A guide to the conflict of laws dealing with jurisdiction and applicable law in commercial and employment-related cases enabling practitioners to assimilate and understand the rules which apply in cases that have an international element.

Commercial claims have long had an international element and the same is increasingly true for employment cases in particular in employee competition or team moves where, for example, a defendant in country A is orchestrating a team move in country B. This book assists practitioners by having the law relevant to these sorts of cases in one place in an easy to understand manner. It states the law applicable in particular to both commercial and employment cases. This covers both High Court claims but also, in its employment section, statutory claims involving employees who work abroad or otherwise may be said to lack a connection with the UK.

It uses examples to augment the statement of the law and offers tactical and strategic guidance based on real cases.

As well as providing a guide to the law, comment on the strategy and tactics underlying claims and defences are provided and examples of how these matters can and do play out in practice are given.

Paul Nicholls QC is a barrister at 4 New Square. He has a diverse practice which includes in particular cases at the commercial end of employment law but also broader commercial work and regulatory and public law cases.

A major part of his practice is in High Court employment and related commercial work. This involves urgent applications for injunctions and related relief, including search and freezing orders, applications to enforce post-termination restraints, to prevent team moves and for springboard relief and orders for the interrogation of computers in order to identify and delete confidential information. This work also involves substantial trial litigation such as team move claims, wrongful dismissal, bonus claims and restrictive covenant and garden leave trials. He also undertakes purely commercial cases involving a range of contractual disputes and commercial arbitrations.

His work frequently has an international element and he has to advise and formulate arguments based on jurisdiction and applicable law, often seeking to avoid courts and tribunals claiming jurisdiction over litigants or persuading the English court to take jurisdiction, as in one case where he secured an injunction in England to restrain action in connection with a team move in the UAE.