EAPIL blog

This post was written by Amy Held, LL.B., LL.M., LL.M., University of Vienna.

Judgment in Silverman v Ryanair DAC [2021] EWHC 2955 (QB) (10 November 2021) was recently handed down in the Queen’s Bench Division of the English High Court of Justice.  The issue for determination was a relatively simple one: whether English or Irish law applied to a claim made under the Montreal Convention.  This, however, raised the broader issue of how the Montreal Convention interacts with the choice of law rules of the lex fori; in particular, on matters on which the Montreal Convention is silent. The case is also of significance for aviation practitioners because, in practical terms, it was a determination of whether an airline can disapply the choice of law provisions contained in its own Terms and Conditions.

This case concerned a personal injury allegedly sustained whilst embarking a flight from East Midlands Airport in England to the Berlin Schönefeld Airport, in Germany.  It was common ground between the Claimant passenger and Defendant airline that the Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (‘the Montreal Convention’) applied to the claim.

Nor was it in issue before the court that Article 33 of the Montreal Convention effectively overrode the jurisdiction element of the dispute resolution clause contained in the Defendant’s Terms and Conditions of Carriage (‘the T&Cs’).  Notwithstanding that Clause 2.4 of the T&Cs conferred exclusive jurisdiction on the courts of Ireland (as well as specifying Irish law for matters of interpretation and governing law), Article 33 of the Montreal Convention is a mandatory, self-contained scheme for jurisdiction conferring upon claimants a wide range of choice as to the forum in which to issue their claim.  The English courts thereby had jurisdiction pursuant to the Claimant’s choice to issue in the place of his “principal and permanent residence.”

The issue on trial before the judge, Master McCloud (‘the Master’) was, however, the law applicable to quantum.  Although Article 17 of the Montreal Convention provides for the question of whether liability is established, the type of damage in respect of which compensation may consequently be recovered is a matter on which the Montreal Convention is silent.

Accordingly, the overarching issue of principle was whether, on matters on which the Montreal Convention is silent, those matters are governed by: (i) the law chosen by the parties; (ii) the lex fori or (iii) the law identified by the forum’s own choice of law rules.

A further key issue was whether: (i) the existence of a contract of carriage between the parties meant the claim fell within the Rome I Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I); or (ii) notwithstanding such contract, the claim fell within the Rome II Regulation on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (Rome II).

The Master considered domestic, international, and CJEU decisions to conclude that silence in an international Convention on a particular matter cannot “sensibly be treated” as overriding the forum’s own choice of law rules. Rather, silence in the Convention must be treated as operating as a ‘pass through’, authorising the forum to apply the law that would govern in the absence of the Convention in question.

Furthermore, it does not make any difference if those choice of law rules apply by virtue of another international Convention: in the present case, the Montreal Convention did not override Rome I and Rome II, which were to be treated as the domestic choice of law rules of the English forum.  Under the under the case law of the CJEU itself, the rules of jurisdiction contained in the Brussels regime are only disapplied in favour of the rules of jurisdiction contained in an international Convention where two conflict.

Accordingly, the question of quantum fell to be determined by the law identified by the choice of law rules of the English forum.

The Master held at [65] that, as a matter of the English choice of law rules, Rome II, not Rome I, applied to the claim. Notwithstanding that a contract of carriage had been entered into by the parties with clear choice of Irish law, the claim did not plead a case of breach of contract, not even one in which the Montreal Convention was incorporated. Rather, the Claimant pleaded a case of breach of the Montreal Convention itself.  Given that the Montreal Convention does not require carriage by air to be pursuant to a contract, but encompasses gratuitous carriage, the Montreal Convention should be regarded as implementing its own system of law that encompasses both contractual matters and ‘classically tortious concepts’ such as strict liability for injury.  The fact that Rome I provides for claims in arising from contracts of carriage did not mean that a claim under the Convention, framed non-contractually, should invariably be treated as though it were a contractual claim.

As such, the present Montreal Convention claim was most appropriately categorised as a “claim in respect of a non-contractual obligation arising out of a tort or delict in the form of causing injury to the claimant through negligence” within the scope of Rome II.

Notwithstanding that, under Article 4(1) of Rome II, claims in tort/delict are generally governed the law of the country in which the damage occurs, the Master considered that the present claim had a ‘manifestly closer connection’ with the law of Ireland within the meaning of Article 4(3) of Rome II.  Matters to which the Master gave particular emphasis was (i) a pre-existing relationship between the Claimant and Defendant in the form of the contract of carriage; the facts that such contract of carriage not only (ii) contained a clear choice of law clause; but (iii) selected as governing law the law of the place where the airline itself was domiciled.

Drawing upon academic literature, the Master accordingly concluded at [73] that, for issues of cognisable damage and quantum, English law, as the lex fori, identified Irish law as the governing law.

This was an unusual case in that the accident occurred in England, the loss was sustained in England, the claim was issued in England…and yet the Claimant sought to apply Irish law to govern the claim.  Accordingly, it might be said that, perhaps even more unusually, the Claimant’s case succeeded.

However, it is submitted that the Master correctly applied the relevant legal provisions to reach the correct conclusion: although the accident and damage was sustained in England, the English courts were seised by chance as a matter of the Claimant’s choice under Article 33(2) of the Montreal Convention as the place of his residence.  Had the Claimant been resident in another jurisdiction and issued there, the strength of the English nexus would have been greatly reduced.  In these circumstances, the application of Irish law would appear rather less incongruous.

The case also raises the question of whether ‘contracts conquer all.’  Prima facie, the conclusion drawn by the Master that Irish law applied appears to lend support to the proposition that, in the EU, a governing law clause in a contract of carriage will ultimately prevail when assessing recoverable damages and quantum for bodily injury within the meaning of Article 17 and other matters on which the Montreal Convention is silent; it does not matter whether Rome I or Rome II applies, as the outcome is the same.

This, however, overlooks one key part of the Master’s reasoning: whether the ‘escape clause’ in Article 4(3) of Rome II applies falls to be determined on a case-by-case basis upon consideration of the issue of ‘manifest connection.’   It cannot be said, therefore, that a contract of carriage containing a choice of law clause will always, without more, displace the general rule under Article 4(1) of Rome II that torts/delicts are governed by the law of the place in which the damage is sustained.

On a practical level, the case is also a useful reminder that although claims brought under the Montreal Convention are not necessarily claims in contract, the Master did not rule out the possibility that a comparable claim could be brought as one of breach of contract.  It appears that the matter ultimately turns on the way in which the claimant elects to plead his claim.

This is closely linked to the question of whether an airline can disapply the choice of law clause contained in its own T&Cs.  Strictly speaking, the choice of law rule in the present case was not so much ‘disapplied’ as simply not having been engaged by the facts of the case.  Characterisation of the claim as a tort/delict meant that the contractual provisions did not apply.  On the other hand, had the claim been pleaded and characterised as one for breach of contract, it is highly likely that the governing law clause would have survived to apply.

The Rijeka Doctoral Conference of 2021, organised by the Faculty of Law of the University of Rijeka features a several presentations dealing with topics within, or related to, private international law.

Session 1C, scheduled to take place on 10 December 2021 at 8.30 CET will be devoted to Private International Law & Intellectual Property Law. Chaired by Oliver Remien (Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg), Elena Alina Onţanu (Tilburg University) and Giulia Priora (NOVA School of Law, Lisbon), the session will host presentations by: Caterina Benini (Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan): The Law Applicable to the Choice-of-Court Agreements under the Brussels I bis Regulation; Denisa Docaj (University of Milan): Private International Law Issues Arising from Brexit: The Rule on Lis Pendens and Related Actions in Civil and Commercial Matters; Zuzana Vlachová (Masaryk University): Infringement of Copyright with a Cross-border Element – Applicable Law; Hongqian Zhou (Waseda University): Digital Exhaustion from the Perspective of Consumers and Competition.

Issues of private international law will arguably arise in other sessions, notably Session 2B, on Family & Succession Law, with a presentation by Nazeemudeen Ziyana (University of Aberdeen) on The Use of Adoption in the Context of International Surrogacy Arrangements: A Comparative Analysis, and Session 2C, on Maritime & Aviation Law, with a presentation by María Gorrochategui Polo (University of the Basque Country) on Collective Bargaining and Cross-Border Collective Actions: The Maritime Industry as a Paradigm for Other Land-Based Industries.

Session 4A, scheduled at 15.30, will be devoted to Arbitration Law & Competition Law. Franco Ferrari (NYU School of Law), Stefan Enchelmaier (University of Oxford) and Miguel Verdeguer Segarra (EDEM Escuela de Empresarios & University of Nebrija) will chair the session. Featured presentations include: Gautam Mohanty (Kozminski University, Warsaw): Joinder of Third-Party Funders in International Investment Arbitration; Yihua Chen (Erasmus University Rotterdam): Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration: A Transnational Study of Ethical Implications and Responses; and Denis Baghrizabehi (University of Maribor): Private Enforcement of State Aid Law in Civil Litigation.

Additional information, including the link to join the various sessions, may be found here.

Which law applies to a tort committed in the Channel Tunnel, at 16 km from the exit on French territory?

This is the question that the Court of Appeal of Douai could have asked, but did not, in a recent judgment of 24 June 2021.

The accident occurred in the middle of the night in January 2015. A truck belonging to a Romanian company took fire while being transported on a train under the Tunnel. The fire damaged four other trucks that an English company also wanted carried under the Tunnel before being brought to Sweden.

The insurers of the English company compensated part of the damage suffered (£ 599,000). The liability of the company managing the Tunnel (France Manche) was limited contractually at 280 000 DTS, i.e. € 356,000.  After receiving this payment, the insurers demanded payment from, and then sued the Romanian company in French courts for € 208,000.

The French court applied French tort law. Article 1242 (formerly 1384), second paragraph, of the French civil code provides for fault based liability of the custodian of any thing causing a fire.  The court found, however, that the employee of the Romanian company was not the custodian of the truck when the accident occurred, as he has no control over the truck anymore: he had left it after it was put on the train, to go to a car during the journey under the Tunnel. The custodian had become France Manche, which had control over the truck. The action against the Romanian company was dismissed.

It does not seem that any of the parties raised the issue of choice of law. Under French choice of law principles, the French court might have raised it ex officio, but was not obliged to.

Pursuant to Article 4 of the Rome II Regulation, the law of the place of the damage should have applied, unless the law of another state was manifestly more closely connected to the tort. The tort was certainly connected to a contract (of carriage), but it was not a contract as between the parties.

So where did the damage occur? It all depends where the border between England and France is.

The issue is governed by the 1986 Canterbury Treaty which provides:

Article 3. FRONTIER AND JURISDICTION
(1) As regards any matter relating to the Fixed Link, the frontier between the United Kingdom and France shall be the vertical projection of the line denned in the Agreement signed at London on 24 June 1982 relating to the delimitation of the Continental Shelf in the area east of 30 minutes West of the Greenwich meridian, ‘ and the respective States shall exercise jurisdiction accordingly, subject to the provisions of paragraph 3 of this Article and any Protocol or particular arrangements made pursuant to Articles 4, 5, 7 and 8 below.
(2) The frontier in the Fixed Link shall be marked by a Joint Commission, composed of representatives of the two States, as soon as possible after the completion of the relevant section of the Fixed Link and in any event before the Fixed Link comes into operation.
(3) If in the construction of the Fixed Link any works carried out from one of the two States extend beyond the line of the frontier, the law that applies in that part which so extends shall, in relation to matters occurring before that part is effectively connected with works which project from the other State, be the law of the first mentioned State.
(4) Rights to any natural resources discovered in the course of construction of the Fixed Link shall be governed by the law of the State in the territory, or in the continental shelf, of which the resources lie.

The Agreement signed at London on 24 June 1982 relating to the delimitation of the Continental Shelf defines precisely the agreed border, with a chart annexed to the Agreement. I was able to find the Agreement, but it misses the chart !

The information available on the internet suggests that the resulting French undersea crossover is much longer than the English one (34 kms v. 17 kms). If that is correct, this means that the accident occurred on French territory.

One cannot help wonder, however, whether the place of the damage could not have equally been England in this case, and how meaningful the place of the damage is in such a case.

Should the law of the place of the damage be displaced in “transit” torts?

Although it was not concluded between the parties, should the contracts concluded by them with the same third party play a role? Should it be a decisive factor which would trigger the operation of the exception clause and lead to the application of the lex contractus?

On 10 December 2021, from 16.30 to 19.00 CET, a webinar in English on The Recommendation of GEDIP Concerning the Private International Law Aspects of the Future EU Instrument on Corporate Due Diligence and Corporate Accountability, will take place, organised by the Interest Group on Private International Law of the Italian Society of International Law (SIDI).

Hans Van Loon, former Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and Giulia Vallar, of the University of Milan, will intervene.

This is the final event of a series of webinars entitled Private International Law in Europe: New Developments on Corporate Social Responsibility and Private International Law.

Attendance is free. Those wishing to join the webinar are invited to send an e-mail to sidigdipp@gmail.com.

A series of webinars have taken place since June this year to celebrate European Law Institute’s 10th anniversary. The latest in the series is about the ELI project on the Protection of Adults in International Situations and is scheduled for 7 December 2021, from 18:15 to 19:45 (CET),

The ELI project on adults seeks to encourage the European Union to consider both external action and the enactment of legislation in the field. The final report provides analysis and proposals regarding further issues surrounding the application of the Hague Convention of 13 January 2000 on the International Protection of Adults or otherwise relevant to the protection of adults in international situations. It also includes a checklist intended for practitioners, to encourage the development of private mandates within the ambit of the substantive laws of the Member States.

Confirmed speakers are: Aneta Wiewiórowska-Domagalska (Chair; ELI Executive Committee member; Senior Research Fellow, University of Osnabrück), Pietro Franzina (ELI Project Co-Reporter; Professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milano), Richard Frimston (ELI Project Co-Reporter; Consultant, Russell Cooke), Philippe Lortie (First Secretary, Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH)), Pascal Pichonnaz (ELI President; Professor, Faculty of Law of the University of Fribourg), Geraldo Ribeiro (Chair of the HCCH Working Group charged with drafting a practical handbook on the Hague Convention of 13 January 2000 on the International Protection of Adults), Salla Saastamoinen (Director for civil and commercial justice, DG JUST, European Commission) and Adrián Vázquez Lázara (Member of the European Parliament; JURI Committee Chair).

The webinar will also feature a 20–25 minute Q&A session with attendees.

Attendance is free. The registration form is available here.

Two texbooks on French private international law were recently published in a new edition.

Prof. Bernard Haftel (University Sorbonne Paris Nord) is the author of a short text (375 p.) presenting concisely French private international law in the series Cours Dalloz. The book (and the series) are meant to offer a accessible yet complete treatment of the field. The book covers jurisdiction, foreign judgments and choice of law. It is divided in two parts: a general part and a special part presenting personal status, property, obligations and property aspects of family law (matimonial property regimes and succession).

For more details, see here.

Prof. Sandrine Clavel (University Paris Saclay) is a the author of a longer text (700 p.) also presenting French private international law in another series of the same publisher, Hypercours Cours & TD. It is designed to support students not only in the context of the lectures (Cours), but also in the context of the small classes associated with the lecture that they may choose to follow (Travaux dirigés, ‘TD‘). The book contains a comprehensive treatment of the field distinguishing between general theory of choice of law (Part I) and of international civil procedure (Part II) and rules applying more specifically to natural persons, family, legal persons, property, contracts and torts (Part III). But the book also contains numerous exercises and teaching tools meant to assist students, in particular in the context of travaux dirigés. These tools range from definitions, summaries of French and European leading cases and multiple choice questionnaires, to exams, including 26 with a full correction. The exams include case commentaries (an exercise very peculiar to French legal education), essays and practical exercises.

For more details, see here.

From November 15 to 17, the members of the Working Group on International Property Law held a first meeting in Würzburg. Everyone was warmly welcomed by the chair of the working group, Eva-Maria Kieninger. The group assembled in a hybrid way, so that members who could not join in person, had the opportunity to participate online. This very first meeting already led to fruitful discussions and successful results.

The three-day meeting was kicked off by all members presenting the rules on international property law of their own country, as well as other countries. Statutory provisions and case law were discussed. The national reports covered the jurisdictions of Belgium, France, England, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), Poland, Portugal, and Scotland.

The members spent the rest of their time in Würzburg discussing several specific topics, relevant for the project. They debated inter alia on the specific nature of cultural goods, the ambit of party autonomy in the context of immovable security rights, the influence of the free movement rules on international property law, several possibilities to solve the conflit mobile problem for movables, and whether Article 345 TFEU can form an obstacle for a future Regulation on international property law.

More details on the Working Group can be found here.

As far as PIL is concerned, December 2021  at the CJEU starts with AG M. Campos Sánchez-Bordona’s opinion on C-645/20, VA and ZA, scheduled Thursday the 2nd. The request for a preliminary reference, from the French Cour de Cassation, focuses on the ex officio application of Article 10 of Regulation 650/2012:

“Must Article 10(1)(a) 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 meaning that, where the habitual residence of the deceased at the time of death is not located in a Member State, the court of a Member State in which the deceased had not established his habitual residence but which finds that the deceased had the nationality of that State and held assets in it must, of its own motion, examine whether it has subsidiary jurisdiction under that article?”

The appointed judges are  E. Regan, I. Jarukaitis, M. Ilešič, D. Gratsias, and Z. Csehi, with M. Ilešič acting as reporting judge.

An opinion on Regulation (CE) n° 261/2004 is expected one week later, this time by AG A. Rantos. The question in C-561/20, United Airlines, was referred by the Nederlandstalige Ondernemingsrechtbank Brussel (Belgium). In the case at hand, the applicant (on the merits) disputes the applicability of Regulation No 261/2004 in the event of a long delay to a flight departing from, and arriving in the territory of the United States of America, even where that flight is the last flight of two directly connecting flights, the first of which departs from an airport in the territory of a Member State. The questions read as follows:

“Should Article 3(1)(a) and Article 7 of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91, as interpreted by the Court of Justice, be interpreted as meaning that passengers are entitled to financial compensation from a non-Community air carrier when they arrive at their final destination with a delay of more than three hours as a result of a delay of the last flight, the place of departure and the place of arrival of which are both situated in the territory of a third country, without a stopover in the territory of a Member State, in a series of connecting flights commencing at an airport situated in the territory of a Member State, all of which have been physically operated by that non-Community air carrier and all of which have been reserved in a single booking by the passengers with a Community air carrier which has not physically operated any of those flights?

If the first question is answered in the affirmative, does Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91, as interpreted in the first question, infringe international law and, in particular, the principle of the exclusive and complete sovereignty of a State over its territory and airspace, in making EU law applicable to a situation taking place within the territory of a third country?”

The deciding chamber is integrated by judges C. Lycourgos, S. Rodin, J.C. Bonichot, L.S. Rossi, and O. Spineanu-Matei. S. Rodin will act as reporting judge.

On the same day, a chamber of three judges, namely Jääskinen, Safjan (reporting), and Gavalec, will deliver its judgement on C-708/20, BT, a set of questions from the County Court at Birkenhead on Article 13 (3), of the Brussels Ibis Regulation. The referral was made on December 30, 2020.

1. Is it a requirement of Article 13(3) of the Regulation (EC) No. 1215/2012 that the cause of action on which the injured party relies in asserting a claim against the policy holder/insured involves a matter relating to insurance?
2. If the answer to (a) is “yes”, is the fact that the claim which the injured party seeks to bring against the policy holder/insured arises out of the same facts as, and is being brought in the same action as the direct claim brought against the insurer sufficient to justify a conclusion that the injured party’s claim  is a matter relating to insurance even though  the cause of action between the injured party and the policy holder/insured is unrelated to insurance?
3. Further and alternatively, if the answer to (a) is “yes”, is the fact that there is a dispute between the insurer and injured party concerning the validity or effect  of the insurance policy sufficient to justify a conclusion that the injured party’s claim is a matter relating to insurance?
4. If the answer to (a) is “no”, is it sufficient that the joining of the policy holder/insured to the direct action against the insurer is permitted by the law governing the direct action against the insurer?

No opinion precedes this judgement in spite of the novelty of the questions.

The decision on C-242/20, HRVATSKE ŠUME will be delivered as well on December 9, 2021. The request was referred by the Visoki trgovački sud Republike Hrvatske (cour d’appel de commerce, Croatie). The questions, still on the Brussels I Regulation, were asked in the context of a dispute between a company incorporated under Croatian law, and a company established in Hamburg (Germany), over a sum of money seized on the bank account of the first company and transferred to the assets of the second as part of an enforcement procedure. As this procedure was subsequently invalidated, the applicant in the main proceedings seeks restitution of the sum in question on the basis of unjust enrichment:

1. Do actions for recovery of sums unduly paid by way of unjust enrichment fall within the basic jurisdiction established in Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 … in respect of ‘quasi-delicts’, since Article 5(3) thereof provides inter alia:: ‘A person domiciled in a Member State may, in another Member State, be sued … in matters relating to … quasi-delict, in the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur’?
2. Since there is a time limit on seeking recovery of sums unduly paid in the same judicial enforcement proceedings, do civil proceedings which have been initiated fall within exclusive jurisdiction under Article 22(5) of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 … which provides that in proceedings concerned with the enforcement of judgments, the courts of the Member State in which the judgment has been or is to be enforced is to have exclusive jurisdiction, regardless of domicile?

On September 8, 2021 Advocate general Saugmandsgaard Øe proposed to answer that Article 5 (1) and Article 5 (3) of the Regulation No 44/2001 must be interpreted as meaning that a claim for restitution based on unjust enrichment:

– does not fall within the “contractual matter”, within the meaning of the first provision, except when it is closely linked to a previous contractual relationship existing, or supposed to exist, between the parties to the dispute, and

– does not fall within the “tort or quasi-tort”, within the meaning of the second provision.

(NoA: the English translation of the opinion is not yet available).

The judges in charge are K. Jürimäe (reporting), S. Rodin and N. Piçarra

Next relevant date for the purposes of this blog will be Thursday 16th, with the publication of AG P. Pikamäe’s opinion on C-568/20, H Limited. The question was sent to the Court by the Oberster Gerichtshof (Austria), on a dispute related to the enforcement of an order based on a decision of the High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts of England & Wales, Commercial Court (QBD):

1. Are the provisions 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 (‘Regulation No 1215/2012’), in particular Article 2(a) and Article 39, to be interpreted as meaning that a judgment that is to be enforced exists even if, in a Member State, the judgment debtor is obliged, after summary examination in adversarial proceedings, albeit relating only to the binding nature of the force of res judicata of a judgment given against him in a third State, to pay to the party who was successful in the third State proceedings the debt that was judicially recognised in the third State, when the subject matter of the proceedings in the Member State was limited to examination of the existence of a claim derived from the judicially recognised debt against the judgment debtor?
2. If question 1 is answered in the negative: Are the provisions of Regulation No 1215/2012, in particular Articles 1, 2(a), 39, 45, 46 and 52, to be interpreted as meaning that, irrespective of the existence of one of the grounds set out in Article 45 of Regulation No 1215/2012, enforcement must be refused if the judgment under review is not a judgment within the meaning of Article 2(a) or Article 39 of Regulation No 1215/2012 or the application in the Member State of origin on which the judgment is based does not fall within the scope of Regulation No 1215/2012?

3. If the first question is answered in the negative and the second question in the affirmative: Are the provisions of Regulation No 1215/2012, in particular Articles 1, 2(a), 39, 42(1)(b), 46 and 53, to be interpreted as meaning that, in proceedings concerning an application for refusal of enforcement, the court of the Member State addressed is compelled to assume, on the basis solely of the information provided by the court of origin in the certificate issued pursuant to Article 53 of Regulation No 1215/2012, that a judgment that falls within the scope of the regulation and is to be enforced exists?

The deciding chamber will be one of five judges: K. Jürimäe, N. Jääskinen, N. Piçarra, M: Gavalec, and M. Safjan in the role of reporting judge.

Just for the record: the decision on C-490/20, Stolichna obshtina, rayon „Pancharevo“, is expected on December 14th. AG J. Kokott’s opinion was published last April (for a summary click here).

The author of this post is Burcu Yüksel Ripley, who is a Senior Lecturer in law and the Director of the Centre for Commercial Law at the University of Aberdeen.

On 25 November 2021, the Law Commission of England and Wales announced, as part of an update on its work on smart contracts, that it has agreed with the Government to undertake a project on conflict of laws and emerging technology. This project will look at conflict of laws rules as they apply to emerging technology (including smart legal contracts and digital assets) and consider whether law reform is required. The Commission hopes to be able to begin work in the first half of 2022.

Conflict of laws and emerging technology was among the ideas for potential areas of law reform within the scope the Law Commission’s 14th programme of law reform. In the area of commercial and common law with a focus on emerging technology, the Commission has been working on three projects on smart contracts, digital assets and electronic trade documents which are, to some extent, interconnected. Its work on these projects has identified certain difficulties with the application of conflict of laws rules (covering both jurisdiction and applicable law rules in this context) in relation to emerging technology, including distributed ledger technology (DLT):

• In the context of its work on smart contacts, which the Commission concluded with a confirmation that the existing law of England and Wales is able to accommodate and support smart legal contacts, it devoted Chapter 7 of its advice to Government on smart legal contacts (published on 25 November 2021) to ‘Jurisdiction and smart legal contracts’. The Commission considered various issues concerning jurisdiction and applicable law in relation to smart contacts and assessed that “the problem of digital location – that is, the difficulty of ascribing real-world locations to digital actions and digital objects – is amongst the most significant challenges that private international law will have to overcome in relation to emerging technology, including smart legal contracts.” (see paragraph 7.145 of the advice).
• In the context of its work on digital assets, which seeks to support and facilitate the development of digital assets and ensure that the law recognises and protects them in a digitised world, conflict of laws is mentioned in the call for evidence (published on 30 April 2021) as an area which is likely to be affected by the issues covered by the call for evidence. The Commission therefore sought to hear more details from respondents on conflict of laws issues relating to digital assets (see para 2.80 of the call for evidence on digital assets). The digital assets project is currently at the pre-consultation stage, with the expectation that the consultation paper will be published in mid-2022. An interim update paper on this project is available here.
• In the context of its work on electronic trade documents, which seeks to make recommendations for law reform to allow for legal recognition of electronic trade documents (eg bills of lading and bills of exchange), some conflict of laws issues relating to electronic trade documents were highlighted in the consultation paper (published on 30 April 2021, see in particular pp.124-127 of the consultation paper on digital assets: electronic trade documents). There were two main questions specifically mentioned in the consultation paper: 1) “Where is an electronic trade document located at any given time (and related questions such as where does a transfer take place)?” and 2) “How will an electronic trade document issued in England and Wales be treated in a country that does not recognise the validity of electronic trade documents?”. The Commission, in this consultation paper, provisionally proposed to consider the private international law aspects of digital assets, including electronic trade documents, as part of a separate project that could be taken as part of its 14th programme of law reform. The electronic trade documents project is currently at the policy development stage.

The Commission’s new project on conflict of laws and emerging technology is a very timely project. The Law Commission of England and Wales can only make recommendations for the law of England and Wales. However, some of its recommendations might have a UK-wide impact. This project should also be seen as an opportunity to help facilitate the development of internationally widely accepted private international law rules in relation to emerging technology given the current work of the Hague Conference on Private International Law concerning private international implications of the digital economy, including DLT and its applications (including digital assets).

DXB – Identities on the move – Documents cross borders is a project aimed at facilitating the dissemination and implementation of Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 in EU Member States, funded by the European Union’s Justice Programme (2014–2020).

The final conference of the project will take place on 23–24 June 2022 in Castel San Pietro Terme, Bologna (Italy), at the premises of ANUSCA’s Academy (ANUSCA is the Italian association of civil status officers)

A call for papers and panels has been launched. All interested will find more information here.

Papers or panel abstract proposals shall be submitted by 22 December 2021.

Daniel B. Listwa (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz) and Lea Brilmayer (Yale Law School) have posted Jurisdictional Problems, Comity Solutions: Lessons for the Restatement (Third) on SSRN:

American choice of law is today portrayed as a story of how a more modern and functionalist methodology came to overthrow the long dominant territorial system. Against this background, the situs rule—the territorial rule requiring that all property-related issues be governed by the law of the jurisdiction in which the property is located—is seen as an unusual straggler of a now-debunked theory. Central to this narrative is the idea that the vested rights theory, which was embraced by the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws and assumed away the possibility for overlapping jurisdictions, represented “traditional” choice of law, going back to Justice Joseph Story, the father of American conflicts law. This is the perspective adopted by the now-in-the-works Restatement (Third), which aims to usher in a new era for American conflict of laws by cutting out all vestiges of the “traditional” model—the situs rule included.

But this narrative, while broadly held, is wrong. It is a mistake to associate choice of law during the early Republic with an early twentieth-century model of territorialism. In this Essay, we explain that the early American choice-of-law model, as described by Justice Story, was not territorial, but rather intensely functional, with its prime focus being resolving the uncertainty created by the constitutional law governing the limits of personal jurisdiction and the recognition of sister-state judgments. In this context, the persistence of the situs rule appears to be not an anachronism but rather an indication that “modern” choice-of-law theories misunderstand the forces shaping conflict–of–laws doctrine today. Using the situs rule as a window into the foundations of choice of law, this Essay thus calls into question the standard narrative underlying contemporary choice-of-law literature and challenges the approach of the proposed Restatement (Third).

The article is forthcoming in the Texas Law Review.

This post introduces the paper by Fernando Gascón and Guillermo Schumann published in Ius Dictum, 5, 2021, The rules on lis pendens and on res judicata in the ELI/UNIDROIT Model European Rules of Civil Procedure. A pre-print version of the article is available here. Many thanks to Guillermo Schumann for the input.

In 2020 the European Law Institute and UNIDROIT approved the European Rules of Civil Procedure (“ERCP”, also called “Model European Rules of Civil Procedure”): a set of rules intended to design a model, or, if preferred, an ideal civil procedure, with the potential to be operational in any European country. In that regard, it could be said that the ERCP aim to be a “Model Code of Civil Procedure” (although the “code” word has been purposely avoided by the Rules’ drafters) for European countries or, in a certain way, a sort of “Code of Best Practices”. Although a soft law instrument, the Rules stand as a unique text reflecting the outcome of an exhaustive and remarkable work of legal comparison by scholars and practitioners all around Europe (see on this point F. Gascón Inchausti, Las European Rules of Civil Procedure: ¿un punto de partida para la armonización del proceso civil?, Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional, 2021).

The comparison has not only looked into national systems but has also considered existing European legislation and the acquis communautaire, as well as the case law of the CJEU and the European Court of Human Rights. The intention of the drafters has been to spot the best solution to difficulties faced by all legislators when planning a fair and efficient civil process —best practices or best rules approach—.

The paper by Fernando Gascón and Guillermo Schumann is devoted in particular to the rules on lis pendens (Rules 142-146) and res judicata (Rules 147-152), taking into account their mutual functional relationship, but also their interplay with other procedural institutions in the ERCP.

As stated, the ERCP map out a comprehensive model of a declaratory civil procedure in which the different parts of the Rules are interrelated and meant to work as a system on its own. Therefore, the proper understanding of each rule requires looking at it within the structure. Consequently, the solutions provided by a rule can only be considered as “the best” and as a “model” because they have been conceived to operate inside that systematic ensemble.

Lis pendens and res judicata are legal institutions belonging to the “hardcore” of all procedural legal orders and, because of that, they had to be addressed by the ERCP.

Lis pendens, the rules on related actions and res judicata tend, among other, to regulate the relationship between parallel proceedings, with the same or connected subject matters, that are ongoing or that have ended with a final judgment. This is a decisive issue for both domestic and cross-border litigation. Lis pendens aims at preserving the future negative effect of res judicata in cases of proceedings with identical subject matters, while the stay and consolidation of strongly connected proceedings serve the purpose of preserving its positive effect. Therefore, these legal institutions are necessarily connected among them, but also with others such as the very definition of the “subject matter” of the proceedings or the “preclusion of the cause of action”.

A main goal of the ERCP is indeed to provide for a complete and systematic body of rules where  all “pieces of the puzzle work together” in a coherent manner.

The regulation of lis pendens and related actions proposed in the ERCP is based on the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (Articles 29-32) and on the case law of the CJEU on it. The drafters of the ERCP, having in mind that the European provisions are already working within the Union, thus that the national courts are already familiar with them, considered transplantation into domestic litigation as the best option.

It should be noted, though, that the Brussels I Regulation (recast) aims at regulating the European lis pendens within legal orders having different understandings of the notion of the “subject matter of the dispute” – sometimes, of lis pendens itself. The main purpose of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) and of the case law of the Court of Justice is therefore to set up, from a functional perspective, a system capable to operate detached from the conceptual constructs of the member States. To do so, the Court of Justice has shaped autonomous notions as a way to keep the system operating where indispensable: lis pendens is one of these notions.

Moreover, the scope of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) is limited, both because of the legislative competence of the EU and of the scope of the legal instrument itself. By way of consequence, the EU lawmaker had to address a wide range of issues arising in situations of cross-border parallel proceedings with a limited range of legal tools. This has entailed that the CJEU has broadened (or narrowed, as the case may be) the traditional scope of legal institutions conferring upon them functions that are carried out by other means in the internal legal systems of the Member States.

By contrast, the ERCP have the possibility and the purpose of providing for a complete system. In that vein, a quasi-automatic import of the lis pendens rules from the Brussels I Regulation (recast) may not offer the best solution in all circumstances. Not surprisingly, some of the mismatches and shadows already pointed out by academia concerning the regulation of lis pendens in Brussels I Regulation (recast) appear to be present in the ERCP as well.

Having this in mind, the paper by Fernando Gascón and Guillermo Schumann tries to shed some light on how the lis pendens and related actions operate within the system of the ERCP. It examines the function of the lis pendens and its relationship with the subject matter of the proceedings, the priority principle as the general rule for lis pendens in the ERCP, the exceptions to this principle, the related-actions regime and its relationship with the consolidation of proceedings.

The Rules on Res Judicata in the ERCP

There are different ways to understand and establish the boundaries of res judicata in the many legal orders across Europe. Whether the notion is restrictive or broad usually depends on which part of a judgement becomes res judicata: whether only the operative part of it, or also the legal reasoning. There are also important differences regarding the types of judgments that become res judicata.

As has just been said, the rules on lis pendens and on the stay and consolidation of “strongly related” proceedings tend to preserve the future negative and positive effect of res judicata. Because of that, the scope of res judicata inevitably impacts the regulation of those legal institutions.

From this overall approach, the paper examines the concept of finality in the ERCP, the types of judgments that become res judicata, the material, temporal and subjective scope of res judicata and the powers of the court concerning its assessment. Special attention is paid to the attribution of res judicata to judgments on procedural issues — e.g., the CJEU decision in the Gothaer case —, and to the relationship between the material scope of res judicata and the preclusion of causes of action that, with a broader or more limited scope and following diverse conceptual constructions, is known to most European legal orders.

The European Rules of Civil Procedure are an exciting initiative that shows the utility of Comparative Law as a tool to improve the civil justice system and the protection of the citizens’ rights —at the end of the day, this is what it all is about—. They are a unique instrument, which, on the one hand, facilitates self-cognition in that they allow seeing oneself mirrored in the “others”; on the other, they booster the European harmonization of civil procedure on a common basis.

A webinar in English on Recent judgments on corporate responsibility for environmental damages will take place on 26 November 2021, from 15.00 to 17.00 CET, organised by the Interest Group on Private International Law of the Italian Society of International Law (SIDI).

The speakers will be Olivera Boskovic and Silvia Marino.

The event is part of a cycle titled Private International Law in Europe: New Developments on Corporate Social Responsibility and Private International Law. See here for further details.

Attendance is free. Those wishing to join the webinar are invited to send an e-mail to sidigdipp@gmail.com.

Louis d’Avout (University Paris II Panthéon-Assas) has posted a short paper in French on the Resurgence of the 1934 Franco-British Convention on the Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (La résurgence de la convention franco-britannique du 18 janvier 1934 pour l’exécution des jugements étrangers) on the website of the French Committee for Private International Law.

Unlike the Haut Comité Juridique de la Place Financière de Paris, which has opined that the 1934 Convention was abrogated by the Brussels Convention, Prof. d’Avout submits that the 1934 bilateral convention is still in force and governs the enforcement of British judgments in France. He notes that the requirements for enforcing judgments are, from a French perspective, old and potentially more restrictive than the French common law of judgments, but underscores that the Convention was interpreted initially as allowing the application of a more favourable common law of judgments by the Contracting States.

The paper is the written version of a speech given in a recent conference on Brexit organised by the Committee.

The PAX Moot is a specialised moot court competition dedicated to students interested in Transnational Law and Private International Law issues. This year the Pax Moot Round is named after the Alegría Borrás Rodríguez (1943-2020).

The Borrás Round of the competition will require participants to deal with the complexities and nuances of how international conventions and European regulations interact with each other in the context of globalisation as well as situations such as Brexit where certain prior available instruments stop producing their effects. The case is grounded in the present challenging global events – the effects of COVID-19 virus on businesses and individuals, Brexit and environmental actions to reach carbon neutrality. The series of events to discuss involve the application of the Singapore Convention on Mediation and the European Order for Payment procedure.

The competition opens for the registration of the teams on 22 November 2022 and comprises a written and an oral round. The students participating in the PAX Moot will be required to address matters of jurisdiction, service of documents, settlement agreement and recognition of judgment in England.

More information about the competition and its timetable are available here. The rules of the competition are available here.

The new edition of the Commentary on EU-Zivilprozessrecht: EuZPR authored by Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Peter Schlosser, Emeritus at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Professor Dr. Dres. h.c. Burkhard Hess, founding Director at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg, has just been released.

The revised and extended version of the commentary assesses and explains the ever-increasing importance of the coordination of cross-border civil proceedings in the European Area of Civil Justice. In an easy to handle style and with a specific look to the needs of legal practice, the commentary elucidates the entire acquis of the European procedural law in civil and commercial matters. The eminent authors comment the Brussels Ibis Regulation (being the core instrument of judicial cooperation in the Union), the EU-Regulations of the European Order for Payment, of the European Enforcement Order, the Small Claims Regulation and the Regulation establishing a European Account Preservation Order Procedure. The EU-Regulations on the Service of Documents and on the Taking of Evidence are equally commented. With regard to the latter, the commentary already provides valuable guidance on the forthcoming recasts of the upcoming regulations (applicable in 2022).

Extensive references to case law, especially of the European Court of Justice, but also of national courts and the legal literature are the building blocks of the Commentary. The authors equally focus on current challenges such as the ramifications arising from Brexit and the relations to other third states. Overall, this commentary is a must be for legal practitioners and for academics working in this field.

The European Parliamentary Research Service of the European Parliament has issued on November 18th, 2021, a Briefing on The United Kingdom’s possible re-joining of the 2007 Lugano Convention.

The summary of the briefing reads as follows:

The 2007 Lugano Convention is an international treaty that regulates the free movement of court judgments in civil cases between the Member States of the EU, on one hand, and the three EFTA states (Switzerland, Norway and Iceland), on the other. The convention effectively extends the regime of quasi-automatic recognition and enforcement of judgments that was applicable between EU Member States at the time under the Brussels I Regulation (No 44/2001).

Whereas the EU rules currently in force regulating the free movement of judgments in civil cases between the EU Member States – the 2012 Brussels I-bis Regulation (1215/2012) – bring about an even higher level of integration and presume, therefore, a very high level of mutual trust between the national judiciaries of the Member States, relations between the EU and EFTA Member States remain at the level of integration prescribed in 2001 by the Brussels I Regulation.

Following the expiry of the transition period provided for by the Withdrawal Agreement between the United Kingdom (UK) and the EU, the UK is no longer bound by either the Brussels I-bis Regulation or the 2007 Lugano Convention. Given the fact that the latter is open not only to EU and EFTA Member States, but also explicitly to third countries, the UK has made a bid to re-join the Lugano Convention. For a third country to become part of this legal regime, all parties to the convention must give their explicit consent. Whereas this has been the case with Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, the European Commission, acting on behalf of the EU as a party to the 2007 Lugano Convention, has indicated that it is not prepared to grant such consent, effectively blocking – for the moment – the UK’s reintegration within the Lugano regime of mutual recognition of civil judgments.

For the Commission, accession to the Lugano regime is bound up with the notion of close economic integration with the EU, presupposing a high level of mutual trust. Participation in the Lugano system should not therefore be offered to any third country that is not part of the internal market.

As announced earlier on this blog, the EAPIL Founding Conference will eventually take place on 2, 3 and 4 June 2022 in Aarhus, hosted by the Aarhus University.

Early bird registration for the conference ends on 30 November 2021. See here for further details.

A general presentation of the conference can be found here. See here for the full program as well as for details on venue, travel and accommodation.

For more information, please write an e-mail to Morten Midtgaard Fogt at mmf@law.au.dk.

The fourth issue of the Journal du droit international for 2021 has just been released. It contains two articles and several case notes relating to private international law issues, including the 2020 annual case-law review of EU private international law supervised by Louis d’Avout (University of Paris II).

In the first article, the International Law Association (ILA) pays tribute to the memory of Philippe Kahn (Hommage à Philippe Kahn, by Catherine Kessedjian, Geneviève Bastid Burdeau, Éric Loquin, Jean-Michel Jacquet, Marie Cornu, Ali Bencheneb & Franck Latty).

The English abstract reads:

Philippe Kahn was above all a researcher, an inventive person, an explorer. The French Branch of the International Law Association paid tribute to him on April 8, 2021. The tribute, in its entirety, is available on Youtube. The texts reproduced here concern only his scientific contributions highlighted by the authors in the various fields that his insatiable curiosity led him to tackle: international contracts, the financing of international trade, cultural heritage and the art market, outer space, to mention just a few aspects of his work.

In the second article, Gwendoline Lardeux (Aix-Marseille University) analyses some difficult private international law issues in real property matters (De certaines hypothèses délicates du droit international privé des immeubles).

The English abstract reads:

The autonomous concepts of European conflict of laws are progressively shaped, litigation after litigation, through Court of justice, as European substantive law as such is lacking. This jurisdiction is therefore referring to International private law goals to choose or reject any qualification. This is clearly the case for the immovable suit. The different regulations on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters provide indeed an exclusive jurisdictional competence to the courts of the situs rei « in proceedings which have as their object rights in rem in immovable property or tenancies of immovable property » (see Reg. Brussels I bis, art. 24, 1°, al. 1er). Those both hypotheses are raising difficult legal qualification issues regarding numerous intricate contracts or institutions.

A full table of contents can be downloaded here.

An Austrian national (A) was born in 1975 as a woman. In 2010, at A’s request, the Austrian authorities changed A’ first name, and in 2016 A’s gender to “male”. A married a German male national in July 2019 in Berlin. On the same day, A gave birth to their common child there. The German authorities were unsure about how to enter A into the birth register.

On 21 January 2021, the Court of Appeal Berlin (Kammergericht) rendered a Solomonic judgment (docket number 1 W 1290/20, published in NJW-RR 2021, p. 387, paywall access here). It ruled that A was to be registered as the child’s mother, but that A’s gender was to be recorded as “male”. This solution was reached through applying a combination of the formal rules governing the birth register, conflict-of-laws rules, and an interpretation of substantive law.

The Court justified the registration of A as a “mother” by the formal procedural rules governing the German civil status (Personenstandsgesetz) as the lex fori. According to these rules, the person giving birth to the child is to be registered as the mother, independently of their gender. A’s status as a mother would follow from the fact that A had given birth to the child.

The Court also tried to justify this rather formalistic solution by the law applicable to the substantive legal relationship between A and the child. In order to do so, it had to identify the law applicable to kinship.

The Court highlighted that since the child has its habitual residence in Germany, German law applied to the relation of kinship (Article 19(1) 1 of the German Introductory Act to the Civil Code – EGBGB). Yet in addition to habitual residence, German international family law provides further connecting factors with the goal of establishing, as far as possible, a parent-child relationship. In particular, the relationship of descent from a parent can also be derived from the law of the state of this parent’s nationality (see Art 19(1) 2 EGBGB). In the present case, given A’s Austrian nationality, this would lead to Austrian law. Finally, kinship could also be established under the law governing the general effects of the marriage (Art 19(1) 3 EGBGB). Under German conflicts law, the general effects of same-sex marriages are, in the absence of a choice of law by the spouses, submitted to the law where the same-sex marriage is registered (Art 17b(4) EGBGB).  In the present case, this again led to German law. Hence, German and Austrian law apply to questions of kinship, with a preference for the law that is more likely to establish a parent-child-relationship.

A substantive problem is that the German Civil Code defines the mother of a child as the “woman who gave birth to the child” (sec. 1591 German Civil Code – BGB). A very similar provision exists under Austrian law (sec. 143 Austrian Civil Code – ABGB). Seemingly, these provisions do not allow a man to be registered as a mother.

However, the German Federal Court had previously held that the role of the mother and the female gender must always be attributed to the person giving birth to the child (Bundesgerichtshof, decision of 6 September 2017 – XII ZB 660/14). It is true that the Act on Transsexuals, on which the Federal Supreme Court had relied, was not applicable given that A had changed its name and gender abroad, i.e., under Austrian law. Nevertheless, the Berlin Court of Appeal followed the precedent set by the Federal Supreme Court. It argued that the notions “mother” and “woman” in sec. 1591 BGB would refer to a specific role in the procreation of the child, and were to be understood in a biological and not in a legal sense. Since A had given birth to the child, A would have to be considered as the mother and consequently also as a “woman” for the purposes of this provision.

The Berlin Court of Appeal also pointed out that A could not be registered as a father, despite being male. A did not meet the necessary requirements to be registered as the child’s father, as he was neither married to the mother at the time of the child’s birth, nor has his paternity been acknowledged or established by the court (sec. 1592 German Civil Code – BGB). Moreover, under German law, every child can only have one father and one mother. As A’s husband had been registered as the father, this role was precluded for A. The Court also pointed out that gender-neutral registration is not foreseen under German law.

In Austria, no special rules exist for transsexual persons as mothers. Yet the Court of Appeal pointed to the Austrian practice under which a woman who had changed her gender before giving birth to a child could be entered into the central civil status register as the mother. The result would be basically the same as under German law.

With regard to the recording of A’s gender in the birth register, the Berlin Court of Appeal referred to Art 7 EGBGB, which submits questions concerning the legal personality and legal capacity of natural persons to the law of their nationality. This provision would apply, by analogy, also to gender identity. Hence, Austrian law was applicable. The Court remarked that the Austrian authorities had issued a birth certificate for A with the gender “male”. Similar documents had been submitted for purposes of the wedding. The Austrian authorities had also recorded A’s gender as male when registering the child’s birth in the general civil status register. There could therefore be no serious doubt about A’s gender. The Austrian acts and documents would have to be respected in Germany. As a result, a man was registered as a mother.

The case illustrates the need for reform to German and Austrian family law. Both still are based on the assumption that the mother of a child is always a woman, which is no longer universally true, as illustrated by the present case. The Berlin Court of Appeal’s distinction between the sex in a biological sense and gender a legal sense can hardly convince when applied in a purely legal context. Where someone is recognised as having a certain gender, this must apply in all legal circumstances. The proper solution therefore would be to define the mother purely functionally as the person giving birth to remove the reference to a “woman” in both sec. 1591 German BGB and sec. 143 Austrian ABGB. This could be best done by a change of the law; in the absence of such reform, an adaptive interpretation is indispensable.

With regard to A’s gender, the Berlin Court of Appeal could have shortened its ruling. It should simply have accepted the Austrian documents on the basis of the CJEU case law that demands the recognition of civil status acts rendered in other Member States (see for the registration of names e.g. CJEU, C-391/09, Runevič-Vardyn and Wardyn). A conflicts analysis was therefore unnecessary in this context.