The EU Commission has recommended that the EU does not give consent for the UK to join the Lugano Convention, an international legal pact.

In an update today, the EU Commission said the Convention was designed to support third countries with particularly close regulatory integration with the EU, including being aligned with part of the EU acquis...

“The United Kingdom is a third country without a special link to the internal market. Therefore, there is no reason for the European Union to depart from its general approach in relation to the United Kingdom...

The convention allows legal judgements to be enforced across borders, with all EU countries plus Norway, Switzerland and Iceland members of the pact.

It means that consumers are able to take companies based in different countries to court domestically if they are unhappy with a product, for example.

The UK applied to join the Lugano Convention in order to maintain stability on previous legal judgements on cross-border disputes...