TNAG-0929-FCO40-1147-Protection-of-Trading-Interests-Bill-extension-to-Dependent--1980 — Page 95

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2.

As the new Act may have considerable

significance in some of the UK Dependent Territories

we are sending you senarately by bag a cory of:

(i) the new draft bill;

(ii) Summary of Clauses:

(iii) Press Notice issued by the Derartment of

Trade on 31 October 1979

Since you may wish to take early action to see whether

the new Act should be arnlied in your territory some

aspects of the Bill are high-lighted as follows:

Clause 1 This allows the Secretary of State to prohibit compliance with foreign measures which are or would be damaging to the trading interests of the United Kingdom. This clause is basically a revision of Section 1 of the 1964 Act but instead of applying! just to shipping it extends to all trading measures. The 1964 Act only allowed the Secretary of State to prohibit compliance with a measure which infringed the jurisdiction of the UK. This

jurisdictional test has been removed from the new

Bill.

Clause 2 This strengthens Section 2 of the 1964 Act which allowed the Secretary of State to prohibit

compliance with a request from a foreign Court,

tribunal or authority for the production of commercial documents or information in the UK. For the 1964 Act

to be used, two tests had to be applied: the documents had to be in the UK and their requirement by an Overseas Authority had to infringe the jurisdiction the UK in some way. Under the new Bill, the territorial test (i.e. that the documents are in the UK) will usually be enough to allow the Secretary of State to block their production. This clause therefore provides extra protection for all UK companies facing litigation or investigation by a foreign Court.

Clause 5 This clause broaks new ground and has no forerunner in the 196 Act. It provides that judgements for multiple damages given in civil proceedings by Courts of overseas countries (usually US treble damage judgements) shall not be enforceable in the UK. We believe this to be purely declaratory and reflects the current common law position. The clause further provides that judgements given in overseas countries based on competition laws which have been specified by an order made by the Secretary of State shall not be enforceable in the

UK. The Secretary of State would clearly only specify overseas legislation which was clearly at odds with

/our

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