Extraterritorial Survey 2014

September 01 2014

Working with Allen & Overy's Philip R Wood, IFLR has refined the process of benchmarking extraterritorial regulation. This year's survey measures activity within civil claims and foreign parties' susceptibility to being captured in local courts

Extraterritorial regulation is growing at an unprecedented rate. Legal systems are spreading: some estimates suggest that three quarters of the world's countries have made major changes to their corporate and bankruptcy laws alone in the past 15 years.

As the complexity and volume of law increases, corporates, financial institutions and individuals are all vulnerable to liability in foreign markets. The result is that individuals virtually anywhere can now be pulled into local litigation – some of which is deeply unpleasant.

Following last year's highly successful Extraterritorial Regulation Survey, and feedback from in-house readers, IFLR, working with Allen & Overy's Philip R Wood, has refined the process of benchmarking extraterritorial regulation. The IFLR Extraterritorial Survey measures activity within civil claims and foreign parties' susceptibility to being captured in local courts.

This survey is split into three sections:

1. Contracts

2. Torts/civil wrongs

3. Insolvency

Each section features a 'tick' table and single supporting question. This table outlines the degree of involvement a foreign party must have in a jurisdiction to incur extraterritorial breaches in the relevant area. We have rated each jurisdiction's reach with a colour coding system below.

RED If a jurisdiction's extraterritoriality is activated with foreign involvement in 6 or more of these scenarios, then a red rating will be issued. Red indicates a rigorous, strict approach to extraterritoriality.

YELLOW If a jurisdiction's extraterritoriality is activated with foreign involvement in between 3 and 6 of the scenarios then a yellow symbol will be issued. Yellow indicates a moderate approach.

GREEN If a jurisdiction's extraterritoriality is activated by foreign involvement in fewer than 3 of the below scenarios then a green symbol will be issued. Green indicates a passive, hands-off approach to extraterritoriality.

The survey results are summarised below, in an at-a-glance table across all participating jurisdictions.

Click here to download the pdf