English courts have long professed to apply a “presumption of similarity” when faced with inconclusive foreign law evidence. However, its precise nature and implications remain unclear. Here, I argue that no true “presumption” exists. Instead, courts should only draw an inference, that English and foreign courts would render similar rulings on the same facts, when that conclusion can be reliably drawn. Understanding the “presumption” as a reliable inference helps facilitate the accurate prediction of foreign decisions, resolves various controversies surrounding its “use” in civil proceedings and does not render the proof of foreign law unpredictable or inconvenient in practice.

FS Cairo (Nile Plaza) LLC v Brownlie (Brownlie II) is arguably the United Kingdom's highest appellate court's most significant decision this century on a private international law question. The judgment has ended nearly two decades of debate about the meaning of ‘damage’ sustained in England for the purpose of paragraph 3.1(9)(a) of Practice Direction 6B of the Civil Procedure Rules. In a four-to-one majority ruling, the Supreme Court decided that the provision was to be interpreted widely, such that, in a personal injury claim, any significant harm of any kind suffered by a claimant in England could provide a basis for the service of proceedings on a foreign-based defendant. The article is critical of the majority's decision, as it is liable to create both immediate and long-term problems in the context of the service-out jurisdiction in England. It also examines the court's pronouncements on the other question before it concerning proof of foreign law.