The Substantive Validity of Forum Selection Agreements under the Brussels Ibis Regulation

I. Autonomous and domestic requirements for choice-of-court agreements. - II. The views on the issue of substantive validity before the recast: 1. The self-sufficiency thesis; 2. The theses underlying a conflict-of-laws logic. - III. The reference to the law of the Member State of the chosen court(s): 1. A ‘global’ reference; 2. The reasons justifying a global reference; 3. The conflict-of-laws rules of the lex fori prorogati; 4. The case of agreements designating the courts of two or more Member States. - IV. The scope of the lex fori prorogati: 1. Substantive validity as distinct from admissibility; 2. Substantive validity as opposed to formal validity; 3. Factors vitiating the agreement to the point that it is ‘null and void’. - V. Concluding remarks.