Foreword
Summary
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A1
Acknowledgements
Figures and tables
Economic value of English law | Oxera

Chapter A1: English law underpins significant value through internationally mobile transactions: four examples

Published: October 5th 2021
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2.1: Introduction 2.2: Economic value is created by ‘gains from trade’—realised through transactions 2.3: The law underpins growth in the volume of transactions (and therefore the generation of economic value) 2.4: Considering the law as infrastructure on which transactions take place
3.1: Introduction 3.2: The economic value created through the UK legal services ecosystem 3.3: The economic value created for the UK as a whole -3.3.1: English law as a global market standard -3.3.2: Agglomeration effects -3.3.3: Reduced transaction costs for UK businesses trading internationally 3.4: The choice of law and legal services for internationally mobile transactions
4.1: Introduction 4.2: English law provides significant value to the UK economy -4.2.1: Maritime sector -4.2.2: Commodity trading -4.2.3: ISDA swaps and derivatives -4.2.4: International insurance contracts -4.2.5: The value of English law to the UK economy is significant 4.3: Risks and opportunities 4.4: Future opportunities for the use of English law represent significant potential value to the UK
5.1: Introduction 5.2: English law suffers from a type of ‘market failure’ 5.3: Solutions to the free-rider problem: coordination across private and public parties 5.4: How to manage the ‘provision’ of English law
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Chapter A1

Chapter A1: English law underpins significant value through internationally mobile transactions: four examples

To illustrate the size of the internationally mobile transactions that have relied substantially on English law as the governing law, we highlighted in section 4 four examples from a wide range of sectors in the UK economy. In this annex, we provide a more detailed explanation of each sector and how English law underpins a large proportion of internationally mobile transactions and economic value. The four sectors discussed are:

In these example sectors, English law plays a crucial role in the generation of economic value for the UK economy.

For each example, we give an overview of the sector and its importance to the UK economy. We then examine the prominence of English law within the relevant internationally mobile transactions before assessing some of the risks and opportunities in each market. In each case, most of the value generated for the UK economy comes from businesses outside the legal services sector through the mechanisms outlined in section 3.