TNAG-1580-FCO40-2154-Extension-to-Hong-Kong-of-European-Community--European-Free-1987 — Page 17

EC EFTA Working Group

Exequatur

TE

I attended this meeting on 15 September (EC Co-ordination Meeting) and 16-17 September (EC EFTA Meeting) with

Colin Robertson of the Scottish Courts Administration. joined us for the Wednesday 17.

EC Co-ordination Meeting (15/9)

Carpenter

The Chairman (Saggio) introduced the Secretariat Note (8662/86) which would serve as the agenda for the meeting.

Article 5(1) would still have to await the ruling of the

ECJ in Shenavai.

On Article 6(4) I said that the UK was still thinking about the problem but that we might have an answer on Carpenter's arrival on Wednesday. Ireland raised a point that their procedure on a mortgage (which really consists of one action leading to two possible results i.e. either damages or re- possession) may not be covered by the word "combined" since it is only one action. It was agreed that this point should be covered in the report.

Article 16(1). The Chairman introduced three possible texts for Article 16(1) to deal with the problem of holiday lettings. Variant 1 allowed, at the choice of the plaintiff, the courts of the contracting State in which both plaintiff and defendant were domiciled to have jurisdiction; variant 2 permitted such jurisdiction only by agreement between the parties after the dispute had arisen and variant 3 was not considered at all. A tour de table revealed Spanish and Portuguese concern about having any such derogation. Most delegations preferred variant 2. For the UK I said that we should stick to the

Convention if possible but given that a derogation seemed inevitable then we should try to ensure that the derogation worked

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