Website jurisdiction query

Hi all,

My query is fairly simple really, so I hope that it doesn't take too much time or effort to answer.

I am an administrator and part owner of an online forum, and we are currently trying to work out which country would have jurisdiction over us from a legal perspective. The owners are all UK based, but the server is currently located in the United States.

Essentially I'm trying to work out if the presence of the server in the USA is enough to give State Courts jurisdiction over us if someone in America gets annoyed and tries to sue us. Or, slightly differently, if a legal case is resolved in the States with certain court orders being made for content by individuals to be removed, are we as administrators obliged to follow those orders, as we have a different set of laws over here which would seem to make such orders non-binding.

Anyway, the examples are less important than the overall question of jurisdiction.

Thanks,

Ian

[annjd]

Yes the server is in some cases enough to cause jurisdiction, especially if you also have US users. Best to put it back in the UK if you want no US exposure.