2016
In 2016 Lord Thomas, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales (and himself a former judge of the Commercial Court in London) issued an invitation to counterparts around the world to come together to create the Forum.
The Forum held its inaugural meeting in London on 4-5 May 2017. Senior judges (many at Chief Justice level) from 25 jurisdictions convened to support collaboration between the world’s commercial courts and agreed the Forum should continue as a standing institution. This judicial initiative aligns with global efforts to support the rule of law and prosperity, and to promote international legal services.
Since then, SIFoCC has continued to evolve and grow in membership. Meetings have been held in a different SIFoCC member jurisdiction but have always kept the same structural foundation: a two-day judicial roundtable discussion.
2018
The second Full Meeting was held in New York, USA, 2018. At this meeting conversations focussed on enforcement, perspectives from court users, case management, alternative dispute resolution and technology in the courts. The full meeting was attended by 35 jurisdictions. This meeting generated a number of actions including completing a draft on Multilateral memorandum on enforcement of money judgements and commercial courts and establishing the first SIFoCC international working group to focus on best practice in case management from both common and civil law systems.
Case management principles were agreed and published in 2020. In 2020 and 2021 two memoranda were published on techniques for managing proceedings in the Covid 19 pandemic.
2021
In April 2021 a second edition of SIFoCC’s Multilateral Memorandum on Enforcement of Judgments was published with an added working group commentary.
The third Full Meeting was held virtually, due the COVID- 19 Pandemic, in Singapore in 2021. During the pandemic SIFoCC also issued two papers on Membership had grown to 37 jurisdictions. The focus of this meeting was technology in a new world, commercial litigation funding, meeting the needs of court users and a reflection on the future role for the world’s commercial courts and SIFoCC.
2022
The fourth full meeting was held in Sydney, Australia in 2022. Membership had now reached 45 jurisdictions. The themes of this meeting concentrated on integrated dispute resolution systems, managing complexity and the ‘complexification’ of disputes, the future of corporate legal responsibility, purpose and governance, and jurisdictional conflicts internationally.
Over the period 2018 to 2023 SIFoCC has held 4 iterations of its Observation Programme.
Membership of SIFoCC continues to grow and now exceeds 55 jurisdictions.