Hailing the draft convention assembled last week by the 64 member governments of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, ICC Secretary General Maria Livanos Cattaui said: "The document that is now going forward for final negotiations is on the right lines."

Business experts support the decision to focus the convention on basic business-to-business needs for certainty regarding the choice of national court when a dispute arises and that national court judgments will be enforced.

A special government commission is now to negotiate the draft in The Hague in December, and once that hurdle is crossed, a full-scale negotiation known as a diplomatic conference is scheduled for next June.

Business has long maintained that the Convention on Jurisdiction and Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters would be beneficial in today's global economy with its proliferation of cross-border contracts.

The importance of jurisdictional certainty in international contracts was underlined by an ICC survey of 100 leading companies submitted to the government representatives negotiating the draft convention in The Hague.

Forty of the companies consulted said that there had been occasions when a significant business decision had been determined by jurisdictional uncertainty. Companies participating in the survey together have more than three million employees.

Michael Hancock of Salans in Paris, the international business lawyer who presented the survey findings to the Hague negotiators on behalf of ICC, said: "The draft now going forward satisfies the principal business expectations that the Convention will increase the respect given to agreements between businesses regarding choice of national court and enforceability of judgments."

He added that the predictability of judgments would be strengthened under the present draft by limiting the right of the national courts of choice to dismiss proceedings.

Businesses in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have joined forces through the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) to urge their governments to fully ratify an international trade convention. Business people, lawyers and government officials will meet in Copenhagen on 24 February to discuss the issues involved.

The United Nations Convention on International Sale of Goods (CISG) establishes a comprehensive code of legal rules governing the formation of contracts for the international sale of goods. The Convention entered into force in 1988 and has so far been ratified by 62 states across the globe.

Professor Jan Ramberg, a Swedish international trade law expert said: … The four Scandinavian states “ Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden “ have declared that they will not be bound by the second part of the Convention, which deals with contract formation. Furthermore, the Convention does not apply to inter-Nordic trade between the four countries.

Mr Ramberg, who also co-chairs ICC's Commission on Commercial Law and Practice added: … These Scandinavian exceptions create uncertainty not only for the local business community but for all traders doing business with companies in the Nordic countries. If a contract is governed by, for example, Finnish law, the provisions of the Finnish Contracts Act apply. Alternatively, if a contract is governed by the law of another signatory country, Part II of CISG may apply.

The uncertainty has caused companies to take action through their local ICC national committees and establish a meeting with government representatives on Thursday 24 February 2005 in Copenhagen. The meeting will take place at Børsen, which is believed to be the world's oldest stock exchange and is a historic Scandinavian symbol of international trade.

Key issues to be discussed at the meeting include:

• The reservations of the Scandinavian countries regarding Part II of CISG, which are rooted in a fear that CISG would be only partially successful;
• The isolation of the Scandinavian countries due to the world-wide success of CISG;
• Uncertainty created by the failure to accept Part II, as the applicable law on formation may make Part II applicable anyway;
• The harmful effects of uncertainty with respect to binding effect (offer and contract);
• The viewpoint that parties would be unlikely to seek to create certainty by clauses on applicable law before the contract has been made;
• Rules on formation of contracts under Scandinavian law are not superior to those of Part II of CISG;
• Rules on formation of contracts under Scandinavian law are inapt as a basis for electronic contracting (cf. First Opinion of CISG Advisory Council).

Today(18 October 2007) the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) began sending letters to the Ministers of Justice around the world urging countries to join the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. The Convention was adopted by consensus by the Twentieth Diplomatic Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law on 30 June 2005 but is not yet in effect.

The Convention is designed to reduce the time and expense courts and businesses face when dealing with international jurisdictional issues and enforcement of foreign court decisions. The Convention requires courts to respect agreements regarding choice of courts made in business-to-business contracts.

Following the publication of the Explanatory Report on the Convention earlier this year, Mexico became the first State Party to the Convention on 26 September 2007 when it deposited its instrument of accession. One more ratification or accession will suffice to bring the Convention into force.

“The Convention should go a long way to reduce the workload of courts and the expense to businesses of long court battles over essentially procedural points,” said ICC Secretary General Guy Sebban. “That is why ICC has long been an active supporter of the Convention and is today calling on governments to act promptly to ratify the Convention.”

More information regarding the Convention, including the Explanatory Report and the status of signatures, ratifications and accessions may be found at http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php.

The text of the Convention itself may be found at http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.text&cid=98