I am a lawyer by profession in India. I was going through this interesting article about internet contracts and jurisdiction.

This topic still has too many unanswered questions which make the companies think twice before entering into the agreements with the foreign companies. The companies remain skeptical about their payments as they fear that they would not be having any effective tool of recovering their money.

I will quote an example in support of the above:

A U.K. based company enters into an agreement with a U.S. based company for providing some web design services to the U.S. Company.

The agreement contains a clause inter alia among other clauses that the laws and jurisdiction will be of U.K. and in the event of any dispute between the parties, the courts of U.K. shall have exclusive jurisdiction.

The agreement is entered into between the parties through the exchange of emails with the the scanned copy of the signed agreement as an attachment.

The services in accordance with the agreement is provided by the U.K. company but the U.S. Company refuses to make the payment.

Now even if the U.K. company files a case in the U.K. Courts and the Defendant chooses not to appear in the proceedings, what remedy will the U.K. company have except for initiating the enforcement of the judgment in the U.S. subsequent to acquiring judgment in the U.K. Courts that also if the U.S. Courts accept the judgment passed by the U.K. Courts.

The amount of money the U.K. company will spend in the entire process will be enormous and this entire process acts as a deterrent for the small companies.

one more question - in this event as the agreement was exchanged through emails so how the question (the place where the agreement was made or entered into) about the place of the agreement will be decided.

Response to this would be highly appreciated.
Thanks and Regards.