EAPIL blog

The new issue of the International & Comparative Law Quarterly (Volume 71, Issue 3) is out. As usually, some of articles concern directly or indirectly questions of private international law. A selection of abstracts is provided below.

The whole issue is available here. Some of the articles are available in open access.

Richard Garnett, Determining the appropriate forum by the applicable law, pp. 589-626

The concepts of jurisdiction and applicable law have been traditionally regarded as separate inquiries in private international law: a court only considers the applicable law once it has decided to adjudicate a matter. While such an approach still generally applies in civil law jurisdictions, in common law countries the concepts are increasingly intertwined. This article examines the relationship between jurisdiction and applicable law in two key areas: applications to stay proceedings on the ground of forum non conveniens and to enforce foreign exclusive jurisdiction agreements. While courts generally apply the principle that jurisdiction and applicable law should coincide where possible, there are circumstances where a court may retain jurisdiction despite a foreign governing law or may ‘trust’ a foreign tribunal to apply the law of the forum. This article seeks to establish a framework by which courts may assess the role of the applicable law in forum determinations.

Ardavan Arzandeh, Brownlie II and the Service-Out Jurisdiction under English Law, pp. 727-741.

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.

This post was written by Paul Lorenz Eichmüller, Vienna.

After the Austrian Supreme Court had filed a reference for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU (see here) in a matter concerning the definition of “judgments” in the Brussels I bis Regulation’s provisions on recognition and enforcement, the CJEU rendered its decision in its much discussed case of H Limited. Now that the Court of Justice has spoken, the matter was back in the Austrian Supreme Court – which has just rendered its final decision.

After Jordanian courts had ordered the borrower J (= Jabra Sharbain) to reimburse a loan to H (= HSBC Bank Middle East) Limited, the latter presented the Jordanian judgment to the English High Court, which issued a so-called merger decision. This type of judgment is not just a mere recognition but a new decision on the merits, albeit based on the foreign judgment’s payment order. It therefore contains a separate order against the defendant to pay the owed amount of money.

HSBC then tried to enforce the English decision in Austria under the Brussels I bis Regulation. Sharbain argued that a judgment that is based on a foreign decision should not be enforced according to the rules of Chapter III of the Regulation in another EU member state in order not to circumvent the Member States’ rules on recognition and enforcement of third-country judgments. However, the courts of first and second instance allowed for enforcement, arguing that the English merger decision was issued on the basis of adversarial proceedings where both parties could supposedly defend their side and should therefore qualify as a judgment in the sense of Article 36 et seq Brussels I bis Regulation. When the matter reached the Austrian Supreme Court, it sent a reference for a preliminary ruling to Luxembourg.

In its judgment, the CJEU shared the opinion of the Austrian courts: whether the basis for the judgment is a decision of third country is irrelevant for the purposes of the recognition and enforcement under the Brussels Regime. While the other member states in principle have to recognize such a merger decision, the CJEU specifically pointed to the fact that the ordre public could be used to resist enforcement (CJEU, C-568/20, H Limited para 41–46). It was left up to the deciding national court to reach a final decision on this matter.

After the CJEU explicitly left the question of the ordre public open, the Austrian Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether the English merger decision was contrary to Austrian public policy. Sharbain argued that the recognition and enforcement of merger decisions in general would infringe public policy, as there is no possibility for a review on the merits of the third-country decision. This lack of defence opportunities would trigger the public policy exception in Art 45(1)(a) Brussels Ibis Regulation. However, the Austrian Supreme Court dismissed this argument and stated that general considerations could not be regarded when assessing the ordre public. Only the proceedings in question could give rise to a public policy infringement – and in the case at hand, the court of first instance had found that the English High Court had actually given Sharbain the opportunity to oppose the claims from the Jordanian judgment. Thus, public policy could not be invoked and the English merger decision can be enforced in Austria.

Evaluation

Although the CJEU has left the back door of the ordre public open for the member states, it is good to see that, at least in Austria, it will only be used cautiously – not because double exequatur or the way around it with merger decisions is something to aspire to, but rather due to reasons of legal certainty and uniformity. If Member States were to invoke their public policy too loosely, the decision of the CJEU would mean a step backwards rather than forwards in the uniform recognition and enforcement of judgments in the EU. Ordre public is not and should not be a reason for generally denying the recognition and enforcement of certain types of judgments instead of looking at the specific circumstances and the final outcomes of the individual case.

While the Austrian Supreme Court was bound by the findings of the court of first instance regarding the extent to which the specific defendant had an adequate possibility to make his case and thus could not raise this question again, it is doubtful whether this was actually the case: the English High court explicitly stated that “A foreign judgment for a definite sum, which is final and conclusive on the merits, is enforceable by claim, and is unimpeachable (as to the matters adjudicated on) for error of law or fact” (JSC VTB Bank v Skurikhin & Ors [2014] EWHC 271 (Comm) at para 18, referred to in Arab Jordan Investment Bank Plc & Anor v Sharbain [2019] EWHC 860 (Comm) at para 14). There are only four exceptions to this rule, namely: 1) fraud, 2) public policy, 3) natural justice and 4) penalties. Whether that is indeed enough for a proper defence is not quite as clear. Thus, one must still wait for further cases to determine as to what extent a party must be given the opportunity to oppose the third-country judgment.

The EAPIL blog won’t stop running during the Summer, but new posts will come out at a slower pace in the coming weeks.

Business as usual will resume at the beginning of September.

Meanwhile, guest posts are always welcome. Those wishing to submit a piece, are invited to get in touch with the managing editor, Pietro Franzina, at blog@eapil.org.

Enjoy the Summer break!

The Permanent Bureau is looking for one intern for the period September to December 2022 or September 2022 to February 2023 to work on the 1993 Adoption Convention and the Parentage / Surrogacy Project. Applications will be accepted until 18:00 hours (CEST), Friday 29 July 2022.

Prospective applicants should complete an online application form and submit the supporting documentation described here.

In a judgment of 16 June 2022 (case T 3379-21) the Swedish Supreme Court held that the United Nation’s 1956 Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR) takes precedence over the Rome I Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations and that the Convention shall be applied as implemented in the forum State.

CMR contains uniform substantive rules for transport contracts and is applied by all EU member states as well as several other states around the world. Article 1 of the CMR states that the Convention is applicable to international road transport agreements when either the state from where the goods is transported or the state that is designated for delivery is a CMR state. In practice, the CMR applies to a very large share of road transport contracts in the EU. Nonetheless, it is not exactly clear what relation the CMR and the Rome I Regulation have with each other. Shall the CMR be applied “directly” without the application of the Rome I Regulation or must first the law applicable according to the Rome I Regulation be determined to see e.g. with what potential national reservations the CMR shall be applied?

This issue arose for the Swedish Supreme Court in a dispute over a carrier’s liability for a transport of cigarettes that were stolen during a transit storage. As the theft triggered Swedish excise duty on tobacco for the sending party, the substantive issue was whether the excise duty expenses should be reimbursed by the carrier. It is here noteworthy that out of the 154.565 euros that the dispute was about, 135 325 euros were compensation for excise duty and 19.240 euros were compensation for the loss of the goods.

The extent of the carrier’s liability is regulated in Article 23 of the CMR. According to a compilation of international case law made in the Swedish court of appeal’s judgment, this carrier liability has been interpreted differently in contracting states. Whereas e.g. the UK and Denmark have held carriers to compensate also for excise duties, Germany and the Netherlands have applied a more restrictive approach only allowing for compensation that directly relates to the transport (not including tax levied after theft). In this perspective, an application of the CMR under Dutch law would most probably follow the restrictive approach applied by the Dutch courts. If the CMR was to be applied under Swedish law, the liability issue was more unclear.

In its judgment, the Swedish Supreme Court noted that it normally is the Rome I Regulation that determines the law applicable for contractual disputes in Swedish courts. For the relation between the Rome I Regulation and international conventions, Article 25(1) of the Regulation contains a special conflict rule that gives precedence for multilateral conventions that were already in force when the regulation was adopted under the condition that the convention “lay down conflict-of-law rules relating to contractual obligations”. As the CMR is a multilateral convention that existed when the Rome I Regulation entered into force, a question for the Swedish Supreme Court was whether it also contained a conflict of law rule relating to contractual obligations.

Article 1(1) of the CMR contains a rule on the scope of application for the convention. This rule states that the convention shall be applied to

every contract for the carriage of goods by road in vehicles for reward, when the place of taking over of the goods and the place designated for delivery, as specified in the contract, are situated in two different countries, of which at least one is a contracting country, irrespective of the place of residence and the nationality of the parties.

With references to the Swedish preparatory works from the 1960s and 1970s relating to the Swedish accession to the CMR, the Supreme Court noted that the Swedish legislator had understood the named article as a conflict-of-law rule. The Supreme Court concurred to the legislator’s understanding and added that Article 1 of the CMR can be seen as a unilateral conflict-of-law rule. The fact that not a single member state notified the CMR as such a convention that could have precedence under Article 25 of the Rome I Regulation back in 2009 when the Regulation was to enter into force, was not mentioned by the court.

Regardless of whether unilateral conflict-of-law rules take precedence according to Article 25, the Supreme Court referred to the CJEU’s judgment in TNT Express Nederland to interpret the meaning of Article 25 in the Rome I Regulation.

In TNT Express Nederland, the CJEU ruled on Article 71 of the old Brussels I Regulation (44/2001), which concerns that regulation’s relationship with international conventions. The CJEU held then that the lis pendens rules in the CMR could take precedence over the Brussels I Regulation on the ground that the lis pendens rules of the Convention

are highly predictable, facilitate the sound administration of justice and enable the risk of concurrent proceedings to be minimized and that they ensure, under conditions at least as favourable as those provided for by the regulation, the free movement of judgments in civil and commercial matters and mutual trust in the administration of justice in the European Union.

Clearly inspired by the TNT Express Nederland judgment, the Swedish Supreme Court held that also the conflict-of-law rules in a convention shall have precedence over the Rome I Regulation if that leads to a high degree of predictability, facilitate the sound administration of justice and ascertains the EU goals on free movement and mutual trust between the judicial authorities under conditions at least as favourable as those provided for by the Rome I Regulation.

With this, in my opinion, somewhat bold analogy from the TNT Express Nederland case, the Supreme Court concluded that CMR takes precedence over the Rome I Regulation and that CMR shall be applied as it has been implemented according to lex fori. In other words, the Swedish Supreme Court applied the CMR without determining the law applicable according to the Rome I Regulation.

In substance, the choice-of-law matter did not affect the liability issue. Just like what was reported to be the case in the Netherlands, also the Swedish Supreme Court embraced the restrictive approach when interpreting Article 23 of the CMR. Therefore, the carrier was not held liable to pay the expenses for the excise duty on tobacco. Even if that conclusion might have been the same under Dutch law, this conflict of public and private international law raises issues that are not just theoretically interesting.

In the Swedish Supreme Court’s case the matter was clearly at heart of the substantive rules of the CMR. However, conventions tend often not to be so thorough that there are no gaps that need to be filled out. Also states ratify conventions with different reservations. In my opinion, these aspects call for at least a subsidiary application of the private international choice-of-law rules.

To me, it is unfortunate that the CJEU was not given a chance to have a say on the interplay between conventions and the Rome I Regulation. A clarifying judgment on this matter would improve predictability for international civil and commercial matters in the EU.

The Law Faculty at University of Antwerp is offering a full-time doctoral scholarship in EU Private International Law with a focus on EU citizenship and its interaction with conflict of laws.

The chosen candidate is expected to:

• work actively on the preparation and defence of a PhD thesis, written in English or in Dutch, on the topic of “Continuity of civil status for mobile citizens in a diverse European Union”. Within this framework, the candidate is expected to examine how EU law can ensure Union citizens’ status continuity while ensuring a right balance between freedom of movement, fundamental rights, and respect for the competences and national identities of the Member States. The innovative research will have to entail a full and systematically integrated analysis of both Union citizens’ rights and EU Member States’ rights and competences, and take into account the characteristics of the EU’s so-called “area of freedom, security and justice”. The research is expected to stretch beyond the analysis of the current EU Treaties and case law in order to examine the adoption of new legislation and/or possible amendments to the EU Treaties.
• publish scientific articles related to the topic of the PhD project.
• carry out a limited number of teaching and research support tasks for the University of Antwerp’s Faculty of Law and its research group Government and Law.

The research activities will be supervised by dr. Johan Meeusen

Profile requirements for the candidates:

• holding a Master’s degree in Law. Students in the final year of their degree can also apply. This is a condition of admissibility.
• outstanding academic results.
• demonstrating excellent legal research and writing skills.
• having a particular interest, and having obtained excellent study results in European Union law and Private International Law.
• acting in accordance with the University of Antwerp’s Mission statement
• research qualities that are in line with the faculty and university research policies.
• showing attention to quality, integrity, creativity, and cooperation.
• excellent language skills that permit high-level academic research in EU law and Private International Law. Apart from active and passive knowledge of English, the candidate has to have at least a passive knowledge of French and, preferably, of German as well as of other languages.

The Faculty of Law is offering:

• a doctoral scholarship for a period of two years. Following a positive evaluation, the scholarship can be renewed once for another two-year period.
• starting date is 1 October 2022 or as soon as possible thereafter.
• the monthly scholarship amount is calculated according to the scholarship amounts for doctoral scholarship holders on the pay scales for Contract Research Staff (Dutch: Bijzonder Academisch Personeel, BAP).
• ecocheques, Internet-connectivity allowance and a bicycle allowance or a full reimbursement of public transport costs for commuting.
• to work at the UAntwerp City Campus, in a dynamic and stimulating working environment, in the research group Government and Law.

How to apply:

• You can apply for this vacancy through the University of Antwerp’s online job application platform up to and including 8 August 2022 (CET). Applications submitted after this deadline or not containing all requested documents, will be declared inadmissible. Together with the complete the online application form you will have to include the following documents, in English:
  • motivation letter;
  • CV;
  • a detailed account of your study results;
  • a document of maximum 2 pages explaining the research approach and methodology that you consider the most appropriate for the successful and timely completion of this research project.

A preselection will be made from amongst the submitted applications. The preselected candidates will be informed of their selection at the latest on Thursday 25 August 2022 . The interviews of preselected candidates will take place, on campus or online, on Tuesday 30 August 2022.

For any questions about the online application form, check the frequently asked questions or send an email to jobs@uantwerpen.be. If you have any questions about the job itself, please contact dr. Johan Meeusen.

More information on the academic environment and scientific research at the University of Antwerp is available here. More information about working at the University of Antwerp is available here.

The yearly seminar on European and Comparative law  organized by the Centre of European Legal Studies (CELS) in Urbino (Italy) will take place this summer from 22 August to 3 September 2022.

The Seminar aims to develop knowledge of European and International law as well as to facilitate exchanges between lawyers, officials of the European Communities, professors, judges and advanced students.

The list of speakers for 2022 includes Marie-Elodie Ancel (University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas), Robert Bray (former Head of Unit of the Secretariat of the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament), Georges Cavalier (University of Lyon 3), Ilaria Pretelli (Swiss Institute of Comparative Law), Tuto Rossi (University of Fribourg), Martin Svatos (Charles University), Alessandro Bondi (University of Urbino Carlo Bo), Fabrizio Marrella (University of Venezia Ca’ Foscari), Rosa Maria Emilia Palavera (University of Urbino Carlo Bo), Jens Karsten (Lawyer), Edoardo Alberto Rossi (University of Urbino Carlo Bo), Helmut Satzger (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich).

The programme is available here and enrollment information here.

This is the most important take of the judgment delivered on 7 July 2022 in LKW WALTER Internationale Transportorganisation AG (Case C-7/21) (see already the report of K. Pacula here).

Under Article 12 of the Service Regulation Recast (formerly Article 8 of Regulation 1393/2007), the addressee of a document has a right to refuse to accept the document on the ground that it was not translated in a language that he understands or an official language of the place of service. The time limit for so doing is now 2 weeks. The CJEU rules that national time limits may not run during this time limit (which was only one week under former Art. 8), and must therefore begin to run after the expiry of the time limit in the Service Regulation.

The case was concerned with proceedings in Slovenia involving an Austrian company. A judgment rendered by the Slovenian court was served on the Austrian party (for more details, see the reports of K. Pacula). Under Slovenian law, a time limit to object to the judgment starts running from the date of service (as under the law of many Member States).

As a result, two time limits started to run at the same time: one to exercise the right of refusal under the Service Regulation, and another to object to the judgment. In addition, the time limits, which were the same, and thus overlapped, were short: 8 days. But it does not seem that the shortness of the time limit mattered for the CJEU. It ruled:

41 The effectiveness of the right to refuse to accept a document to be served requires (…) that [the addressee] has the full one-week period to assess whether it is appropriate to accept or refuse to accept service of the document and, in the event of refusal, to return it.

So, addressees should be able to enjoy fully the period afforded by the Service Regulation (which is now 2 weeks) to determine whether to refuse the document. As a result:

46 (…) the starting point of the period within which a right of appeal is to be exercised in accordance with the legislation of the Member State of the authority which issued the document (…) in principle must begin to run after the expiry of the one-week period referred to in Article 8(1) of the Charter (sic) [Regulation].

The proposition that you need the full time period to assess whether the document is written in a language that you understand is a bit surprising. As everybody knows, it takes anybody a few minutes to realise that.

What might take much longer is to seek legal advice to know about your rights with respect to the document. The right of refusal, however, is explained on a form which must be served to the addressee with the relevant document(s).

Interestingly, this case was actually an action against the Austrian lawyers of the applicant. They had received the documents from the client indicating when they had been received. It does not seem that they advised the client to refuse to accept service. They filed an objection on behalf of the client, but missed the Slovenian deadline by a few days. As a result, the client sued them for professional negligence. It could have been that the client would have trusted his lawyers to understand the document, and that the full time period would indeed have been useful, but this was not the case here. Neither the client, nor the lawyers seem to have an issue with Slovenian. In any case, the issue is not whether the lawyers of the addressee understand the relevant language, but the addressee itself.

Another issue with the effect given by the CJEU to the time period in the Service Regulation is that it will benefit to addressees who perfectly understand the relevant language, or to addressees served with documents written in an official language of the place where they live, and who thus may not refuse to accept service. It seems that it is exactly what happened in this case.

The CJEU explains, however, that it did not want to introduce a discrimination between addressees who do not need the time period, and who could thus immediately dedicate their time to the assessment of their rights under national law (i.e. whether to appeal) and others, who need first to assess their rights under the Service Regulation. As a consequence, the CJEU explains that it fears that it would give an incentive to addressees based in other Member States to refuse to accept service, and decides to eliminate the problem by putting all addressees in the same situation.

One can only applaud the court for taking into consideration the potential effect of its judgment on the behaviour of parties, and assess whether such behaviour would be desirable.

This being said, it is unclear whether the Service Regulation really offers avenues for strategic behaviour and thus incentives for parties to use their right of refusal strategically. If a foreign based addressee assesses that it understands the relevant language, that addressee may not refuse to accept the document. If it does so, it will generate useless legal debates on the issue, but will ultimately lose. It will be found that service was proper since the start, and the refusal will have no impact.

It might be that, under certain circumstances, the demonstration of whether the addressee understands the relevant language will be difficult, and that it could not be assessed with certainty whether s/he is entitled to refuse. Maybe then the addressee could decide, after carefully weighing his options (and thus using fully the time period under the Regulation), not to refuse and to focus directly on the merits of the case.

On 23 June 2022, the Lisbon Guidelines on Privacy, drawn up by the ILA Committee on the Protection of Privacy in Private International and Procedural Law, have been formally endorsed by the International Law Association at the 80th ILA Biennial Conference, hosted in Lisbon (Portugal).

The Committee was established further to a proposal by Prof. Dr. Dres h.c. Burkhard Hess to create a forum on the protection of privacy in the context of private international and procedural law. It comprised experts from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Prof. Hess chaired the Committee; Prof. Jan von Hein and Dr. Cristina M. Mariottini were the co-rapporteurs. The documents of the meetings held by the Committee in the past years, and of the Guidelines and commentary as presented in Lisbon, are publicly available here. A related publication on ssrn and in the MPI Luxembourg’s Working Paper Series will follow.

The creation of the Committee was triggered by a simple factual evidence, which is described in the Conception Paper. By reason of the rapid computerisation and automatisation in the handling of personal information, traditional expectations for the protection of one’s privacy have undergone major changes. The dynamics and the dimension of the potential intrusions into one’s personal life have been significantly transformed, bringing forth new challenges for legislators, courts and practitioners. Questions arise concerning jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of judgments, but also legal standing, protection of vulnerable parties, and remedies, among others. Intuitively, it was felt that simply adapting the existing general rules on torts and contracts would not provide satisfactory answers to the new setting. Hence, exploring private international and procedural law issues was considered of utmost significance, with a view to (i) providing a set of principles/framework for regulating privacy in private international and procedural law, and (ii) developing concepts that could constitute a point of reference for legislators, the judiciary and legal counsels.

The document submitted for endorsement in Lisbon is the outcome of several meetings  of experts at ILA conferences (Johannesburg and Sydney) and in-between (Luxembourg), and of many on-line exchanges. It consists of two parts. The introductory one describes the scope and objectives of the Committee and the methodology followed. Then, the Guidelines themselves follow in the form of a Preamble and of 13 so-called articles, each accompanied by a thorough explanatory comment with references to pertinent legal acts and case law of different jurisdictions. The provisions are distributed under the headings General Part (Articles 1 and 2); Jurisdiction (Articles 3 to 6); Applicable Law (Articles 7 to 11); and Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (Article 12 and 13).

The Guidelines define their nature and aims in the Preamble: their purpose is multifold in the sense that they may be used as a model for national, regional or international instruments (thus the word “article” in the operative text), but also simply to interpret, supplement or develop rules of private international law.

From the point of view of the scope, it is of interest to highlight that the Guidelines focus only on privacy: after careful reflection (and a conference organized by the Brussels Privacy Hub in collaboration with the MPI Luxembourg, held in Luxembourg in 2017) data protection-related issues were deliberately excluded. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the Committee did not intend to address all procedural and private international law concerns arising out of cross-border litigation in relation to privacy. It preferred rather to concentrate on those aspects which appeared to be more relevant under several considerations, one of them being exclusion from PIL international conventions (the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters, Article 2, k) and l)) or regional instruments (the Rome II Regulation, see Article 1, paragraph 2, g)). Against this background, the Guidelines provide rules on jurisdiction, applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of judgments regarding compensatory and injunctive relief (to the exclusion of negative declaration actions), as well as provisional measures, both in contractual and non-contractual claims.

Very briefly, I would like to recall some points of the contents of the Guidelines, which are too rich to be commented in a single post. Most notably, as far as jurisdiction and applicable law are concerned two basic principles permeate the solutions chosen, namely (i) foreseeability, and (ii) parallelism between jurisdiction and applicable law. The limited heads of jurisdiction and the decision to repudiate the so-called Mosaïc principle under Article 3, as well as the forum-ius rule of Article 7, clearly correspond to those principles. In the same lines, choice of court is accepted and presumed to be exclusive except in case the parties agreed to the contrary. Specific attention is paid to provisional measures, with a solution in Article 6 deviating from the Brussels I bis Regulation and the Court of Justice decision in C-581/20, Toto. The choice of the applicable law is also permitted; here, a particular answer is given to the case of disputes among users of social media. In addition, for conflict of law purposes, the right of reply is addressed separately under Article 10. Article 11 allows resorting to the ordre public exception to refuse the application of the law designated under the Guidelines, in particular when the effects of applying said law would be manifestly incompatible with fundamental principles of the forum as regards freedom of expression and information, as well as the protection of privacy and human dignity.

It is clear that some of the solutions finally adopted by the Committee will not be fully convincing from a European perspective, especially against the backdrop of statutory prescriptions currently in force. However, one should not forget that the Guidelines represent a compromise among experts of different legal backgrounds, and that they are meant to talk to a public not necessarily rooted in the European Union. At the same time, they can perfectly work here as a model where no rules exist at all, or where there is a window open to amending partially dysfunctional rules (as it may be contended is the case of Article 7, paragraph 2, of the Brussels I bis Regulation). In this regard, it is submitted that none of the Guidelines run contrary to fundamental principles or values of the European Union, and that all of them have been carefully drafted with a view to their usability in practice – a precious quality in our too much technical field of law.

The latest issue of the IPRax (Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts) will be published on 1 July 2022. It contains a number of interesting articles and case comments regarding issues of jurisdiction and applicable law. The table of contents is available here. The following abstracts have been kindly provided to us.

R. Wolfram, Achmea – Neglecting of International Public Law – Some Afterthoughts

This contribution is not meant to assess the Achmea judgment of the European Court of Justice. It intends instead to throw some light on the rules of public international law on the termination of international treaties, which have not fully been taken into account by those who attempted to implement the Achmea judgment. At the core of is the question whether the incompatibility of a treaty under international law with another international law treaty leads to the automatic non-applicability of the former. The contribution concludes this is not generally the case under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

P. Schlosser, Jurisdiction Agreements and other Agreements integrally Covered by European Law

Certain contracts are particularly close to the law of the European Union. They include international jurisdiction agreements, contracts creating an exception in European law, to generally prohibited contracts, and contracts providing the use of European Trademarks and other European rights valid even against third persons. The fundamental proposal of the author is, that the legal effects of the violation of rights, provided by such contracts, must be found in European, rather than in national law. That law is particularly concerned about its effectiveness, if needed by a creative approach. In German law the legal consequences of such a violation must include, inspired by French law, an indemnification of a lost chance and a more liberal approach to moral (immaterial) damage.

S. Schwemmer, A Conflict of Laws Doctrine for the Transfer of Bitcoin, Crypto Securities and Other Crypto Assets

Cryptoassets like Bitcoin are entries in a distributed ledger. As such, they do not fall within any of the traditional categories of property. However, most jurisdictions are slowly working their way to recognize them as property. Even German law now allows for tokenized bearer bonds and defines special transfer requirements. On the level of conflict of laws, this results in a growing need to define the applicable law relating to the assignment of cryptoassets. These questions are not regulated by the written general conflict of laws rules under German law. While § 32 eWpG now provides a special conflict of laws rule for electronic securities, there is still a regulatory gap for other types of tokens. The article discusses possible solutions for the different types of cryptoassets.

B. Heiderhoff and E. Yalcin, International Jurisdiction in Cases Where Services are Provided in Several Member States

The determination of international jurisdiction under Article 7(1)(b), second indent, of the Brussels Ia Regulation is highly difficult in cases where services are provided in different Member States. The decision of the OLG München (Higher Regional Court of Munich) regarding a brokerage contract shows that it is not always possible to determine the place of main performance. This article discusses if, in such cases, the place where the service provider is domiciled should be considered as the place of performance. The authors conclude that this approach only fits if at least a part of the service was provided at the service provider’s domicile.

W. Hau, International Jurisdiction Based on Nationality in European Family Law

For almost a quarter of a century, there has been an intensive debate on whether the European legislator is allowed to open international jurisdiction in matrimonial matters for nationals of the forum state earlier than for nationals of other Member States. Now the CJEU has taken the view that such a rule is in line with the prohibition of discrimination provided for in Article 18 TFEU. The reasoning given for this is not particularly profound and leaves some questions unanswered, but it may at least contribute to a welcome reassurance in the area of European family law, in which very deep differences between the legal policy positions of the Member States have become apparent in recent years.

C. González Beilfuss, Forum Non Conveniens in a European Way: A Failed Dialogue

In the decision commented on here, the CJEU decided for the first time on the interaction of Article 6(a) and Article 7(a) of the Succession Regulation and emphasized the binding effect of the decision to decline jurisdiction for the court later seized. The second court is not permitted to review the decision to decline jurisdiction by the first court. This article analyzes the decision in particular with regard to the lack of communication between the courts, which would have facilitated the smooth interplay between both jurisdiction rules.

B. Hess, Exequatur sur exequatur vaut? The CJEU Enlarges the Free Movement of Decisions Coming from Third States under the Brussels I bis Regulation

In the judgment C-568/20, the CJEU held that a decision of a court of an EU Member State which merges a judgment of a third state is enforceable under Articles 39 ss of the Brussels Ibis Regulation. The Third Chamber argued that the concept of “judgment” in Articles 2(a) and 39 of the Brussels Ibis Regulation refers to the different procedural laws of EU Member States. Burkhard Hess criticizes this deviation from the uniform and autonomous interpretation of the Brussels Ibis Regulation. The solution of the Third Chamber is not compatible with the principle “exequatur sur exequatur ne vaut”.

C. Thole, The Law Applicable to Voidable Payments by Third Parties Under Article 16 EIR

In its judgment of 22 April 2021 the ECJ decided that Article 16 EIR must be interpreted as meaning that the law applicable to the contract also governs the payment made by a third party in performance of a contracting party’s contractual payment obligation, where, in insolvency proceedings, that payment is challenged as an act detrimental to all the creditors. The following article explains the decision and its consequences for cross-border avoidance claims.

D. Wiedemann, Lex successionis or Lex fori: On the Classification of Judicial Measures in the Event of Uncertain Inheritance Relationships

The decision concerns a classical question of classification: the delimitation of succession law from procedural law. The classification of judicial measures in the event of uncertain inheritance relationships, e.g. the appointment of a curator, decides whether such measures are to be assessed according to the procedural law of the lex fori or according to the lex successionis. That a classification is not predetermined can be inferred from different locations: While Germany regulates judicial measures regarding uncertain inheritance relationships in its substantive law (Sections 1960–1962 German Civil Code), other EU Member States and Brazil mainly address this problem in their procedural laws. In the EU, the Succession Regulation No. 650/2012 defines the boundary between succession law and procedure. It will be argued that measures only securing the estate are to be classified as procedural aspects. Measures that also involve the administration of the estate are governed by the Regulation’s choice of law rules.

R. de Barros Fritz, The Characterization of Gifts Causa Mortis under the European Succession Regulation

One of the most debated questions since the enactment of the European Succession Regulation has been the question of the proper characterization of gifts causa mortis. The UM case presented the first opportunity for the CJEU to address this issue. The following case note will discuss the court’s decision and show that, even after the court’s ruling, many open questions remain as to the characterization of gifts causa mortis.

C. Thomale, Circumventing Member State Co-determination Rules with the Societas Europaea

Since its introduction, the supranational legal form of the SE, provided by EU law, has been widely used to circumvent national co-determination law. The case note dicusses two German decisions, which highlight the specific arbitrage potential lying in the national component of the company law and co-determination law of the SE as well as in its autonomous co-determination rules.

D. Looschelders, Characterization of German Joint Wills under the EU Succession Regulation – The Austrian Perspective

Whether the binding effects of a joint will underlie German or Austrian law is of great practical importance when successions are connected to both jurisdictions. While under German law the revocation right of an interrelated disposition lapses upon death of the other spouse, Austrian law enables the surviving spouse to revoke his interrelated disposition even after death of the other spouse. Against this background, the subsequently discussed ruling by the Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) deals with the crucial question regarding the connecting factor for binding effects, namely whether joint wills under German law have to be characterized as “dispositions of property upon death other than agreements as to succession” (Article 24 EU Succession Regulation) or as “agreements as to succession” (Article 25 EU Succession Regulation). The OGH declared itself in favour of applying Article 25 EU Succession Regulation.

F. Eichel, International Enforcement of Judgments Subject to a Condition – Exequatur Proceedings and International Jurisdiction

The article deals with the international enforcement of judgments which are subject to a condition. Against the background of the exequatur proceedings, it sheds light on the question in which proceedings and in which state it is examined whether the condition has occurred. German, Austrian and Swiss procedural law is taken into account. Furthermore, the article examines the scope of the enforcement jurisdiction (Article 24(5) Brussels Ibis Regulation/Article 22(5) Lugano Convention) for these kinds of proceedings and agrees with the decision of the Austrian Supreme Court (OGH, 7.6.2017 – 3 Ob 89/17k). The OGH held that the Austrian claim to examine the occurence of the condition falls within the scope of the enforcement jurisdiction. However, the article criticises that the OGH did not take into account the limited res iudicata-effect of the Austrian claim which should be decisive in determining whether the enforcement jurisdiction is applicable or not.

A. Kirchhefer-Lauber, Private Law Systems with an Interpersonal Division of Law Always Pose Special Challenges for Conflict of Laws

The article deals with the interplay between autonomous German PIL and the internal conflict of laws of a multi-jurisdictional state using the example of Lebanon, which is home to a total of 18 partial religious legal systems in addition to a “civil legal system”. The author analyses, among other things, court decisions in which the distinction between constitutive religious marriage and civil documentation of marriage in Lebanon plays a central role. She also addresses the fact that the possibility of an ordre public violation in legal systems with a division of laws exists on two levels. Firstly, regarding the internal conflict of laws of the multi-jurisdictional state itself and secondly, with regard to the results through the application of a partial legal system. Finally, she highlights that the interpretative method of comparative law between civil and religious partial legal orders requires a special awareness of the importance of the culture-bound nature of law.

After more than 3 years of active involvement in the EAPIL Young Research Network, which she had co-founded together with Susanne Gössl in 2019, Martina Melcher has handed over the responsibility as one of the Network’s three chairpersons to Dora Zgrabljić Rotar.

The Association is grateful to Martina for her work for, and continued commitment to, the success of the Young Research Network.

The Network is rapidly growing (membership currently stands at 75). This led the members of the Network itself to elect a Secretary. The position will inaugurally be assumed by Marco Pasqua. In case your personal details (including, most importantly, your e-mail address) change or if you want to reach out to one or several members of the Network, please feel free to contact Marco Pasqua at youngresearch@eapil.org.

The activities that the Network is conducting are being worked on. In relation to the current third research project the Network has been dealing with, which focuses on the domestic rules on international jurisdiction in light of Article 79 of the Brussels I bis and the possible extension of the Regulation to defendants without a domicile in an EU Member State, results will be published in a dedicated volume of the Hart Studies in Private International Law series.

In addition, opportunities to discuss the findings directly with the EU Commission and the Working Group on Jurisdiction of the Hague Conference are currently being scheduled. The future fourth research project is being defined after the summer break. The focus could shift to the recognition and enforcement issue, quite similar to the jurisdiction one in the sense that it is partly governed by the Brussels I bis Regulation and partly governed by national law.

Mathilde Codazzi, who is a master student at the university Paris II Panthéon-Assas, contributed to this post.

In a judgment of 15 June 2022, the French supreme court for private and criminal matters (Cour de cassation) addressed the issue of jurisdiction for loss suffered as a consequence of fraudulent misappropriation of funds transferred on a bank account.

A French real estate company, Immobilière 3F, ordered several bank transfers from its bank account in Paris maintained by a French bank, Société Générale, to an account seemingly belonging to a French company with which Immobilière 3F already had business relationships. This account was opened in Portugal and maintained by a Portugese bank, Banco Commercial Portugues. The bank details were given to Immobilière 3F by a person who fraudulently appeared as the chief accountant of Immobilière 3F’s French business partner. Immobilière 3F sued both Société Générale and Banco Commercial Portugues before French courts for breach of their professional obligations and compensation of the damage suffered as a result of the wrongful appropriation of the funds. Banco Commercial Portugues challenged the jurisdiction of French courts.

In a judgment of 4 November 2020, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that French courts did not have jurisdiction on the ground that the damage did not materialize in the place from which the bank transfers were performed or where the loss was suffered, that is, France, where Immobilière 3F is established, but in the place where the unlawful appropriation of the funds occurred, that is, Portugal, where the account wrongfully debited was opened and maintained, i.e. where the wrongful appropriation of the funds occurred.

Immobilière 3F challenged this judgment on two grounds both based on the relevant case-law of the CJEU concerning pure financial damage.

First, it argued that the damage did not materialize itself where the unlawful appropriation of the funds occurred/where the funds were debited from the bank account of Immobilière 3F’s business partner, but where Immobilière 3F was dispossessed of the funds, that is in France, where its account was debited.

Second, it argued that the Court of Appeal, departing from CJEU case-law (Löber, C-304/17), failed to examine whether other specific circumstances of the case could lead to find that the damage actually materialized in France and not in Portugal, in which case French courts would have jurisdiction. According to Immobilière 3F, the following circumstances would be relevant: the plaintiff is established in France, the damage caused by the acts of Banco Commercial Portugues materialized in France, the transfer orders were given in France to a French bank (Société Générale) based on elements shared by an entity established in France.

In a judgment of 15 June 2022, the Cour de cassation overturned entirely the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal. It cited the relevant case-law of the CJEU regarding Article 7(2) of the Brussels I bis regulation: the courts of the Member State where the plaintiff is domiciled have jurisdiction notably when the damage materializes directly on the plaintiff’s bank account held with a bank established within the jurisdiction of those courts (Kolassa, C-375/13). It went on and reminded that this however cannot be the only relevant connecting factor: the courts of the Member State where the plaintiff is domiciled will only have jurisdiction if other specific circumstances of the case contribute to granting jurisdiction to these courts (Universal Music, C-12/15).

As a result, the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal ‘lacked legal basis’, i.e. did not give enough reasons in support of its decision: in order to decline jurisdiction of French courts on the ground that the damage materialized in Portugal, it should have first examined if other specific circumstances of the case contributed to granting jurisdiction to French courts. Those circumstances could be, according to the Cour de cassation, that the damage occurred directly on a bank account opened in France, and that the transfer was destined to a French business partner.

The cases on which the Cour de cassation relied in this judgment were all concerned with the loss in value of dematerialised assets, mostly financial instruments. This case is quite different: it is about fraudulent misappropriation of funds from a bank account.

Is the case law of the CJEU on loss of value of financial instruments decisive for the sole reason that a bank account was involved? That is not certain. In a case of misappropriation of funds, the damage is more tangible than that of loss of value of financial instruments. In the present case, the assets did not lose their value, they were taken away.

Alex Mills (University College London) published a working paper on the role of territoriality in Private International Law. This is available in free access on SSRN.

The abstract reads:

Private international law essentially deals with the question of how we should regulate relationships and resolve disputes which have connections with more than one legal system, distinguishing between the institutional aspects of regulation (jurisdiction) and the substantive aspects (applicable law). Traditionally, a decision is made about which legal system (or systems) should govern based on a range of connecting factors. Among these factors, territorial connections have historically had the most significant influence, reflecting an approach to private international law which understands the subject as concerned with the division and allocation of state authority and adopts a ‘spatial’ conception of that authority. Private international law theory and practice has also, however, explored a range of alternatives which might be relied on, including the characteristics or wishes of the parties themselves, as well as other approaches which reject altogether the idea that private international law should focus on allocational questions. This chapter asks why territoriality plays such an important role in private international law, and considers whether it should. The chapter begins with an examination of the role of territoriality in private international law history and theory. It then considers various arguments which might be raised to justify territoriality in private international law, suggesting that they may also justify traditional private international law techniques. The chapter also, however, addresses the question of whether these justifications hold up against the challenges presented to territoriality by modern globalisation, in particular, whether territoriality can provide certainty, coherence, and effective regulatory constraint.

Alex Mills work is forthcoming in a volume on Philosophical Foundations of Private International Law edited by Roxana Banu, Michael Green and Ralf Michaels with Oxford University Press in 2023.

More information on the interdisciplinary project exploring the Philosophical Foundations of Private International Law can be found here.

As announced in this blog, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan plans to invite young scholars to present the outcome of their doctoral research on any topic within the field of private international law, transnational law or the law of international arbitration, at a dedicated seminar that will be held annually in Milan (the MECSI Seminar). Each MECSI Seminar will revolve around one scholar.

Those interested in presenting their doctoral research at the second MECSI Seminar of 2022, scheduled to take place in November 2022, are encouraged to send an e-mail to Pietro Franzina (pietro.franzina@unicatt.it) by 15 July 2022.

Applicants must be aged less than 35 and may come from any country. They must have already discussed their PhD dissertation at the time when the application is submitted (however, no more than two years must have passed since the dissertation was discussed). Applications must include a copy of the dissertation, an abstract of the dissertation in English and a CV of the author in English.

Applications must also include a proposal for the seminar presentation consisting of a title followed by abstract of about 1.500 words. The subject matter of the presentation must relate to, but should not necessarily coincide with, the topic of the thesis: the applicant may choose, for instance, to concentrate on one aspect of his or her research, or discuss developments occurred after the dissertation was discussed.

All documents accompanying the application must be in pdf format. The selection process involves, for those shortlisted, a Zoom interview.

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart will cover the travel expenses of the selected scholar up to 600 Euros, and will take care of his or her accommodation at one of the guest houses of the University for up to two nights. During their stay in Milan, the selected scholar will also be invited to give a 45 minute lecture in English to the students attending the course of Private International Law on a topic unrelated to their PhD research.

The Swedish Labour Court held on 1 June 2022 (interim decision AD 2022 No. 33)  that an industrial action taken in Sweden in sympathy with Ukraine was not lawful as it was not proven that a lawful primary action had taken place in Ukraine according to Ukrainian law on international sympathy actions.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, the Swedish Dockworkers Union has taken industrial action to support Ukraine by refusing to load and unload Russian ships. As the trade union had given notice on a renewed industrial action to support Ukraine in May, the trade union pleaded to the Swedish Labour court that it should declare the industrial action lawful in an interim decision. As there is a collective agreement between the employer and the Swedish Dockworkers Union and consequently a strong mutual peace obligation, industrial actions may only be taken in extraordinary situations. One such extraordinary situation is a sympathy action.

Sympathy actions are lawful even though the collective agreement parties are bound by a collective agreement if the primary action is lawful, and the sympathy action is limited in time. This applies also when the sympathy action is taken in solidarity with someone in another country. In such a situation, the Swedish substantive law assessment is dependent on the content of foreign law even if both parties are Swedish. Another exception are political strikes that trade unions may take to demonstrate a political opinion if it is limited to a short period of time.

In the case, the trade union argued that the planned industrial action was a sympathy action to support Ukrainian and Belarusian trade unions in their industrial actions. According to Swedish labour law, the exception for sympathy actions is applicable also in international situations. The employer objected and stated that there were no lawful primary industrial actions in Ukraine or Belarus. As the Swedish substantive law assessment in this regard is dependent on the content of foreign law, the Labour Court pointed out that the parties had not presented proof of the content of foreign law.

Pursuant to the Swedish procedural code, foreign law is both a matter of fact and a matter of law. It is not subject to the principle of iura novit curia, but the court may use the knowledge it has or research the content of foreign law on its own motion. In the decision, the court seems not to have made any effort to research the content. If it would, it is not self-evident how to assess foreign law or even what law that shall be applied as some of the alleged primary industrial actions were taken in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia.

After having declared that it was not a sympathy action, the Labour Court held that the planned industrial action was not either a lawful political industrial action as the intended time period of three weeks was too long. Hence, it would have been a disproportionate limitation of the employer’s right to conduct a business.

Stefania Bariatti (University of Milan), Ilaria Viarengo (University of Milan) and Francesca C. Villata (University of Milan) edited a book titled EU Cross-Border Succession Law with Edward Elgar Publishing, part of the Elgar European Law and Practice series.

The book provides an overall assessment of EU cross-border succession law. It consists of seven parts dealing with: the scope of application of the EU Succession Regulation; the determination of the applicable law under the EU Succession Regulation; the determination of the jurisdiction under the EU Succession Regulation; the recognition and enforcement of judgments and other instruments under the EU Succession Regulation; the European certificate of succession; cross-border successions and taxation; the impact of the EU Succession Regulation on the national laws on cross-border succession.

Contributors include Stefania Bariatti, Paul Beaumont, Alegría Borrás, Isidoro Calvo Vidal, Zeno Crespi Reghizzi, Stefano Dominelli, Andrew Godfrey, Elise Goossens, Michael Graham, Jayne Holliday, Peter Kindler, Michael Kränzle, Richard Frimston, Luigi Fumagalli, Carlo Alberto Marcoz, Cristina M. Mariottini, Daniele Muritano, Cyril Nourissat, Raul-Angelo Papotti, David Paulus, Giulio Peroni, Francesco Pesce, Lorenzo Prats Albentosa, Ilaria Queirolo, Anna Reis, Gian Paolo Romano, Giulia Vallar, Sonia Velasco, Ilaria Viarengo, Francesca C. Villata.

For further information, see here.

Due to the summer holiday, July 2022 will be a brief month at the Court in terms of delivery of judgments and opinions and the holding of hearings. Nevertheless, until then we are invited to attend, on Thursday 7th, the hearing in C- 639/21 Geos et Geos International Consulting, a case referred by the Cour de cassation (France), with these questions on the Brussels I bis Regulation:

1. Are Article 4(1) and Article 20(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters to be interpreted as meaning that, where it is claimed that a company domiciled in a Member State, and being sued by an employee before the courts of that State, is the joint employer of that employee, who was engaged by another company, that court is not required to assess at the outset whether the employee is jointly employed by those two companies in order to determine whether it has jurisdiction to rule on the claims made against them?
2. Are those articles to be interpreted as meaning that, in such a case, the autonomy of the special rules of jurisdiction over individual contracts of employment does not preclude the application of the general rule that jurisdiction lies with the courts of the Member State in which the defendant is domiciled, set out in Article 4(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012?

The lawsuit at the national level was filed by PB, a former employee of the company Geos International Consulting, established in London, with the conseil de prud’hommes de Montpellier. The core of the matter is the payment of various sums in relation to PB’s dismissal. Alleging a situation of co-employment, PB is seeking to obtain joint and several judgments against the said company and its parent company, Geos, whose head office is located in Puteaux (France). While the conseil de prud’hommes concluded that the French courts had jurisdiction, the Montpellier Court of Appeal arrived at the opposite solution on the basis of Article 21(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012. On appeal, the Court of Cassation is asking about the interpretation of Article 4(1) and Article 20(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012.

The case has been assigned to the 2nd chamber (judges S. Prechal, J. Passer, F. Biltgen, N. Wahl, and L. Arastey Sahún as reporting judge). It will benefit from an opinion by AG N. Emiliou.

On the same day, the decision on C-7/21 LKW WALTER will be handed down. The preliminary reference comes from the Bezirksgericht Bleiburg (Austria). I reported on the questions here, also announcing the opinion by AG P. Pikämae to be published on March 10, 2022.  There is no English translation so far of his proposal to the Court. An interim one could be:

1. Article 8, sections 1 and 3, of Regulation (EC) No. 1393/2007 (…), in relation to article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union European Union, must be interpreted in the sense that it does not oppose a national regulation of the sentencing State according to which the term to file an appeal against a resolution materialized in a judicial document notified or transferred in accordance with Regulation (CE) n º 1393/2007 begins to run from the notification or transfer of the document in question, and not only after the expiration of the period of one week, provided for in section 1 of said article, to refuse to accept said document.
2. Article 45, section 1, letter b), and article 46 of Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012 (…), in relation to article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted in the sense that the recognition and enforcement of a decision that has not been issued in the context of an adversarial procedure must be denied, if the appeal against such decision must be drawn up in a language other than the official language of the Member State in which the defendant resides or, if there are several official languages ​​in that Member State, other than the official language or one of the official languages ​​of the place where he resides, and, according to the law of the Member State in which the decision was issued, the non-extendable period for lodging the appeal is only eight calendar days.
3.  Article 18 TFEU must be interpreted as not applying to a situation in which the addressee of a judicial document has waived his right to refuse to accept service of said document in accordance with Article 8, section 1, of Regulation (EC) No. 1393/2007.

The judgment will be delivered by the 4th chamber (judges C. Lycourgos, S. Rodin, J.C. Bonichot, L.S. Rossi, with O. Spineanu-Matei as reporting judge)

On Thursday 14th, the same chamber, this time with judge Rossi reporting, will deliver the judgment on C-572/21, CC. The request comes from the Högsta domstolen (Sweden). It addresses the interpretation of Articles 8 and 61 of the Brussels II bis Regulation:

Does the court of a Member State retain jurisdiction under Article 8(1) of the Brussels II Regulation if the child concerned by the case changes his or her habitual residence during the proceedings from a Member State to a third country which is a party to the 1996 Hague Convention (see Article 61 of the regulation)?

The dispute on the merits concerns a couple – CC and VO-, and its son M, who was born in 2011. CC has had sole custody of M since his birth. M lived in Sweden until October 2019, when he began to attend a boarding school in Russia. Two months later, VO brought an action against CC claiming that he should be awarded sole custody of M. In the alternative, VO requested that he and CC should have joint custody of M and that their son should be permanently resident with him. CC contested the claims. Principally, she claimed on her own behalf that she should continue to have sole custody of M and, in the alternative, that she and VO should have joint custody of the son. In addition, CC claimed that the tingsrätten (District Court, Sweden) should dismiss VO’s action as inadmissible in so far as it concerned custody and residence. In support of the claim that the action was inadmissible, she argued that M was habitually resident in Russia and that the Swedish courts consequently lacked jurisdiction to rule on questions relating to parental responsibility over M. According to CC, M had acquired habitual residence in Russia in October 2019. She claims that, even if he had not acquired habitual residence then, M had, subsequently acquired habitual residence there. VO contested the claim raised by CC that the action was inadmissible. He argued that M was still habitually resident in Sweden and that, in any event, he was habitually resident in Sweden when the action was brought.

Finally, on the same day the Court will publish AG M. Spuznar’s opinion on C-354/21, Registrų centras, on a request sent by the Lietuvos vyriausiasis administracinis teismas (Lithuania) relating to Regulation 650/2012. The facts of the case are summarized here. The question reads:

Must point (l) of Article 1(2) and Article 69(5) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession be interpreted as not precluding legal rules of the Member State in which the immovable property is situated under which the rights of ownership can be recorded in the Real Property Register on the basis of a European Certificate of Succession only in the case where all of the details necessary for registration are set out in that European Certificate of Succession?

The 5th chamber (judges E. Regan, I. Jarukaitis, D. Gratsias, Z. Csehi, and M. Ilešič reporting) will take care of the interpretation.

This post was written by Paul Lorenz Eichmüller, University of Vienna.

Austrian civil procedure law contains a provision that requires foreign nationals bringing a claim in Austrian courts to provide security for the legal costs incurred by the defendant in case the claim should not be successful. However, as this would clearly violate the non-discrimination principle of what is today Article 18 of the TFEU, the CJEU considered a similar provision under German Law inapplicable as early as 1997 (C-323/95, Hayes/Kronenberger GmbH). Now that the UK is not a Member State of the EU anymore, Article 18 TFEU can no longer be applied in that respect. After this issue has already arisen in Germany (which has also been discussed on this blog), there has also been another case in Austria – yet, with a different outcome.

Pursuant to § 57 of the Austrian Civil Procedure Code (ACPC), any foreign claimant is required to provide security for the costs in civil proceedings brought before Austrian courts if the defendant asks for the payment of such a security. While these rules have become irrelevant within Europe due to EU law, they hit with full force when defendants from third countries are concerned – at least as long as there is no international treaty prohibiting security deposits for costs.

However, in accordance with the ratio behind this rule – which is to prevent that the defendant wins the case in Austria but, due to a lack of enforceability, cannot even recover their own legal costs – there are further exceptions in which a foreign claimant is not obliged to provide security for costs contained in para 2 of the provision. These are: the claimant’s habitual residence is in Austria, the Austrian (cost) decision is enforceable in the state of the claimant’s habitual residence, or the claimant has (sufficient) immovable property in Austria to cover the costs.

There is no international treaty prescribing that a security deposit may not be required that was applicable in the present case. One might in this regard think e.g., of the Hague Convention on Civil Procedure, which, however, the UK has never signed. For those remembering the previous German decision, the European Convention on Establishment might come to mind. After all, the application of its Article 9 – prohibiting cost deposits from member state nationals – only failed because the rules of the convention only apply to natural and not to legal persons. As the Austrian case concerned a natural person as a claimant, this could have seemed like a solution – however, Austria has only signed, but not ratified said convention and therefore, its application also fails.

Finally, there is also a bilateral Austro-British Convention regarding proceedings in Civil and Commercial Matters from 1931, Article 11 of which prescribes that British citizens resident in Austria “shall not be compelled to give security for costs in any case where a subject of [Austria] would not be so compelled”. As the claimant did not reside in Austria, this convention was inapplicable in the present case as well.

As there is no prohibition on security deposits in international treaties, the issue was whether any of the exceptions of § 57 para 2 ACPC apply. As the other exceptions were clearly not applicable, the only question that remained was whether there is an international treaty providing for the recognition of a possible Austrian cost decision in the UK (the claimant’s habitual residence).

With the UK having left the EU, the core legal acts on the recognition and enforcement of Austrian judgments in the UK, namely the Brussels Ibis Regulation and the Lugano Convention, are no longer applicable. Similarly, the UK government does not consider itself bound by the Brussels Convention anymore (there has been considerable discussion about this matter on this blog). It might therefore seem that there is no legal basis that would guarantee the enforcement of an Austrian cost award in the UK.

However, as rightly identified by the Austrian Supreme Court, the parties had concluded an exclusive choice-of-court agreement in favour of the Austrian courts, which would make a judgment (including its cost award) enforceable by the means of the Hague Choice of Court Convention. While the UK is no longer bound by the Convention by virtue of being an EU Member State, it acceded to the Convention on 28 September 2020 in its own right, providing that the convention would apply without interruption (see here).

As a judgment with a cost award would be enforceable in the UK due to the applicability of the Hague Choice of Court Convention, there was thus no need to demand a security deposit for the costs from the British claimant. While the defendant submitted that there was no precedent in the UK on the application of the convention and that it was therefore unsure whether a cost award would be enforced, the Supreme Court considered that there was no indication that UK courts would breach their obligation under public international law. Thus, no security deposit for costs was required.

After many cases seen so far, the case decided by the Austrian Supreme Court shows once more how Brexit has made international litigation in relation to the UK so much more difficult. While the Hague Choice of Court Convention provided for a solution in the case at hand, this will only apply if there is an exclusive choice of court agreement. In all other cases, British claimants not resident in Austria will have to provide a security deposit if they want to bring a claim in Austrian courts – making cross-border litigation again somewhat more tedious. It remains to be seen whether the Hague Judgments Convention will at a later point in time alleviate this problem, but as neither the UK nor the EU have even signed the convention yet, it is still a long way until we will experience any of its effects.

Just a few days have passed since the team of the EAPIL blog welcomed Erik Sinander as a new editor. The time has come, already, for a new welcome post, this time for Martina Mantovani: we are glad to have you onboard, Martina!

Martina, who has authored some guest posts for the blog in the past (see here and here), currently works as a Legal Assistant at the Court of Justice of the European Union and is a PhD Candidate in Private International Law at the University of Paris Panthéon-Assas.

Her first post was out a few minutes ago. It can be found here.

On 19 May 2022, the CJEU rendered an inadmissibility order in case C-722/21, Frontera Capital. The request for a preliminary ruling originated from a Spanish notary, who delivered a European order for payment (EOP) under Regulation 1896/2006. She relied, for that purpose, on the parallel competence vested on Spanish notaries for the delivery of domestic orders for payment (Articles 70-71 of the Spanish law on notaries). The notary in question was subsequently sanctioned by the Dirección General de los Registros y del Notariado for having issued the EOP ultra vires. In her opinion, however, all the conditions set out by Regulation 1896/2006 were satisfied (§ 5 of the inadmissibility order), hence the referral to the CJEU.

While being inadmissible on a number of grounds (i.e., the lack of an actual dispute in the main proceedings and the doubtful characterisation of the referring authority as a ‘court or tribunal’ of a Member State under Article 267 TFUE: cf § 14 and § 16 of the order), this case confirms that the interaction between notaries, theirs competences under domestic law and the EU private international law (EU PIL) remains, to the present days, problematic.

This finding is further evidenced by the number of preliminary questions raised on this issue (nine in total) since 2015, ie the year when Pula Parking and Zulfikarpašić brought the relationship between notaries and EU PIL on the table of the Luxembourg judge for the first time.

Read in conjunction with this past case law, Frontera Capital provides the opportunity for a broader discussion on some recurrent obstacles that hinder the smooth interplay between EU PIL Regulations – particularly the statutory definitions they set out – and national laws, especially in the subject matters where the intervention of legal professionals other than judges is more common at the comparative law level.

Cross-border cases are nothing new to European notaries, who are generally well versed in PIL and eager supporters of its further harmonisation by the EU (see, for example, points 3, 4 and 5 of the Proposal of the Notaries of Europe for the Conference on the Future of Europe). The requests for preliminary rulings thus far decided by the CJEU and involving, more or less directly, these professionals can be broken down into three main categories.

In the field of civil and commercial matters, the referring courts in Pula Parking and Zulfikarpašić – concerning, respectively, the Brussels I bis and the EEO Regulation – asked for clarifications regarding the status of Croatian notaries as ‘courts’ for the purposes of those Regulations, in cases where these professionals were acting in the exercise of the powers conferred to them under domestic law with respect to the delivery of executive titles based on ‘trustworthy documents’. A similar question was raised – directly by the seized notary – in the more recent case Frontera Capital. As I argued elsewhere, the choice of the Spanish legislator as concerns the creation of a monitorio notarial was liable to create Pula Parking-alike scenarios. And, in fact, while the Spanish notary just asked if the EOP Regulation was correctly applied in the specific case, her question could be rephrased as concerning its own status as ‘court’ under Article 5 n 3 of the EOP Regulation, given that such characterization would enable a Spanish notary to issue EOPs in compliance with this instrument (as it is the case for Hungarian notaries).

A second group of cases concern the Succession Regulation, but raise similar questions. Cases WB and EE requested, inter alia,  an interpretation of its Article 3(2), thus prompting the ECJ to address both the ‘procedural preconditions’ and the substance of the definition of court set out by that provision, having specific regards to the tasks entrusted to Polish and Lithuanian notaries. More recently, case OKR also raised several questions concerning the interpretation of Regulation 650/2012. Just like Frontera Capital, the case was nonetheless deemed inadmissible because the referral came directly from a (Polish) notary, lacking the requirements set by Article 267 TFEU (as summarized by Dorsch Consult) to qualify as ‘national court or tribunal’ for the purposes of that provision.

A final group of issues, which is beyond the scope of this blogpost, originates from the joined cases C-267/19 and C-323/19, requiring the CJEU to assess again the Croatian legislation on the notarial competence in debt collection based on trustworthy documents. Here, the CJEU rejected the argument whereby the finding in Pula Parking and Zulfikarpašić, that is inapplicability of the EU uniform regimes on recognition and enforcement of judgments to Croatian notarial deeds, coupled by the non inter partes character of the Croatian procedure, could amount to an infringement of the principle of non-discrimination (Article 18 TFEU) and the right to a fair trial (Article 47 of the Charter). Similar arguments were advanced (and rejected) in case C-234/19.

Apart from this last group of cases – that are illustrative of the limited scrutiny the CJEU can exercise on domestic justice reforms – all the above mentioned preliminary rulings call into question the possibility of characterizing notaries as ‘courts’, for the purposes of either Art. 267 TFEU or specific EU PIL instruments (or both).

The difficulties thus far encountered in classifying notaries as ‘courts’ stem from the friction between the uniform statutory definitions (if any) of ‘court’ adopted by EU law and the ever-changing legal environment of 27 Member States, who lack a common understanding of the notarial profession (cf, on this point, the Specific Study of the CEPEJ on the Legal Professions: Notaries prepared by the CNUE)

On the one side, in the attempt of unburdening an ailing court system, the procedural laws of Member States tend to be inspired by ‘local’ policy choices, based on a culturally-embedded understanding of the role of each legal profession within the broader justice machinery. On the other side, however, EU law remains largely anchored to a more traditional (and uniform) concept of ‘court’, grounded in the exercise of ‘judicial functions’. For this reason, although notaries are, at present, often called to perform their duties in matters that fall into the scope of application of EU PIL Regulations, they are not, in most cases, entitled to initiate a direct dialogue with the CJEU thorough Art. 267 TFEU, when they harbour doubts as concerns the correct interpretation of their provisions or their own status as ‘courts’ under one of said instruments. Regarding this last issue, the problem seems exacerbated by the regulatory approach adopted by the EU legislator with respect to the statutory definitions of court or tribunal under the different EU PIL Regulations.

Cases such as OKR and Frontera Capital prove that notaries may feel the need to establish a direct communication channel with Luxembourg under Art. 267 TFEU when they harbour doubts as to the correct interpretation of a provision of EU PIL. And this not just for the sake of the proper application of EU law, but also to ensure the correct performance of their duties and avoid incurring in professional liability or sanctions. In this respect, however, the stance taken by the CJEU is quite clear and well-established: to be regarded as a ‘court or tribunal’ within the meaning of Article 267 TFEU, ‘it must be determined … whether [the referring body] is called upon to give judgment in proceedings intended to lead to a decision of a judicial nature’ (OKR, § 23).

In OKR, the CJEU deemed that, in the proceedings at stake in that case, the notary was not required to decide a legal dispute (§ 24), insofar as (s)he did not take decision of a judicial nature ‘either when he or she confirms his or her refusal decision or when he or she considers the complaint to be well founded’ (OKR, § 28). Nonetheless, the Court placed a special emphasis put on ‘the specific capacity’ and ‘the particular legal context’ in which the referring authority operates (OKR, § 23), which suggests that the question as to whether a notary could be considered a ‘court or tribunal’ of a Member State for the purposes of Art. 267 TFEU should be answered on a case-by-case basis, having due regard of the specific features of the notarial proceedings at issue.

In any case, it should not be too hastily concluded that the eventual exclusion of notaries from the procedure set out by Art. 267 TFEU is liable to hamper the uniform interpretation of EU law. According to the CJEU, the existence of complaints before courts against notarial decisions ensures, on any view, the effectiveness of the mechanism of the reference for a preliminary ruling and the achievement of its objective (cf. § 33 OKR). And, in fact, this is what happened after the OKR order, where one of the parties appealed the notarial order before a court, who then referred a new request for preliminary ruling to the Luxembourg Court (case C-21/22, pending).

The second recurrent issue emerging from the CJEU case law concerns the characterisation of notaries as ‘courts’ under specific instruments of EU PIL. In this regard, the CJEU has explicitly acknowledged that the definitions retained by EU PIL Regulations may be broader than that developed under Art. 267 TFEU (§ 31 OKR). This means, in practice, that a notary could qualify as ‘a court’ for the purposes of EU PIL, without nonetheless be entitled to refer a request for preliminary ruling to the CJEU.

While a comprehensive analysis of the definitions of court set out by EU PIL Regulations would be beyond the scope of this blogpost, this table may be a useful starting point for identifying some very general trends in the drafting techniques used for this purpose.

Firstly, it is worth remarking that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ definition of ‘court’. Rather, definitions tend to be context-dependent (as evidenced by the Recitals of the Regulations dealing with family law, successions and insolvency) or even implied (as it was the case under the 1968 Brussels Convention and the Brussels I Regulation). Such definitions tend to be more sophisticated in matters where the intervention of authorities other than courts is more established (eg family and succession law).

Secondly, and relatedly, there is no single approach to the drafting and structuring of the definitions of court. Rather, current definitions make use of at least 5 different drafting techniques, including:

(a) the ad hoc assimilation, by the EU legislator, of specific non-judicial bodies to ‘courts’ in the main body of the Regulation, without nonetheless providing a ‘general’ definition thereof (e.g. Article 3 Reg. Brussels I bis and Article 4(7) of the EEO Regulation);

(b) the ‘open renvoi’ to domestic legal systems, based on sheer functional equivalence (i.e., not accompanied either by a uniform general definition of ‘court’ or by an obligation of notification to the Commission: e.g. Article 62 of the 2007 Lugano Convention and Article 2(2)(1) of the Brussels II ter , which follows in the footsteps of its predecessors: cf § 34 of the Opinion of AG Collins in C-646/20).

(c) the ‘conditional renvoi’ to the designation by Member States, where the domestic appointment of an entity as ‘court’ must be coupled by the notification to the Commission (e.g. Articles 5 n. 3 and 79 of the EPO Regulation);

(d) the establishment of a core-definition, setting out minimum requirements (e.g. the power to ‘take decisions’) but otherwise relying entirely on national laws (e.g. Insolvency Regulations).

(e) the establishment of well-rounded general definitions, complemented by detailed Recitals and accompanied by an obligation of notification to the Commission (most of the instruments dealing with family law and successions).

Thirdly, owing to the variety of drafting techniques used by the EU legislator, these definitions present variable degrees of flexibility and, therefore, a varying aptitude for prompt adaptability to domestic judicial reforms. In fact, under the approach sub a), any change to the scope of the definition of ‘court’, aimed at the inclusion of domestic notaries therein, cannot by attained based on analogical reasoning (see again here) and would probably require a legislative amendment of the main body of the concerned EU Regulation(s). This approach is indisputably more cumbersome than a sheer change to the Annexes (e.g. Art. 2(2) of Regulation 4/2009) or to the lists established by the Commission and made public through the European Judicial Network.

Finally, while the definitions set out in the field of family and succession law appear strikingly homogeneous as regards both their substantive contents and their increasing sophistication, including the explicit acknowledgment of the role played by notaries in those domains, the field of civil and commercial matters stands out of its sectoral inhomogeneity and remarkable methodological fragmentation. Of the 8 EU PIL instruments covering this domain, 3 (Brussels Convention, Brussels I Regulation; EAPO Regulation) are completely silent on the matter of knowing what constitutes ‘a court or tribunal’; 2 (Brussels I bis and the EEO Regulations) follow the approach sub a); 1 (Lugano Convention) adopts the approach sub b); 2 opt for the approach sub c) (the EPO and possibly the Small Claims Regulation). This lack of uniformity may unnecessarily complicate the application of those Regulations in practice.  

In the light of the above, it is not surprising that the characterization of notaries as courts has posed important challenges in many concrete cases.  Nonetheless, the identification of what constitutes ‘a court’ for the purposes of EU PIL should be easy (or, at list easier) in the instruments that set out an obligation of notification to the Commission, called to draw up a list of such authorities that complements the statutory definition eventually established the legislator.

In this respect, the case WB has shed light on the normative value of such lists. Therein, the CJEU held that the notifications to the Commission, and the lists established on that basis, ‘creat[e] a presumption that the national authorities declared [therein] constitute ‘courts’’. Nonetheless, ‘the fact that a national authority has not been mentioned in such a notification cannot, per se, be sufficient for it to be concluded that that authority does not satisfy the conditions set out in Article 3(2) [of the Succession Regulation]’(emphasis added).

It is worth stressing that, in WB, the CJEU’s ruling finds a solid ground in the letter of a Regulation providing for one of the most sophisticate provisions on the meaning of ‘court’ to be found in EU PIL. Art. 3(2) of the Succession Regulation sets out a well-defined general definition, which is not only accompanied by specific and uniform minimum requirements, but also explicitly assimilates notaries to courts when they exercise ‘judicial functions’. These should be understood, in essence, as referring to the ‘exercise of decision making power’, irrespective of the (contentious or non-contentious) nature of the proceedings within which it takes place. Therefore, ‘an authority must be regarded as exercising judicial functions where it may have jurisdiction to hear and determine disputes’, that is to ‘rule on its own motion on possible points of contention between the parties’ (judgment in WB, § 55-56). In turn, this ‘exercise of decision-making power’ is what justifies the requirement of compliance with fundamental procedural principles (Opinion in WB, § 78).

In the post-WB era, the real question remains as to whether, and to what extent, the CJEU’s finding on the normative value of the lists established by the Commission is transposable to other EU PIL instruments, such as the EPO Regulation, where the obligation of notification is not coupled by an explicit statutory definition of ‘court’. Therein, there are no minimum requirementsagainst which the status of a non-judicial authority can be assessed in case it does not feature in the lists established by the Commission or by the concerned Member State. This was indeed the most interesting question raised by Frontera Capital: Article 5 n. 3 of the EPO Regulation extends the status of court to ‘any authority in a Member State with competence regarding’ not only ‘European orders for payment’, but also ‘any other related matters’. Therein, the real issue would have been as to whether a parallel competence regarding domestic orders for payment can be considered a ‘matter related to EOPs’, thus bringing Spanish notaries under the umbrella of the definition under Article 5 n. 3, despite the lack of formal communication to the Commission.

What happens if a notary does not fulfil the requirements for a characterisation as ‘court’? Extant CJEU case law, especially the rulings under the Succession Regulation, clarify that, in that case, the notary is not bound by the uniform rules of jurisdiction, and the resulting notarial deed won’t circulate in other Member States as a ‘judgment’. It could, however, circulate in other Member States under the regime for authentic instruments, if such deed corresponds to the uniform definition thereof.

As opposed to the definitions of ‘courts’, the notion of ‘authentic instrument’ profits from a remarkable uniformity across the several EU PIL Regulations, the baseline of these definitions being always the Unibank judgment, rendered by the CJEU under the 1968 Brussels Convention. Civil law notaries are, in most cases, among the authorities empowered to confer the character of ‘authenticity’ (see Recitals 31 of Regulations 2016/1103 and 2016/1104).

The CJEU has therefore readily vested the status of ‘authentic document’ upon a ‘deed of certification of succession, drawn up by a notary at the unanimous request of all the parties to the procedure conducted by the notary’ (WB, § 66, emphasis added) and upon a ‘national certificate of succession’, by which the notary ‘establish[es] the undisputed subjective rights of, and the legally relevant facts relating to, natural and legal persons, [thereby] protect[ing] the legal interests of those persons and of the State’ (EE § 52, emphasis added).

Consent, expressed through the unanimous request of all parties or through the idea of undisputed rights, lies at the core of the notarial competence regarding authentic instruments, just as the notion of dispute is the benchmark against which the ‘exercise of judicial function’ by the notary shall be assessed. While being apparently clear-cut, the distinction between consent and dispute could become remarkably blurred with respect to certain legal assessments entrusted to the notaries, where this professional is called to adjudicate on rights that are only ‘presumptively undisputed’, at the unilateral request of one of the parties. Reference is made, primarily but nor exclusively, to the delivery of orders for payment by the notary based on documentary evidence unilaterally supplied by the creditor, and without the prior hearing of the defendant. In such cases, the distinction between dispute and consent does not provide a definite answer to the question as to whether such order for payments, lacking a prompt challenge by the debtor, could eventually circulate intra-EU as authentic instruments.

The negative answer finds support in another element of the European definition thereof, that is the requirement whereby an authentic instrument shall be ‘formally drawn up’ as such in the Member State of origin. This open renvoi to domestic formalities renders the EU definition of authentic instrument only ‘semi-uniform’, insofar as EU law nowhere explains what it takes for an authentic instrument to be ‘formally drawn up’ as such in the issuing Member State. In one of the few academic works that approach this topic from a PIL perspective, late Professor Fitchen described the ‘basic steps required for the drawing-up of a notarial authentic instrument’ as follows (pp. 28-29):

The notary will first ensure that each party is fully aware of the nature and meaning of the proposed transaction; he will also impartially advise each party upon the available options by which the desired transaction could be accomplished. After this, the notary will draft an appropriate legal document. … Having prepared the document in draft, the notary will then read it aloud to the parties. Assuming each party then indicates that he understands the transaction and that he still wishes to proceed with it, the notary will then invite [the parties] to sign the document. At this stage the document is still a private document. The private document only becomes an authentic instrument/public document once the notary, having declared upon it that he has read it to the parties, that they have expressly approved all their declarations within it, and that they have then signed it ‘before’ him, finally draws it up as an authentic instrument by signing it himself then formally applying his notarial seal to the document as a notary of his civil law legal system.

Evidently, these formal or procedural requirements are strictly linked to, and reinforce, the idea of unanimous consent that underpins authentic instruments and should be seen as an integral part of the uniform definitions established by EU Regulations. It is highly doubtful that such requirements could be deemed satisfied with respect to notarial documents that are, at once, issued at the unilateral request of one of the parties and based on the sheer acquiescence of the party who would suffer the detrimental consequences stemming therefrom.