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Renvoi


In conflict of laws, renvoi (from the French, meaning "send back" or "to return unopened") is a subset of the choice of law rules and it may be applied whenever a forum court is directed to consider the law of another state.

To limit the damage that would result from forum shopping, it is desirable that the same law be applied to achieve the same result no matter where the case is litigated. The system of renvoi is an attempt to achieve that end. If a forum court is directed to consult a foreign law, the first question it must address is whether this is a reference solely to the relevant substantive provisions, or to the state's system of law as a whole which would include its choice of law rules. Forums that do not have renvoi provisions refer only to the specific provisions of relevant law. In this way, the same outcome is achieved no matter where the case is litigated so long as the second state would also have applied its own laws.

But if that second country actually has choice of law rules requiring it to apply the forum law, a difference in outcome might arise depending on where the plaintiff invokes jurisdiction. Whether a difference actually emerges depends on whether the other state operates a Single Renvoi system. A single renvoi forum always refers to the other law's choice of law rules. If those rules would send the issue back to the forum court, the forum court will accept the first remission and applies its own laws. Thus, equality of outcome is always achieved so long as the competing laws operate different systems. Some early French authorities support this approach (e.g. Forgo's Case (1882) and Soulié's Case (1910)). Similarly, Article 27 of the Introductory Law of the German Civil Code (1900) adopts it. But if both sets of laws operate with either no renvoi system or single renvoi systems, forum shopping will be a potential problem.

Hence, there is another system called Double Renvoi or the Foreign Courts Doctrine which will also ensure parity of result so long as no other relevant law is using it. In this scenario, the forum court considers that it is sitting as the foreign court and will decide the matter as the foreign court would. In this system, there can never be more than two remissions, e.g. English forum refers to French law (a single renvoi system) so English law is applied (1st remission) and France accepts the remission (2nd and final). At present, only English law uses this approach.


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