Business court
Business courts, sometimes referred to as commercial courts, are specialized courts for legal cases involving commercial law, internal business disputes, and other matters affecting businesses. In the US, they are trial courts that primarily or exclusively adjudicate internal business disputes and/or commercial litigation between businesses, heard before specialist judges assigned to these courts. Commercial courts outside the United States may have broader or narrower jurisdiction than state trial level business and commercial courts within the United States, for example patent or admiralty jurisdiction; and jurisdiction may vary between countries. Business courts may be further specialized, as in those that decide technology disputes and those that weigh appeals. Alternative dispute resolution and arbitration have connections to business courts.
Description
Business courts and commercial courts are specialized courts for cases involving commercial law, internal business disputes, and other matters affecting businesses.Business and commercial courts in the United States
Business courts in the United States are trial courts that primarily or exclusively adjudicate internal business disputes and/or commercial litigation between businesses, heard before specialist judges assigned to these courts. They have been established in approximately twenty-seven states. In some cases, a state legislature may choose to create a business court by statute. In other cases, business courts have been established by judicial rule or order, at the state supreme court or trial court level. Georgia created a statewide business court by constitutional amendment.Types of jurisdictional models
In virtually all cases, the jurisdiction of the court to hear certain cases is limited to disputes that are in some way related to "business" or commercial disputes, and generally fall into two categories: those courts which require that cases have an additional complexity component; and those courts which establish jurisdictional parameters through a defined list of case types combined with a specified minimum amount of damages in controversy, irrespective of complexity.In New York, for example, the trial level Supreme Court Commercial Division follows the case type and jurisdictional amount in controversy model, giving jurisdiction over 12 listed business and commercial case categories while setting out monetary thresholds ranging from $50,000 in some counties to $500,000 in Manhattan. The Massachusetts Superior Court's Business Litigation Session includes a jurisdictional list of case types, but instead of focusing on monetary thresholds as a gatekeeping mechanism, cases are included only where "the BLS in the sound discretion of the BLS Administrative Justice, based principally on the complexity of the case and the need for substantial case management," selects a case for inclusion.
There are mixed models as well, with some mandatory case type categories specifically listed, and other discretionary types requiring an element of complexity. The Maryland Circuit Court's Business and Technology Case Management Program includes certain "presumptive" mandatory case types, while others categories require a judge to more subjectively determine if they are complex enough to include on the docket. North Carolina's Business Court has a similar mixed model that makes jurisdiction mandatory if the listed commercial case type is over $5,000,000, but discretionary if under, as well as a seldom used rule allowing judicial discretion.
History of business and commercial court creation and development
The modern creation of specialized Business Courts in the United States began in the early 1990s, and has expanded greatly in the last thirty years. Business courts are operating in New York County/Manhattan, and 10 other jurisdictions throughout New York State as the New York Supreme Court Commercial Division, Chicago, North Carolina, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Orlando, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Tampa, Florida, Michigan, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Metro Atlanta regionally and statewide via the Georgia State-wide Business Court, Delaware's Superior Court and Court of Chancery, Nashville, Tennessee, Indiana, Phoenix, Arizona, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as Utah and Texas.In 2023, Utah adopted legislation creating a statewide Business and Chancery Court, which became operational on October 1, 2024. In 2023, Texas' governor signed legislation creating a trial level Business Court, and an appellate business court, the Fifteenth Court of Appeals. These courts have been open for cases since September 1, 2024. In August 2024, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the appellate business court's creation.
While Wisconsin still has the remnant of a business court as of October 2024, by a 4–3 vote its Supreme Court issued an order on October 7, 2024, ending the assignment of new cases to the commercial court pilot project, first established by that court in April 2017.
Delaware's Court of Chancery, the pre-eminent court addressing intra-business disputes, has functioned as a business court of limited jurisdiction for over a century. However, its traditional equity jurisdiction has evolved and expanded since 2003 to include technology disputes, some purely monetary commercial disputes, and to expand its role in the alternative dispute resolution of business and commercial disputes. This includes the use of mediation, Masters in Chancery to adjudicate matters, and agreements to make decisions non-appealable.
Other states have a mixed history. In New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New Jersey, among other locations with business courts, the original programs have expanded by adding judges and/or by expanding into additional cities and counties. Around 2000, Colorado's Supreme Court studied a business court, but did not pursue it, and the Denver District Court later experimented for three years with a business court, known as the Civil Access Pilot Project. Orlando's business court was restored in October 2019, after an earlier funding shortage.
In 2015, New Jersey's Supreme Court created a statewide Complex Business Litigation Program after having only a few counties with business courts before that. In 2009, Milwaukee's Circuit Court ended a little used business court program, but Wisconsin's Supreme Court implemented a business court pilot program in 2017 which has expanded to a number of circuit courts and judicial districts, which project has now been ended as of October 2024. In May 2024, Oklahoma enacted a law creating a task force to study business courts. The Hamilton County, Ohio Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati discontinued its Commercial Docket in 2017, but revived it in 2024. In December 2024, a bill was submitted in Montana's Senate to create a specialized court combining business, constitutional, and land disputes within its jurisdiction, which was withdrawn in February 2025.
U.S. complex civil litigation dockets and complex business/commercial cases
There is a distinct type of specialized civil litigation docket designed to handle complex litigation, often referred to as complex civil litigation programs or complex civil litigation courts.At least California, Connecticut, Oregon, and Minnesota courts have created specialized dockets for complex civil litigation within their civil trial courts. These programs define jurisdiction through the complexity of how a case presents itself procedurally and the processes that will be used to manage a case, rather than by expressly limiting jurisdiction to cases with a specific legal subject matter, as business courts do. California's complex civil litigation program provides an example of defining jurisdiction based on litigation process criteria, such as the presence of large numbers of witnesses, parties, and pre-trial motions, and the need for coordination with other cases. California's complex litigation programs are not statewide, but include at least the following county Superior Courts: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara.
Some complex litigation programs do not have any case type overlap with the kind of cases heard in business courts, such as Philadelphia's Complex Litigation Center which only handles mass tort cases. Other complex civil programs expressly include some business and commercial case types within their jurisdiction, along with more numerous non-business court complex case types, such as Connecticut, Minnesota, and Lane County, Oregon's Commercial Court that expressly includes within its jurisdiction both commercial and non-commercial complex cases. The San Francisco Superior court complex civil litigation program helps deal with business litigation in that court.
Former Orange County Complex Litigation Program judge Gail A. Andler is a past president of the American College of Business Court Judges, and a number of California's complex litigation judges, and Minnesota complex litigation judge Jerome B. Abrams, have served as Business Court Representatives to the American Bar Association's Section of Business Law. Abrams is a 2023-2024 vice president of the ACBCJ. Berle is also a current officer of the ACBCJ, has spoken at its judicial education programs, and participated in its first meeting in 2005.
International business and commercial courts
Business and Commercial courts exist internationally as well. Commercial courts outside the United States may have broader or narrower jurisdiction than state trial level business and commercial courts within the United States, for example patent or admiralty jurisdiction; and jurisdiction may vary between countries. Examples exist in England and Wales, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, and Alberta, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Hong Kong, Belgium, Bermuda, Queensland and Victoria, Australia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Spain, in France, Switzerland, Austria, Tanzania, Rwanda, Lesotho, South Africa, the British Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, Cayman Islands, Guyana, India, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Kenya, Malawi, Saudi Arabia, and Croatia.Use of the term "international commercial court" can also mean a forum for adjudicating disputes between parties from different nations, and not as a means to reference commercial courts in a country other than the United States. New English language commercial courts have been created in Paris, Frankfurt, the Netherlands, Stuttgart and Mannheim, Germany, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Dubai, Kazakhstan, and Bahrain. This reflects the growth in international commercial courts designed to hear disputes among parties from different nations. Some international commercial courts include foreign judges with commercial court experience on their bench, for example, former Delaware vice chancellor and Supreme Court justice Carolyn Berger serving on Singapore's International Commercial Court.
The Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, located in the Rolls Building, encompass 13 different courts or lists, for example, the Commercial Court, the Business List, and the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court. One object of creating this consolidated forum for the business and commercial courts of England and Wales was to maintain the international preeminence of their courts for dispute resolution.
In 2023, 40% of London's Commercial Court cases involved opposing parties from different nations, and 64% involved a mix of UK parties and international parties. There is a view that the more recently created commercial courts designed to hear disputes between parties of different nations will compete with the London-based commercial courts as the preferred litigation forum for international commercial disputes. In 2017, New York's Commercial Division added a "Large Complex Case List", modeled on the Business and Property Courts' Financial List for high stakes commercial litigation, as part of an overall effort to compete with the London-based commercial courts as a preferred forum for international litigation.
The jurisdictional scope of commercial courts outside the United States may have some differences with American state level specialized business and commercial courts. For example, the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales include specialized courts or lists for admiralty, insolvency, and patents, which in the United States would typically be subject to jurisdiction in federal tribunals, such as the United States Bankruptcy Courts or the United States District Courts, and not in specialized state trial level business courts. The scope of any commercial court's jurisdiction may vary between countries.
The Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts was created in 2016. From 2017 through 2024, the SIFoCC has held five full meetings, with dozens of judges from around the world, most recently in April 2024 in Doha, Qatar. In its 2023 policy resolution, the Association of Corporate Counsel recognizes and endorses the creation and support of business courts internationally, as well as in the United States.