Automated determination of jurisdiction and applicable law for international service contracts: Modeling method, information Model, and implementation

Jurisdiction and applicable law constitute two parameters of international service contracts with a high potential impact on business risk. The legally compliant determination of jurisdiction and applicable law, however, is highly complex and costly as it must consider the case-specific connecting factor setting applicable to a given international contract relation. With the aim to support contract parties in concluding an international service contract, hence, a decision support tool to produce a list of recommended jurisdiction(s) and/or applicable law(s) in an automated and compliant manner is developed in this paper. This implies to address the following three challenges. First, in the light of a method lacking to identify, select, and formally model the relevant legal basis, such a method has to be developed. Second, a common information model basis has to be built in order to reflect and integrate different notions originating from different jurisdictions and their laws. Third, and in consideration of both, modeling method and information model, an implementation of those laws modeled becomes necessary. Therefore, this paper addresses these challenges and it shows for the example of the main European jurisdiction-oriented regulation modeled and implemented that an automated determination is feasible and fully operational.