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The landscape of civil justice has changed rapidly in very short time. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has an impact on civil cases on a global scale that could be characterised as unprecedented. Numerous countries across the globe are facing the question how to enable courts to cope with civil cases in these strange times. Do courts proceed as usual? If not, which cases are dealt with, and how? And perhaps: will the current situation teach us something for the post-pandemic period (which we are all hoping for)?

Dispute resolution in general and court litigation in particular are considered as goods or services offered to conflicting parties in particular markets. Perhaps the recent surge in promoting international commercial courts in Europe serves best to exemplify this. Jurisdictions that invest in this type of court engage in promotion campaigns and try their best to win market shares over their direct competition. Research suggests that the supply side of international commercial litigation is composed of many institutions, which indicates that the supplied good is much more than simply court litigation. In my previous research, I argued that lawyers are the parties that create the demand output with regard to international commercial disputes. Lawyers make their choice of court based not only on the quality and functionality of the court but also on other factors often described as emotional and psychological. Despite this advancement, the question of how international commercial court competition unfolds remains open; at the same time, competing jurisdictions remain unsure about how to make their courts more attractive. This article contends that lawyers and companies – as the demand side – make their choice of court on the basis of their litigation experience. In fact, the demand side considers not only the quality of the service they purchase but also the services related to it, as well as their satisfaction with the purchase and with the emotional value they derive from the litigation. The customer experience framework can also be applied to explain the activities that competing jurisdictions undertake to attract litigants.