Assessing the International Attractiveness of Commercial Courts. Will Paris Eat London's Lunch?

The establishment of an international chamber in the Paris Commercial Court aimed at competing with and divesting judicial business from the London Commercial Court. Yet, it does not seem that the promoters of the new French international courts made any effort to assess the number and nature of cases that French courts could hope to attract. The goal of this Article is to conduct this inquiry by studying and comparing the international caseloads of both courts. The first part of the Article reflects on the conditions for international judicial competition and argues that the many types of cases that each of the two courts handles reveal the existence of different markets, which are not all competitive and international. The second part offers an empirical study of the caseloads of the two courts focusing on potentially competitive markets only. It then argues that the international attractiveness of commercial courts is revealed by the origin of the parties and assesses the attractiveness of each of two courts by distinguishing the cases on this basis.