Can You Sue a Clinic Abroad From Home? Court and Law Clauses

Clinic and agency terms usually name a court, and it is their own. For patients living in the UK or the EU, that line may not be the last word on where you can sue. It says even less about which law applies, or whether you could collect.

We read the court and law clauses of six providers for treatment in Turkey and Hungary. Then we checked them against the EU and UK rules.

What six sets of terms say

Five of the six name the provider's home courts. Five of the six are agencies, brokers or coordinators, not clinics. The clinic that operates on you may have separate terms.

Where you can sue

In the EU, a consumer can sue a trader at home if the trader "directs" its business to the consumer's country.⁷ This works even when the trader is outside the EU, such as a clinic in Turkey. A court clause can override that only if it was agreed "after the dispute has arisen", or if it gives the consumer more options.

The UK kept a matching rule after Brexit. A consumer domiciled in the UK can sue "in the courts for the place where the consumer is domiciled", and the clause exception is the same.⁸ The two texts agree almost word for word.

What counts as directing business? The EU Court of Justice listed the evidence in its Pammer and Hotel Alpenhof judgment.⁹ It includes "certain tourist activities", phone numbers with an international code, and a ".com" domain.

The list also includes travel directions from other countries, reviews from foreign customers, and a language or currency "other than that generally used" in the trader's country. A website that can merely be seen abroad is not enough.

All six pages we read are in English. Whether a particular clinic's site meets the test is for a court to decide.

Which law the court applies

This is where the protection stops. EU and UK law normally gives consumers their home country's law when a trader targets them.¹⁰ But that rule "shall not apply" to services "supplied to the consumer exclusively in a country other than that in which he has his habitual residence".

Surgery in Istanbul is supplied in Istanbul. So the applicable law is then the one the contract chooses. If it chooses none, a services contract defaults to the law of the provider's country.¹⁰ A UK court could hear the case and still apply Turkish law.

These rules cover claims under the contract. A negligence claim for an injury can be treated differently, and we did not research that route.

Clauses that may not hold

UK law lists as possibly unfair a term "excluding or hindering the consumer's right to take legal action", in particular by forcing disputes into arbitration.¹¹ The EU directive has the same entry.¹² A Turkish law firm says some clinic documents contain "jurisdiction clauses stating that disputes must be handled in local Turkish courts only". It says a waiver of all future claims is "completely invalid under Turkish civil law".¹³

Winning is not collecting

A judgment from home has to be enforced where the clinic's money is. Turkey enforces a foreign judgment only if there is reciprocity with the country that gave it: a treaty, a law, or actual practice.¹⁴ It can also refuse a judgment from a court with no "real connection" to the case, if the clinic objects.

The 2019 Hague Judgments Convention, which eases this, is in force for the UK and the EU. Turkey and Mexico are not listed as parties.¹⁵ Suing in Turkey instead has its own cost. A foreign claimant must give security for costs, unless reciprocity exempts them.¹⁴

In Mexico, the local route is not simple either. A district judge in Baja California ordered the state's medical arbitration commission to hear an Oregon patient's complaint after it said it "lacked jurisdiction".¹⁶ The surgery was in 2024. The order came in early September 2026.

What this leaves out

Deadlines. Where you sue also sets how long you have. Our article on malpractice filing deadlines abroad compares them.

Complaints. A regulator complaint is a different route from a claim, as our guide to complaining about a clinic abroad explains.

Outside the UK and EU. We did not research US rules on court clauses. The United States has signed the Hague convention but is not listed as having brought it into force.¹⁵

What to do before you pay

• Read the court and law clause. Note which company it binds: the clinic, or an agency.
• Write down the clinic's full legal name and address. You cannot sue a brand name.
• Save screenshots of the website, ads and messages in your language and currency. They are the evidence that the clinic directed its business to you.
• Ask for any arbitration-only clause to be removed.

The jurisdiction section of our free medical contract review checklist covers the same questions, and the automated medical contract review checks your contract against the rules for where you live.