Sheikh Mohammed Omar Kassem Alesayi v Bank Audi S.A.L.

The consumer jurisdiction under sections 15B and 15E of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 requires the consumer to be domiciled in the United Kingdom when the contract is concluded where jurisdiction depends on section 15E(1)(c). A later contractual variation will not generally reset that date. However, a wholesale restatement of the parties’ relationship, or a variation introducing the very rights relied upon, may amount to a new or novation-like contract for this purpose.

“Directed activities” is an objective question. It may be established by offering further services to existing customers in the United Kingdom, through an intermediary, or through a group arrangement, without proof of a particular scale of business or causal connection with the consumer contract. At the jurisdiction stage, the claimant must satisfy the three-stage good arguable case test.

The claimant sought to invoke the consumer jurisdiction of the English courts in a claim against a Lebanese bank concerning transfers of balances held in eight accounts. The bank challenged jurisdiction under Part 11 and sought to set aside an order permitting alternative service.

The parties agreed that the claimant was acting as a consumer. The disputed issues were whether he was domiciled in England when the relevant contract was concluded and whether the bank, or entities within its group, pursued or directed commercial activities to England within section 15E(1)(c) of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982. The court also considered whether contractual terms signed in 2016 constituted a new or sufficiently restated contract.

1. Disposition. The claimant established the Consumer Jurisdiction on the good arguable case standard. The bank’s Part 11 application and related application concerning alternative service were dismissed.
2. Good arguable case. The court applied the three-stage test in Brownlie, as restated in Goldman Sachs and explained in Kaefer. The claimant must provide a plausible evidential basis for the jurisdictional gateway; the court should reach a reliable view on disputed facts where possible; and, where no reliable assessment can be made at the interlocutory stage, a plausible though contested evidential basis is sufficient. The court must avoid a mini-trial and should not add a gloss requiring the claimant to have much the better of the argument.
3. Relevant date. Section 15B assesses domicile at commencement of proceedings. However, where section 15E(1)(c) is relied upon, the consumer must also have been domiciled in the relevant part of the United Kingdom when the contract was concluded.
4. 2016 contractual terms. The 2016 documentation went beyond minor variation. It was a fundamental restatement of the parties’ legal relationship and introduced the contractual rights relied upon in the claim. There was therefore a good arguable case that the relevant consumer contract was concluded in 2016, even if the documentation did not constitute a formal legal novation.
5. Domicile. Residence is a question of fact and degree. The claimant had a good arguable case that England was a settled or usual place of abode in 2016, having regard to his homes, family connections, repeated and substantial stays, staff, vehicle, banking activity, utilities and use of London as a second home.
6. Directed activities. The bank’s existing UK customer base, its strategy of deepening relationships and offering further private banking services, and plausible evidence of personal contact with UK customers supported a good arguable case that activities were directed to England. The Crossbridge arrangement provided an additional plausible basis because a London-based entity was expected to promote the group’s private banking services. No particular scale of business or causal connection between the directed activity and the consumer contract was required.

First-instance decision on the bank’s Part 11 jurisdiction application and related application concerning alternative service.