contracting State may also, when he is one of a number of defendants, be sued in the courts for the place where any one of them is domiciled. At what stage in English civil procedure is a person "sued" for the purposes of Articles 2 and 6? Is it the time when the proceedings are started by the issue of a claim form by the court? (C.P.R. Rule 7.2.(1)). Or is it the time when the claim form is served on the defendant? At which stage does the defendant (or one of them) have to be domiciled in England?
   2. The facts
36.   The plaintiffs are the trustees of Canadian pension funds. They claim to have been induced by a fraudulent conspiracy to invest £120m. in companies called the Castor group, which collapsed in 1992. Mr Stolzenberg, the President and Chief Executive of the Castor Group, is said to have been the chief conspirator. He lived in a house in Belgravia and was domiciled in England. Three other individuals were alleged to have conspired with him. They lived in Canada and Switzerland.
37.   The plaintiffs decided to commence proceedings in England, suing Mr Stolzenberg under Article 2 and the other defendants domiciled in Convention countries ("the Convention defendants") under Article 6.1. They also wished to join 33 corporate entities which were alleged to have received some of the money or to have been otherwise involved in the fraud. Most of them were incorporated in various tax havens. None was domiciled in England.
38.   The plaintiffs proceeded slowly and carefully. The case was complicated. The statement of claim as eventually served, with its schedules and appendices, ran to over 300 pages. On 15 May 1996, before the issue of proceedings, they applied ex parte and in camera to Rimer J. for Mareva injunctions and associated interlocutory relief against various proposed defendants. Rimer J. heard submissions for five days and on 4 June 1996 he made the orders upon an undertaking by the plaintiffs to issue a writ. The writ was issued on 1 August 1996. But neither the writ nor the secretly obtained interlocutory orders were served until March of the following year. Ordinarily a writ has to be served within four months of issue: see RSC Ord. 6, r. 8(1)(c), now C.P.R. Rule 7.5(2). But the court gave the plaintiffs leave to defer service because they wanted to co-ordinate the service of interlocutory relief in other jurisdictions in which some of the defendants were present. In some cases, such as Switzerland, it was necessary to institute criminal proceedings. This took time.
39.   Meanwhile Mr Stolzenberg got wind of the proceedings. He was the subject of a B.B.C. investigative programme in February 1996. He sold his house in August 1996 and moved to another house nearby. 11 March 1997 was the day for service. But Mr Stolzenberg could not be found. On the following day he caught the Eurostar to Germany. He abandoned his English domicile. Rattee J. made an order for substituted service. On 13 June 1997 he made an order that Mr Stolzenberg had been duly served. But by that time he was no longer domiciled in England.
   3. The proceedings
40.   The defendants other than Mr Stolzenberg were served on 11 March 1997. The Convention defendants were served without leave under RSC Ord. 11, r. 1(2). The defendants domiciled in states which were not parties to either of the Conventions ("the non-Convention defendants") were served by leave granted under Ord. 11(1)(c) on the ground that they were necessary and proper parties to a claim brought against other persons duly served within or out of the jurisdiction.
41.   This appeal arises out of an application under RSC Ord. 12, r. 8 by two Convention defendants domiciled in Switzerland and four non-Convention defendants to set aside service of the writ on the ground that the English court had no jurisdiction over them. The main ground was that for the purposes of Articles 2 and 6, Mr Stolzenberg was not "sued" until the proceedings were served upon him. As he was not then domiciled in England, the court had no jurisdiction. It followed that there was no English defendant for the purpose of founding jurisdiction against the other Convention defendants under Article 6.1 And as they had not been "duly served", leave should not have been given to serve the non-Convention defendants under RSC Ord. 11(1)(c).
42.   Rattee J. held that a defendant was sued in England for the purposes of the Conventions when the writ was issued. His decision was affirmed by a majority of the Court of Appeal (Nourse and Waller L.JJ., Pill L.J. dissenting). The defendants appeal to your Lordships House.
   4. The Conventions
43.   The Brussels and Lugano Conventions are for present purposes in identical language. The Brussels Contracting States are members of the European Union and questions on the interpretation of the Convention may be referred to the European Court of Justice. The Lugano Convention includes non-members and the European Court has no jurisdiction over it. Nevertheless, as the two Conventions were intended to establish a single system for the allocation of jurisdiction among Contracting States and the mutual recognition of their judgments,. decisions of the European Court on the Brussels Convention are obviously of great authority for the interpretation of the parallel provisions of the Lugano Convention. As the two Convention defendants in this case are domiciled in Switzerland, the Lugano Convention is the one engaged.
   5. Autonomous and national concepts
44.   The jurisprudence of the European Court distinguishes between those concepts in the Brussels Convention which have an autonomous or independent meaning, irrespective of their content in the law of any particular national system, and those which require the national court to give content to the Convention concept in accordance with its domestic law. So, for example, the expression "consumer" in Articles 13 and 14 has been given an autonomous meaning: see Benincasa v Dentalkit Srl (Case C-269/95) [1998] All E.R. (E.C.) 135. On the other hand, in Tessili v Dunlop [1976] E.C.R. 1473 the Court decided that "place of performance" of a contract in Article 5.1 should be determined according to whatever the national court's conflict rules regarded as the proper law of the contract.
45.   The Conventions contain numerous references to the commencement of proceedings. Thus Articles 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 20 speak of a person being "sued", articles 6.2 and 20 of proceedings being "instituted", Articles 10, 11, 14, 21 and 22 of proceedings being "brought" and Articles 21, 22 and 23 of courts becoming "seised" of actions. In Zelger v Salinitri (Case 129/83) [1984] E.C.R. 2397 the Court of Justice had to decide whether the concept of a court being "first seised" for the purposes of Article 21, which, as Advocate General Mancini said (at p. 2413), "presupposes a definition of the moment at which proceedings are initiated", should receive an autonomous or a national meaning. The court decided, at p. 2408, para.15, that it referred to the moment when the proceedings had been "definitively brought" but that the content to be given to that concept - whether it happened when proceedings were lodged with or issued by the court or upon notification to the defendant - was a matter for national law:
  
   "Since the object of the Convention is not to unify those formalities, which are closely linked to the organization of judicial procedure in the various States, the question as to the moment at which the conditions for definitive seisin for the purposes of Article 21 are met must be appraised and resolved, in the case of each court, according to the rules of its own national law."
46.   In Dresser U.K. Ltd v Falcongate Freight Management Ltd [1992] Q.B. 502 the Court of Appeal applied these instructions and characterised the time of service of proceedings as the moment when the English court was "definitively seised" for the purposes of Article 21.
   6. Zelger v Salinitri
47.   The appellants submit that if service is the moment when proceedings are initiated for the purposes of Article 21, it should also be the moment when the defendant is "sued" for the purposes of Articles 2 and 6. If the court is seised when the proceedings are definitively brought, why should it have jurisdiction when they have been less than definitively brought?
48.   For this purpose it is necessary to examine the reasoning in Zelger v Salinitri [1984] E.C.R. 2397. The plaintiff's argument turned upon a play on words in the German language. He had sued the Italian defendant in Munich on the ground that it was the place of performance of the contract upon which he was suing. When this appeared likely to be in issue, he sued him in Italy as well. The German proceedings had been lodged with the court before those in Italy but were served later. The Munich court declined jurisdiction on the ground that the Italian court was first seised when its proceedings were served. The Munich Court of Appeal referred the question of whether this was a correct interpretation of Article 21 to the European Court.
49.   German procedural law has three technical expressions which can be translated into English as pending. When the claim form (Klageschrift) is lodged with the court, the proceedings become anhängig. This has certain legal consequences: for example, the limitation period stops running. When the claim form has been served, the proceedings have been erhoben, literally, raised (there is a parallel with Scottish terminology). This has other procedural consequences. Germany also has a domestic lis pendens rule, by which a defendant can object to the jurisdiction on the ground that proceedings between the same parties raising the same issue are pending in another court. Proceedings pending in this sense are said to be rechtshängig and German proceedings become rechtshängig when they have been erhoben and not when they are merely anhängig.
50.   The plaintiff's argument in Zelger v Salinitri therefore started with the initial handicap that the Munich proceedings would not have been regarded as rechtshängig in German domestic law at the time when the Italian proceedings were served. Nevertheless, he argued that the terms of Article 21 showed that for Convention purposes a court should be treated as seised when the claim form was lodged. This turned upon the German language version of Article 21:
  
   "Where proceedings involving the same cause of action and between the same parties are brought in the courts of different Contracting States, any court other than the court first seised shall of its own motion stay its proceedings until such time as the jurisdiction of the court first seised is established.
  
   Where the jurisdiction of the court first seised is established, any court other than the court first seised shall decline jurisdiction in favour of that court."
51.   In the German version, "proceedings...are brought" was rendered as "Klagen [werden] anhängig gemacht". This is a perfectly ordinary German expression for bringing proceedings, without necessarily any technical connotation about the stage they have reached. But the plaintiff argued that the use of the term anhängig meant that, contrary to German domestic law, a court in a Convention country was seised when the proceedings were issued. He contrasted the German version of Article 22, which rendered "actions are brought" as "Klagen werden erhoben" and said this showed that the draftsman was using different words to refer to different concepts of initiating proceedings.
52.   The Court, as I have said, rejected the argument that the Convention was intending to adopt a single autonomous concept of the initiation of proceedings, let alone one which was intelligible only to a person having a detailed acquaintance with the technical terms of German civil procedure. The plaintiff was therefore referred to the concept of initiation in German domestic law. But which concept of initiation? German law, as we have seen, has at least two: the stage at which proceedings are anhängig and the stage at which they are erhoben. Advocate General Mancini said that one had to choose the one which applied in the appropriate context. In other words, what step should be characterised as being the initiation of proceedings for the purposes of Article 21? In the ordinary way, it would be that step which the domestic law regarded as initiating proceedings for the purposes of its own lis pendens rule. In German law, this pointed to the moment when the proceedings were erhoben. But, looking outside the original six Contracting States and in particular at England and the Irish Republic, the Advocate General did not consider that a Contracting State should have complete freedom of choice in applying its domestic rules to Article 21. He proposed two limitations: first, that the rule had to be fixed and ascertainable, not discretionary as under the common law forum non conveniens doctrine. Secondly, it should not be a rule which "limited the rights of the defence": p. 2415. He considered that for two reasons the defence would be so limited if one chose a time before service of proceedings. The first was that the defendant might be unaware that he could raise a plea of lis pendens elsewhere. The second was that a defendant might start proceedings elsewhere without realising that they were already barred by a lis pendens in, say, England.
53.   The Court of Justice, as it seems to me, accepted the Advocate General's general approach. But it said at p. 2408, para. 14 of the judgment:
  
   "It may properly be inferred from Article 21, read as a whole, that a court's obligation to decline jurisdiction in favour of another court only comes into existence if it is established that proceedings have been definitively brought before a court in another State involving the same cause of action and between the same parties. Beyond that, Article 21 gives no indication of the nature of the procedural formalities which must be taken into account for the purposes of considering whether or not to recognise the existence of such an effect. In particular, it gives no indication as to the answer to the question whether a lis pendens comes into being upon the receipt by a court of an application or upon service or notification of that application on or to the party concerned."
54.   This seems to me a rejection of the Advocate General's proposal to restrict domestic choice to a time after service of the documents. In so doing, the court may have been conscious of the fact that in some jurisdictions, "service" did not necessarily mean personal service. It could be simply the delivery of the document for service to an official of the court. So a rule which required service in this sense would not necessarily eliminate the defence handicaps mentioned by the Advocate General. On the other hand, the Court did in my opinion accept the Advocate General's opinion that proceedings are initiated and the court is seised for the purposes of Article 21 only when it would be so seised for the purposes of its own domestic lis pendens rule. On this point, however, the language used by the Court requires some explanation. As we have seen, it said in paragraph 14 that Article 21 applies only when proceedings have been "definitively brought" and it answered the question in paragraph 16 by saying:
  
   "the court 'first seised' is the one before which the requirements for proceedings to become definitively pending are first fulfilled, such requirements to be determined in accordance with the national law of each of the courts concerned."
55.   In England, the word "definitively" in those two paragraphs of the judgment has proved puzzling. In Dresser U.K. Ltd v Falcongate Freight Management Ltd [1992] Q.B. 502, 519, Bingham L.J. said that the European Court did not use this adverb "by way of mere rhetoric". He thought it was used to express approval of the Advocate General's view that a court in a Contracting State can in no circumstances be seised of proceedings for the purposes of Article 21 unless they have been served. I would respectfully disagree. Paragraph 14 of the judgment is in my opinion a clear rejection of any such rule. But that leaves the question of what "definitively" was intended to mean.
56.   "Definitively", like "really" and "actually" (compare Charter Reinsurance Co Ltd v Fagan [1997] A.C. 313, 391-392) is what J.L. Austin called a "trouser-word". In Sense and Sensibilia (1962) at p. 70, he said:
  
   "Next, 'real' is what we may call a trouser-word. It is usually thought, and I daresay usually rightly thought, that what one might call the affirmative use of a term is basic - that, to understand 'x', we need to know what it is to be x, or to be an x, and that knowing this apprises us of what it is not to be x, not to be an x. But with 'real'...it is the negative use which wears the trousers. That is, a definite sense attaches to the assertion that something is real, a real such-and-such, only in the light of a specific way in which it might be, or might have been, not real. 'A real duck' differs from the simple 'a duck' only in that it is used to exclude various ways of not being a real duck - but a dummy, a toy, a picture, a decoy, &c.; and moreover I don't know just how to take the assertion that it is a real duck unless I know just what, on that particular occasion, the speaker has it in mind to exclude."
57.   What, therefore, did the Court have it mind to exclude when they said that the proceedings must be not merely pending but "definitively pending"? Here it helps to look at the language of the case, which was German. In paragraph 14, "definitively pending" is "endgültig erhoben". And the language in the answer to the question in paragraph 16 is even clearer, where "the requirements for proceedings to become definitively pending" is rendered "die Voraussetzungen für die Annahme einer endgültigen Rechtshängigkeit", that is to say, the proceedings must be rechtshängig, pending for the purposes of the domestic lis pendens rule. By combining endgültig or "definitively" with the technical term of German law which refers to proceedings being pending for the specific purposes of the lis pendens rule, the Court was simply intending to exclude any concept of proceedings being pending which did not satisfy this rule.
58.   In a different context, the word "definitively" or "endgültig" might have been used to convey an altogether different idea. Thus, in the context of limitation of action, an English lawyer might say that time did not stop running merely because the plaintiff had sent a letter of demand. He must actually (note the word) have commenced proceedings. A German lawyer might say that the proceedings must be endgültig anhängig, or definitively pending in the sense of the claim form having been lodged. It is the excluded concept - in this case, mere preparatory steps - which wears the trousers.
   7. Contextuality
59.   My Lords, the purpose of subjecting the House to this elaborate analysis of Zelger v Salinitri is to demonstrate that it provides no support for Miss Gloster's submission that a court cannot have jurisdiction for the purposes of Articles 2 and 6 unless it is seised for the purposes of Article 21. On the contrary, it is authority for two propositions. First, that the concept of initiating proceedings must be characterised according to national law and secondly that it may be characterised differently for different purposes.
60.   Miss Gloster's alternative submission was that even if there was no logical equivalence between the commencement of proceedings for the purposes of the different articles, many of the reasons given by the Court of Appeal in Dresser U.K. Ltd v Falcongate Freight Management Ltd [1992] Q.B. 502 for choosing the time of service for the purpose of Article 21 could equally be applied to Articles 2 and 6.
61.   The problem which faced the Court of Appeal in Dresser was that the common law has no lis pendens rule. Instead, it has a discretionary doctrine of forum non conveniens in which the existence of a lis pendens is merely one factor to be taken into account. In Contracting States which had a lis pendens rule, Zelger v Salinitri was no doubt easy enough to apply. German courts had no difficulty in knowing when proceedings were endgültig rechtshängig. The Civil Procedure Code told them that it was when the proceedings were erhoben. But the Court of Appeal in Dresser had to invent a domestic rule solely for the purpose of allowing Article 21 to refer to it. They started with a blank sheet of paper and were in my opinion free to devise whatever rule appeared most suitable. The question was one for pragmatic rather than dogmatic choice.
62.   The pragmatic nature of the decision was emphasised by Advocate General Mancini in the reasons he gave in Zelger for wanting to rule out any time before service of the proceedings as within the legitimate choice of domestic law. The Court was, as I have said, not willing to go so far. But the reasons given by the Advocate General are weighty and even without the authority of the Court, they deserved the attention which Bingham L.J. gave them in Dresser. On the other hand, Grupo Torras S.A. v Sheik Fahad Mohammed Al-Sabah [1996] 1 Lloyd's Rep. 7 shows that there are problems about applying a date of service rule to cases involving multiple defendants which the Court of Appeal may not have foreseen. It is not my purpose to comment on whether the Court of Appeal made the right choice in Dresser. The question is not before the House and may in any case be overtaken by a proposed revision of the Conventions.
63.   The reasons of the Advocate General are of course specific to the lis pendens situation. But other reasons given by the Court of Appeal in Dresser are expressed in more general terms. Thus Bingham L.J. said (at p. 523) that it was -
  
   "artificial, far-fetched and wrong to hold that the English court is seised of proceedings, or that proceedings are decisively, conclusively, finally or definitively pending before it, upon mere issue of proceedings, when at that stage (1) the court's involvement has been confined to a ministerial act by a relatively junior administrative officer; (2) the plaintiff has an unfettered choice whether to pursue the action and serve the proceedings or not, being in breach of no rule or obligation if he chooses to let the writ expire unserved; (3) the plaintiff's claim may be framed in terms of the utmost generality; (4) the defendant is usually unaware of the issue of proceedings and, if unaware, is unable to call on the plaintiff to serve the writ or discontinue the action and unable to rely on the commencement of the action as a lis alibi pendens if proceedings are begun elsewhere; (5) the defendant is not obliged to respond to the plaintiff's claim in any way, and not entitled to do so save by calling on the plaintiff to serve or discontinue; (6) the court cannot exercise any powers which, on appropriate facts, it could not have exercised before issue; (7) the defendant has not become subject to the jurisdiction of the court."
64.   Miss Gloster said that all these reasons except perhaps the fourth were equally applicable to the question of whether the defendant had been sued. Mr Carr Q.C. answered by challenging each of the reasons in turn. The court's "involvement" was not much greater as a result of service than it had been before. The process server was not even a "relatively junior administrative officer". He was usually the postman. After service and until 14 days after service of a defence the plaintiff could discontinue without leave: see RSC Ord. 21, r. 2(1) and C.P.R. Rule 38.2. The claim may still be in terms of the utmost generality when it is served. The defendant is no longer obliged even to enter an appearance after service. While it is true that interlocutory relief may be granted before issue of a writ, it is always upon an undertaking to issue one: see the observations of Nourse L.J. in P.S. Refson & Co Ltd v Saggers [1984] 1 W.L.R. 1025, 1028. As for the question of whether the defendant is subject to the jurisdiction of the court, it depends what you mean by jurisdiction. English law regards anyone within the country on the date of issue of the writ as within its jurisdiction in the sense that he may be served with process and, if he goes abroad, an order for substituted service can be made. On the other hand, if he was already abroad on the date when the writ was issued, he can be served out of the jurirsdiction only under RSC Ord. 11: see Wilding v Bean [1891] 1 Q.B. 100 and Laurie v Carroll (1958) 98 C.L.R. 310.
65.   I do not think it is necessary for me to say more than that some of these reasons appear to me with respect to be better than others. Their weight should not be considered in the abstract but in the context of whether the time of issue or time of service is best characterised as the moment at which an English court takes jurisdiction over a defendant for the purposes of Articles 2 and 6.
   8. The defendant's domicile rule
66.   Miss Gloster laid some stress upon the fact that the basic principle of the Conventions is contained in Article 2, which requires the defendant to be sued in the court of his domicile. The European Court has said several times that the rule is for the protection of defendants and that exceptions should be strictly construed. Miss Gloster submitted that if your Lordships held that the requirement of domicile was to be applied at the date of the issue of proceedings, that would be somehow whittling away at the domicile rule. I do not understand how this can be so. To choose any date as the moment at which the defendant must be domiciled within the jurisdiction means that he does not have to be domiciled there on any other date. But that is an application of the domicile rule, not a denial of it.
   9. Principle and pragmatism
67.   My Lords, let us first consider whether it would be contrary to principle to hold that in English domestic law a defendant was sued at the time when the writ was issued. Such a contention seems to me quite impossible. C.P.R. Rule 7.2.(1) says that "proceedings are started when the court issues a claim form at the request of the plaintiff." If the proceedings have been started, then surely the defendant has been sued. Under the old Rules of the Supreme Court, it was a general principle that proceedings were started when the writ was issued. Of course there were exceptions, such as the Admiralty practice deriving from civil law (see The Helenslea (1881) 7 P.D. 57, as explained in Arab Monetary Fund v Hashim (No. 4) [1992] 1 W.L.R. 1176 and also In re Foseco International Ltd's Patent [1976] 2 F.S.R. 244, in which a statutory context displaced the general principle. And Dresser U.K. Ltd v Falcongate Freight Management Ltd [1992] Q.B. 502 is a striking example of such a case. But the Civil Procedure Rules appear to assume that the issue of the claim form will be the moment by reference to which the existence of the court's jurisdiction over the defendant will be decided. Paragraph 3.5 of the Practice Direction which supplements CPR Part 7 says that when a claim form to be served out of the jurisdiction is one which the court has power to deal with under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982Acts (i.e., under the Conventions) the claim form "should be endorsed with a statement that the court has power under that Act to deal with the claim." (My emphasis). A similar requirement existed under RSC Ord. 6, r. 7(1)(b). And it is in accordance with this principle that the question of whether the court has power to order substituted service upon a defendant who has left the jurisdiction depends upon whether he was here when the writ was issued.
68.   Next, are there any practical considerations which would make a choice of the date of issue of proceedings unsuitable to achieve the objects of the Conventions? In Mulox IBC Ltd v Geels (Case C-125/92) [1993] ECR I-4075, 4103, at paragraph 11, the European Court formulated a rationale for the uniform jurisdiction rules of the Conventions:
  
   "to reinforce the legal protection available to persons established in the Community by, at the same time, allowing the plaintiff easily to identify the court before which he may bring an action and the defendant reasonably to foresee the court before which he may be sued."
69.   The majority in the Court of Appeal said that these objectives would be best achieved by choosing the date when the claim form was issued. If a defendant was domiciled in England on that date, the plaintiff would know that he could commence proceedings without the risk that they might be set aside because the domiciled defendant chose to remove himself before he could be served. Such an event would be outside the plaintiff's control. Miss Gloster said that this was all very well for plaintiffs, but took no account of the needs of defendants. They also needed to know that if they abandoned a domicile, they would not have to return to defend proceedings of which they were unaware at the time when they left.
70.   Neither choice can be wholly satisfactory for both parties and your Lordships must consider where the balance of advantage and disadvantage lies. Who should take the risk of the defendant changing his domicile between the issue and service of the writ? Is it the plaintiff, who may have sought legal advice and incurred expense in launching proceedings in what was then the defendant's domicile? Or is it the defendant, who may find himself having to defend himself in a jurisdiction which he has already left? It is the plaintiff who will rely upon the defendant's apparent domicile in deciding whether to sue. He may, in so doing, incur very considerable expense, especially if there are, as in this case, heavy interlouctory proceedings before or together with the commencement of the action. It seems to me no answer to say that provisional measures ordered in England will continue to be effective even if the merits have to be tried elsewhere. The plaintiff will have made England the centre of gravity of his action. The English lawyers will be in general charge of the proceedings and the documents will be in English. It will be a considerable expense to have the whole action moved elsewhere.
71.   The defendant, on the other hand, will not ordinarily have relied upon not being sued in England. Or if he has, it will be because he has deliberately left the jurisdiction to avoid being sued here. This is hardly deserving of sympathy. If he has left for a better reason and finds himself having to defend proceedings which were issued before he left, that may admittedly be a misfortune. But he will have incurred no wasted expense in another jurisdiction and England will be a country in which he was recently domiciled and with which he may be assumed to be familiar.
72.   In my view the balance of advantage is in favour of adhering to the traditional English rule. On this point I agree with the majority in the Court of Appeal. On the remaining questions which were raised by the appeal, I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Steyn and have nothing to add. I would therefore dismiss the appeal.
   LORD COOKE OF THORNDON
   My Lords,
73.   I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speeches of my noble and learned friends Lord Steyn and Lord Hoffmann. Some additional reasons for arriving at the same conclusion are very persuasively presented by Lord Hoffmann; but as not all these were the subject of full argument in your Lordships' House, I am content to say that I would dismiss this appeal for the reasons given by Lord Steyn.
   LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD
   My Lords,
74.   I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Steyn. I agree with it, and for the reasons which he has given I too would dismiss the appeal.
75.   It was recognised by the European Court of Justice in Zelger v Salinitri (Case 129/83) [1984] E.C.R. 2397, 2408 and in the more recent case of Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. v TVB Truehandgesellschaft für Vermögensverwaltung und Beteiligungen mbH (Case C-89/91) [1993] E.C.R. 1-139, 186, para. 13 that the concepts used in the Convention may have a different content according to the national law of the courts in each contracting state. The court declined in Zelger case to impose on the contracting states a uniform procedural rule which was not laid down in the Convention itself in order to identify the date at which the court of each state was "first seised" for the purposes of resolving contests of jurisdiction under articles 21 to 23. The rules of procedure of the contracting states are not identical. As Bingham L.J. said in Dresser U.K. Ltd v Falcongate Freight Management Ltd [1992] Q.B. 502, 515, it is left to the national courts to apply the concepts defined in the Convention to their own procedure. It is plain that the same approach must be taken to the words "be sued" in articles 2 and 6 as regards the time for testing whether the court has jurisdiction on the ground that it is the court for the place where the person is domiciled.
76.   The present case has been brought in the English courts. So it is the English rules of procedure that must be applied in order to resolve the question whether the correct date for determining whether the court has jurisdiction under article 6 of the Convention is the date of issue of the proceedings against the defendant who is said to be domiciled in England. These procedural rules are not the same as those which apply in Scotland, and the Scottish rules are not relevant to the question that is before your Lordships. Nevertheless I think that it is appropriate to draw attention to the position in Scotland in order to remove any possible misunderstanding about the effect which your Lordships' decision may have in that jurisdiction. I have in mind the comment by the European Court in Mulox IBC Ltd v Geels (Case C-125/92) [1993] E.C.R. I-4075, 4103, para. 11 that one of the objectives of unifying the rules on jurisdiction of the contracting states was to avoid as far as possible the multiplication of the bases of jurisdiction in relation to one and the same legal relationship by allowing the plaintiff easily to identify the court before which he may bring an action. It ought not to be assumed without further inquiry that the date which your Lordships have held to be the correct date for determining whether the courts have jurisdiction under article 6 of the Convention under the English procedure is the correct date according to the procedural rules of all the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom.
77.   The equivalent step to that which occurs in England when the writ is issued is that which occurs in the Court of Session when the summons is signeted by a clerk of session under rule 13.5 of the Rules of the Court of Session 1994 and in the sheriff court when the warrant for citation is issued by the sheriff clerk under rule 5.1 of the Sheriff Court Ordinary Cause Rules 1993. In both courts this is an essential preliminary to the service of the summons or the initial writ on the defender, but in neither court is this in any sense a judicial act: Walls' Trustees v Drynan (1888) 15 R. 359, 362 per Lord President Inglis. In that case the ground of jurisdiction was the arrestment of moveables - a ground of jurisdiction which was considered by Jenard, O.J.1979, C 59/19 and Schlosser, O.J. 1979, C 59/100-101 to be exorbitant and is not available under the Convention: Anton, Private International Law (2nd ed., 1990), p. 188. But when the summons was signeted the arrestment of the defender's moveable property had not yet been executed. It was held that it was not necessary for the court to have jurisdiction over the defender before the commencement of the action, which was when the summons was served. The court applied the rule that the date of the commencement of an action in Scotland is the date of the execution of service on the defender: Erskine, III.iv.3; Alston v Macdougall (1887) 15 R. 78; see also Smith v Duncan Stewart & Co 1960 S.C. 329, 334 per Lord President Clyde.
78.   In the report by the Committee chaired by Lord Maxwell which was appointed to consider the practical aspects of the application of the Convention in Scotland, Report of the Scottish Committee on Jurisdiction and Enforcement, H.M.S.O., 1980, para. 5.226, it was recognised that the date when the court is seised of the case for the purposes of articles 21 to 23 is the date of service on the defender. The view was taken that this rule was so well established that it needed no statutory amplification. Accordingly the decision in Dresser U.K. Ltd v Falcongate Freight Management Ltd [1992] Q.B. 502 that the English courts are first seised of the matter for the purposes of articles 21 to 23 when the writ is served is consistent with the position as the Maxwell Committee understood it to be in Scotland, although the two jurisdictions differ as to the date of commencement.
79.   The position in regard to the date for the determination of the defender's domicile for the purposes of articles 2 and 6 is less clear. In Greens Annotated Rules of the Court of Session, Parliament House Book, C 97, para. 13.2.8, it is stated that domicile for the purposes of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 is ascertained at the time when the cause is commenced, which is the time of citation. But the soundness of this proposition has yet to be tested judicially. It may need to be reconsidered in the light of your Lordships' decision that the words "be sued" in articles 2 and 6 should be interpreted as referring to the initiation of the proceedings.
80.   A feature of Scottish practice which may be relevant to this issue is the rule which requires a pursuer to include averments in the condescendence annexed to the summons or the initial writ stating the grounds on which the court has jurisdiction over the defender. Rule 13.2 (4) (a) of the Rules of the Court of Session states that, in an action to which the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 applies, the pursuer must include averments stating the domicile of the defender (to be determined in accordance with the provisions of that Act) so far as known to the pursuer. Rule 7.2(2) of the Sheriff Court Ordinary Cause Rules states that the sheriff shall not grant decree without the attendance of the defender unless it appears ex facie of the initial writ that a ground of jurisdiction exists under the 1982 Act.
81.   The Maxwell Report, in its commentary on article 20, paras. 5.201 - 202 states:
  
"5.201   At present, in both the Court of Session and the Sheriff Court, there is an administrative check at the time of issuing the warrant to serve an initiating writ (which may be a summons, petition or initial writ) to ascertain whether it discloses adequate grounds of jurisdiction, and any defect will be drawn to the pursuer's attention. This practice can continue after the Convention comes into force. However, it must be understood that in view of Article 18 the clerk of court cannot refuse warrant to serve an initiating writ on grounds of lack of jurisdiction unless it is clear that another court has exclusive jurisdiction under article 19.
5.202   We recommend that the following administrative practice be adopted to implement the first paragraph of article 20:-
  
(a)   It should be presumed in practice, where the defender's address stated in the initiating writ is in Scotland, that the defender is domiciled here and that accordingly there is jurisdiciton."
82.   Accordingly a pursuer has not only to identify the Scottish court as the court before which he may bring his action before he presents his initiating writ to the clerk of session for signeting or to the sheriff clerk for the issuing of a warrant for citation. He has also, if he is relying on article 2 or 6 of the Convention, to include averments in his summons or initial writ as to the defender's domicile. And he has to satisfy the clerk of session or the sheriff clerk that his summons or writ discloses adequate grounds of jurisdiction under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982Acts. All these steps must be taken before the summons or initial writ is served on the defender.
83.   As the Scottish rule is that the commencement of the action dates from the date of service, and not as in England the date when the writ is issued, the normal practice is for the summons or initial writ to be served as soon as it has been signeted or the warrant for citation has been issued. If a pursuer in the Court of Session wishes to delay bringing his action into court, whether for negotiations or for any other reason, he may do so between service and lodging the summons for calling under rule 13.13 of the Rules of the Court of Session. This is because the period of notice does not expire until a year and a day after service. For these reasons the point which has arisen in this case is less likely to arise in practice in Scotland, as normally there will be no opportunity for the defender to change his domicile between the dates of the issuing of the warrant for citation and service. If the point should arise the practical considerations to which my noble and learned friends Lord Steyn and Lord Hoffmann have referred, which favour the date when the writ is issued as the appropriate date at which to determine the defendant's domicile according to the English rules of procedure, are likely to be relevant to the question whether the date at which the defender's domicile is to be ascertained for the purposes of articles 2 and 6 according to the Scottish procedure is the date when the summons is signeted or the warrant for citation is issued by the sheriff clerk - which would be consistent with the position in England as to the date of the initiation of the proceedings - and not the date of citation when, under Scots law, the cause is commenced.
   LORD HOBHOUSE OF WOODBOROUGH
   My Lords,
84.   I agree that the appeal should be dismissed for the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Steyn.
85.   The point raised by the appeal, though important, was a relatively narrow one. It has not been necessary for your Lordships to resolve some of the difficulties, particularly for multi-party litigation, to which the present approach of English law gives rise. There is much of what my noble and learned friend Lord Hoffmann has said with which I would agree. But your Lordships do not on this appeal have to address the questions raised under Articles 21 to 23. Besides, if the Convention is to be revised it may well be that some of these provisions will be reconsidered.