UK Court construes jurisdiction reference in reinsurance slip

The UK Court of Appeals has interpreted a provision in a reinsurance slip that simply said “Jurisdiction Clause” as being essentially meaningless, evidencing an intention to agree upon a jurisdiction clause, where such an agreement was never reached. The Court considered extrinsic evidence, and declined to import a clause from underlying insurance that provided for jurisdiction in Mauritius. The effect of the decision was to permit the courts to apply UK law to the dispute. Dornoch Ltd. v. Mauritius Union Assur. Co., [2005] EWHC 1887 (Comm.) (April 10, 2006).