Position paper - Hague Convention and the potential inclusion of IP

The American Chamber of Commerce to the EU (AmCham EU) opposes the inclusion of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the scope of the Hague Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters (‘the Convention’) for the following key reasons:

• it would not make sense to recognise judgements that result from vastly different national systems of intellectual property protection and enforcement;
• recognising judgements that result from such different national systems would encourage forum shopping and create legal uncertainty for rightholders in Europe; and
• no impact assessment and broader stakeholder consultation has been conducted to substantiate the position of the European Union (EU), despite the potential negative impacts identified by the business community.

These concerns would not be remedied by restricting the recognition and enforcement of intellectual property related judgements only to monetary remedies, as we understand some parties to the Convention negotiations have proposed. The rationale of including IP in the scope of the Convention has to be justified and is currently highly questionable.