Manuel Fernandez of GSK Stockmann looks at recent events affecting Luxembourg’s procedural law.
Luxembourg’s legal system was originally influenced by neighbouring Belgium and France, but is now evolving in a unique direction to match the specific needs and opportunities of the Grand Duchy’s economy. In this context, procedural law is constantly developing to be as quick and efficient as possible. There are two primary reasons for this evolution. The first is a consequence of recent challenges which have boosted the judicial system, while the other is the ambition to have an attractive and efficient judicial system for investors, financial institutions and companies.
Luxembourg’s judicial system has faced two major challenges in recent years. The first was a game-changer and came from abroad: the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. This announcement led to a long period of legal uncertainty, followed by a transition period where EU regulations remained applicable. Since Brexit, we have seen a clear regression from a procedural-law perspective, especially in respect of the recognition and enforcement of UK court decisions in Luxembourg (and vice-versa). The second game-changing challenge was the Covid-19 pandemic which abruptly caused a profound disruption to all judicial systems.
The impact of these two unexpected challenges, with which all legal practitioners in the EU were confronted, led to many uncertainties, abrupt changes and improvements in procedural law.
For the purpose of this article, only procedural law for commercial disputes will be analysed.
This article was orginally published in the CDR Magazine published by: Global Legal Group and is available for download as a PDF file and on the the ICLG website.
