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Daimler (Responsabilité des constructeurs de véhicules munis de dispositifs d’invalidation)
Environnement et consommateurs
Dispositifs d’invalidation illicites dans les véhicules diesel : l’avocat général Rantos estime que l’acheteur d’un véhicule équipé d’un tel dispositif doit se voir reconnaître un droit à réparation contre le constructeur automobile

FCC Česká republika
Environnement et consommateurs
La seule prolongation de la durée d’exploitation d’une décharge de déchets ne constitue pas une modification substantielle de l’autorisation d’installation

Get Fresh Cosmetics
Rapprochement des législations
Bombes de bain effervescentes : les États membres peuvent, sous certaines conditions, restreindre la distribution de produits cosmétiques susceptibles, parce qu’ils en ont l’apparence, d’être confondus avec des denrées alimentaires et d’entraîner des risques pour la santé

HK/Danmark et HK/Privat
Principes du droit communautaire
Une limite d’âge prévue par les statuts d’une organisation de travailleurs pour être éligible au poste de président de celle-ci relève du champ d’application de la directive « antidiscrimination »

EFFORTS (Towards more EFfective enFORcemenT of claimS in civil and commercial matters within the EU) is an EU-funded Project conducted by the University of Milan (coord.), the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law, the University of Heidelberg, the Free University of Brussels, the University of Zagreb, and the University of Vilnius.

The eighth EFFORTS Newsletter has just been released, giving access to up-to-date information about the Project, save-the-dates on forthcoming events, conferences and webinars, and news from the area of international and comparative civil procedural law.

The EFFORTS Final Conference will take place on Friday, 30 September 2022. On that occasion, the Project Partners’ research groups will present the outcomes of the Project; increase awareness of the EFFORTS Regulations (Brussels Ia, European Enforcement Order, European Payment Order, European Small Claims Procedure and European Account Preservation Order); and evaluate and discuss the state of the art in EU and national legislation and practices relating to the implementation of the EFFORTS Regulations in the 7 targeted Member States. More details will follow in due course.

Regular updates are available on the Project website and via the Project’s LinkedIn and Facebook pages.

Project JUST-JCOO-AG-2019-881802
With financial support from the Civil Justice Programme of the European Union

June 2022 starts at the Court of Justice with the publication of two decisions of PIL interest this Thursday, 2 June.

The first one, in case C-617/20, T.N. and N.N., focuses on the interpretation of Articles 13 and 28 of the EU Succession Regulation. The Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht in Bremen (Germany), sent the following questions to the Court of Justice:

1. Does a declaration concerning the waiver of succession by an heir before the court of a Member State that has jurisdiction for the place of his or her habitual residence, which complies with the formal requirements applicable there, replace the declaration concerning the waiver of succession to be made before the court of another Member State that has jurisdiction to rule on the succession, in such a way that when that declaration is made, it is deemed to have been validly made (substitution)?
2. If Question 1 is to be answered in the negative: In addition to making a declaration before the court that has jurisdiction for the place of habitual residence of the party waiving succession which complies with all formal requirements, is it necessary, in order for the declaration concerning the waiver of succession to be valid, that the latter inform the court that has jurisdiction to rule on the succession that the declaration concerning the waiver of succession has been made?

3. If Question 1 is to be answered in the negative and Question 2 in the affirmative:

a. Is it necessary that the court that has jurisdiction to rule on the succession be addressed in the official language of the location of that court in order for the declaration concerning the waiver of succession to be valid and, in particular, in order to comply with the time limits applicable for making such declarations before that court?

b. Is it necessary that the court that has jurisdiction to rule on the succession receive the original documents drawn up in relation to the waiver by the court that has jurisdiction for the place of habitual residence of the party waiving succession and a translation thereof in order for the declaration concerning the waiver of succession to be valid and, in particular, in order to comply with the time limits applicable for making such declarations before the court that has jurisdiction to rule on the succession?

On 20 January 2022, Advocate General Szpunar had proposed to answer (the Opinion is not yet available in English) :

Articles 13 and 28 of Regulation (EU) No. 650/2012 (…) must be interpreted in the sense that the requirement, provided for in the law applicable to the succession, to submit the declaration regarding the waiver of succession to the competent court, that is to say the court of the habitual residence of the deceased at the time of death, constitutes a condition for the formal validity of the declaration. Therefore, in the event that the formal validity of said declaration is assessed in light of the law indicated in article 28, letter b), of the Regulation, non-compliance with that requirement does not entail invalidity of a statement made before the competent court pursuant to article 13 of Regulation No. 650/2012.

The deciding Chamber is composed by M. Ilešič (reporting judge) E. Regan, I. Jarukaitis, D. Gratsias, and Z. Csehi.

Also on 2 June 2022, a chamber of three judges (J. Passer, N. Wahl, and L. Arastey Sahún, the latter as reporting judge) will handle the judgment on case C-196/21, SR (Frais de traduction dans une procédure civile). The request for a preliminary reference, from the Tribunalul Ilfov (Romania), originates in a dispute concerning family and maintenance matters. The question arouse who has to bear the cost of translating into French the summonses or orders issued by the court with a view to service upon the interveners in the national proceedings: hence the need for the interpretation of Article 5(2) of the Service Regulation.

The next PIL hit of this month will be the hearing in C-291/21, Starkinvest. The background of the referral is a Belgian judgement ordering the Dublin-based company Soft Paris Parties Ltd, subject to a penalty payment of EUR 2 500 per breach, to cease all sales of products and services in the Benelux countries under a certain word mark. Some months after the judgment was served on the debtor, the claimant (Starkinvest Srl) issued an order for payment in the sum of EUR 86 694.22, which included EUR 85 000 in penalty payments. Starkinvest Srl has asked the Belgian court to make a European Account Preservation Order in the principal amount of EUR 85 000, over such sums as may be held in a French bank account of Soft Paris Parties Ltd.

For the referring court, it is unclear whether Starkinvest Srl is relying on an instrument ‘requiring the debtor to pay the creditor’s claim’ within the meaning of Article 7[(2)] of the EAPO Regulation. In addition, it has reservations based on Article 4 of the Regulation. According to the provision, a ‘claim’ is defined as ‘a claim for payment of a specific amount of money that has fallen due or a claim for payment of a determinable amount of money arising from a transaction or an event that has already occurred, provided that such a claim can be brought before a court’; in light of it, the question arises whether, bearing in mind that while the principle and basic amount of a penalty payment are established by judgment, the amount payable depends on possible future breaches by the debtor, such a payment can be regarded as a ‘claim’ in that sense. The national court has referred these questions to the Court of Justice :

1. Does a judgment which has been served, ordering a party to make a penalty payment in the event of breach of a prohibitory order, constitute a decision requiring the debtor to pay the creditor’s claim within the meaning of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 655/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 establishing a European Account Preservation Order procedure?
2. Does a judgment ordering a party to make a penalty payment, although enforceable in the country of origin, fall within the meaning of ‘judgment’ in Article 4 of Regulation No 655/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 establishing a European Account Preservation Order where there has been no final determination of the amount in accordance with Article 55 of Regulation 1215/12 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?

Advocate General Szpunar will announce the date of delivery of his opinion at the end of the hearing. The Chamber in charge is composed by judges A. Prechal, J. Passer, N. Wahl, L. Arastey Sahún and F. Biltgen, with the latter acting as reporting judge.

The same Chamber has been appointed to adjudicate in case C-265/21, AB and AB-CD (Titre de propriété sur des oeuvres d’art), with the support of Advocate General Szpunar’s opinion.

The request addresses the interpretation of ‘contract’ under Article 5 of the Brussels I Regulation, and in the Rome I Regulation. The national proceedings concern an action seeking the recognition of a title of ownership of works of art based on a double contract of sale, the first between the defendant and a seller and the second between this seller and the plaintiff. The referring court is at a loss regarding which the contract to consider in order to determine the place of obligation serving as the basis for the request, and to ascertain the substantive rules applicable to the merits:

1. Must the concept of ‘matters relating to a contract’, within the meaning of Article 5(1) of Regulation No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (‘the Brussels I Regulation’):

a. be interpreted as requiring the establishment of a legal obligation freely assumed by one person towards another, which forms the basis of the applicant’s action, and is that the position even if the obligation was not freely assumed by the defendant and/or towards the applicant?

b. If the answer is in the affirmative, what must the degree of connection between the legal obligation freely assumed and the applicant and/or the defendant be?

2. Does the concept of ‘action’ on which the applicant ‘relies’, like the criterion used to distinguish whether an action comes under the concept of matters relating to a contract, within the meaning of Article 5(1) of the Brussels I Regulation, or under ‘matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict’, within the meaning of Article 5(3) of that regulation (C‑59/19, paragraph 32), entail verification of whether the interpretation of the legal obligation freely assumed seems to be indispensable for the purpose of assessing the basis of the action?

3. Does the legal action whereby an applicant seeks a declaration that he or she is the owner of an asset in his or her possession in reliance on a double contract of sale, the first entered into by the original joint owner of that asset (the spouse of the defendant, who is also an original joint owner) with the person who sold the asset to the applicant, and the second between the latter two parties, come within the concept of matters relating to a contract within the meaning of Article 5(1) of the Brussels I Regulation?

a. Is the answer different if the defendant relies on the fact that the first contract was not a contract of sale but a contract of deposit?

b. If one of those situations comes within the concept of matters relating to a contract, which contract must be taken into consideration for the purpose of determining the place of the obligation which serves as the basis of the claim?

4. Must Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I) be interpreted as applying to the situation referred to by the third question referred for a preliminary ruling and, if so, which contract must be taken into consideration?

Regulation (EU) 2022/850 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2022 on a computerised system for the cross-border electronic exchange of data in the area of judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters (e-CODEX system), and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1726, has been published at the OJEU, L 150, 1.6.2022, p. 1.

Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2022.150.01.0001.01.ENG&toc=OJ%3AL%3A2022%3A150%3ATOC

La Cour de justice de l’Union européenne affirme que les actions légales destinées à contester ou retarder la remise d’une personne, après adoption d’une décision définitive, ne relèvent pas de la force majeure. Elle retient que le contrôle de l’existence d’un cas de force majeure relève de l’autorité judiciaire et que, à l’expiration du délai de remise, la personne doit être libérée par l’État d’exécution.

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Prigozhin / Conseil
Relations extérieures
Le Tribunal confirme les mesures restrictives adoptées par le Conseil à l’encontre de l’homme d’affaires russe Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, en raison de la situation en Libye

T-510/17 & Del Valle Ruiz e.a./Commission et CRU, T-523/17 & Eleveté Invest Group e.a./Commission et CRU, T-570/17& Algebris (UK) et Anchorage Capital Group/Commission et T-628/17 & Aeris Invest/Commission et CRU
Politique économique
Les recours visant à l’annulation du dispositif de résolution de Banco Popular et/ou de la décision de la Commission l’approuvant sont rejetés dans leur intégralité

Mukarrum Ahmed (University of Lancaster) authored a book titled Brexit and the Future of Private International Law in English Courts with Oxford University Press.

The author considers the Brexit impact upon classical private international law issues (jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition of foreign judgments) in civil and commercial matters. By providing an assessment on the main post-Brexit changes in England, comments included, an attempt at the future of private international law before English courts is offered. In addition to analysing the basic fundamentals of the discipline, suggesting adjustments and law reform are provided for.

Further info on the book are available here.

In a widely reported trip, members of the 5th Civil Chamber of the Higher Regional Court of Hamm, Germany, together with two court-appointed experts, travelled to Peru to collect evidence in one of Germany’s first climate-change lawsuits. The highly symbolic case has been brought by Saúl Luciano Lliuyas, a Peruvian farmer, who claims that man-made climate change and the resulting increased flood risk threatens his house in the Andes, which is located right below a glacial lake. Supported by two German NGOs, he seeks compensation from RWE, Europe’s single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, for the equivalent of its contribution to worldwide human carbon dioxide emissions, i.e. 0.47 percent, of the additional protective measures he had to take to flood-prove his house.

The trip had already been scheduled in 2019 but was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Its main purpose appears to have been the proper instruction of the two experts, who are charged with assessing the climate-change-related risk for the claimant and the extent of RWE’s potential contribution to it.

In terms of private international law, the case is straightforward. The German courts have international jurisdiction on the basis of Articles 4(1), 63(1) Brussels Ia as RWE has its statutory seat and central administration in Germany. As far as the applicable law is concerned, the claimant can rely on the privilege awarded to the (alleged) victims of environmental torts by Art 7 Rome II, according to which they may opt for the law of the country in which the event giving rise to the damage occurred (as opposed to the law of the country in which the damage occurred, which generally applies pursuant to Art. 4(1) Rome II), i.e. for German law in the case of pollutions caused by RWE’s power plants in Germany. Thus, the usual PIL problems of climate-change lawsuits (international jurisdiction based on Art. 7(2) or 8(1) Brussels Ia, immunity of state-owned corporations, predictability of the law of the place of the damage, application of Art. 17 Rome II, …) do not arise in this case.

Regarding the application of substantive German law, the case is much more open. In the first instance, the Regional Court of Essen outright rejected the claim for lack of a sufficient causal connection between RWE’s contribution to climate change and the specific risk of the claimant. This is in line with what might still be the majority position in German scholarship, according to which individual contributions to global climate change cannot trigger civil liability in tort or property law. The fact that the second-instance court has now started to collect evidence implies, however, that it considers the claim to succeed on the basis of the claimant’s submissions. Seen together with the German Constitutional Court quashing national legislation for being incompatible with Article 20a of the Constitution and international commitments to limit global warming in 2021, the lawsuit in Hamm may be a sign of German courts slowly adopting a more active position in the global fight against climate change, including with regard to civil liability.

Meetings & Events

From 17 to 19 May 2022, the First Meeting of the Special Commission on the 2007 Child Support Convention and 2007 Maintenance Obligations Protocol was held in The Hague in hybrid format, attended by over 200 delegates representing HCCH Members, Contracting Parties and Observers. More information is available here. The meeting resulted in the adoption of over 80 Conclusions & Recommendations, providing guidance to (prospective) Contracting Parties on a wide range of issues relating to the implementation and practical operation of these instruments. More information is available here.

 

Publications & Documentation

On 25 May 2022, the Permanent Bureau announced the launch of the post-event publication of HCCH|Approach, “Advancing and Promoting the Protection of All Children”, an HCCH initiative organised in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the HCCH 1996 Child Protection Convention. More information is available here.

 

Upcoming Events

Registrations are now open for the upcoming Conference on Conflicts of Jurisdiction, organised by the Journal of Private International Law and the Singapore Management University, with the support of the HCCH. The conference will be held online on 23 and 24 June 2022. More information is available here.

The inaugural CODIFI Conference will be held online from 12 to 16 September 2022. CODIFI will examine issues of private international law in the Commercial, Digital, and Financial (CODIFI) sectors, highlighting developments in the digital economy and fintech industries as well as clarifying the roles of core HCCH instruments: the 1985 Trusts Convention, the 2006 Securities Convention, and the 2015 Choice of Law Principles.?More information is available here.

 

These monthly updates are published by the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), providing an overview of the latest developments. More information and materials are available on the HCCH website.

 

What’s new in EU family law?

High-level conference on the Brussels IIb Regulation

8 September 2022 13h-16h CET

Hybrid Conference – European Parliament Brussels and Online

Hosted by

Ewa Kopacz

Vice President and European Parliament Coordinator on Children’s Rights

and

Didier Reynders

Commissioner for Justice

Please click here to register and to view the draft conference programme.

 

This high-level conference aims to draw attention to the novelties and important changes introduced by the Brussels IIb Regulation, which enters into application on 1 August 2022, and to provide a forum for an exchange of views with legal practitioners on cross-border family disputes involving children in the European Union.

The conference will provide participants with an opportunity to hear from experts in EU family law on the key changes to the Regulation and to engage in a moderated discussion on the topic through a Q & A session.

The event will be hosted online with the limited possibility to participate in person in Brussels*. Interpretation of the conference will be provided in 10 languages (DE, EN, FR, IT, EL, ES, PT, PL, BG, RO).

*Participation in this event is free. Please note that persons planning to attend this event in the European Parliament in Brussels do so at their own expense.

EAPIL has established a working group on Reforming Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 (Brussels I bis). In the light of the evaluation of the Brussels I bis Regulation which is currently being conducted by the European Commission, the aim of the working group is to assess the functioning of the Regulation and make proposals for its improvement.

The Working group is chaired by Burkhard Hess and Geert van Calster.

The members of the group include Apostolos Anthimos, Katarina Burdova, Gilles Cuniberti, Andrew Dickinson, Tanja Domej, Aleksandrs Fillers, Pietro Franzina, Cristina González Beilfuss, Viktória Harsági, Boriana Musseva, Nikitas E. Hatzimihail, Christian Kohler, Xandra Kramer, Thalia Kruger, Alexander Layton, Vesna Lazic, Eva Lein, Peter Lysina, Ulla Liukkunen, François Mailhe, Chrisoula Michailidou, Dario Moura Vincente, Maire Ni Shuilleabhain, Anna Nylund, Paul Oberhammer, Alina Oprea, Krzysztof Pacula, Thomas Pfeiffer, Fausto Pocar, Marta Requejo Isidro, Vesna Rijavec, Camelia Toader, Peter F. Schlosser, Andreas Stein, Maciej Szpunar, Vigita Vebraite, Ilaria Viarengo, Francesca Villata, Jan von Hein, Hans van Loon and Eiríkur Elís Þorláksson.

The project is co-organised and generously funded by the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg.

Conference

The working group will present its results and discuss proposals for reform in a conference organized by the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg on 9 September 2022.

The conference will be held in an hybrid format and it will be possible to participate either in person or online.

Members Consultative Committee

Any EAPIL member interested in following the work of the working group is invited to join the Members Consultative Committee (MCC). The chair of the MCC is Gilles Cuniberti, who can be contacted at gilles.cuniberti@uni.lu.

Members of the MCC will be invited to make any suggestion of reform that they may have before 1 July 2022. The suggestions will be forwarded to the WG for discussion.

After the September conference, the working group will circulate in the MCC its preliminary report for comments.

The EAPIL founding conference is now just a few days away. As the readers of this blog know, the event will take place in Aarhus on 2, 3 and 4 June 2022.

On 2 June, Peter-Arnt Nielsen (Copenhagen Business School) will provide kick-off the event with a key-note speech followed by a Report from Brussels, by Andreas Stein (Head of Unit, European Commission), and a Report from Luxembourg, by Maciej Szpunar (Advocate General, Court of Justice of the European Union).

The conference itself will start on 3 June, and will feature three blocks: the first will discuss the digitalization in European Private International Law, the second will be about fragmentation in European Private International Law, while the third block will address the future challenges for European Private International Law.

Further information on the conference can be found here.

The first General Assembly of the European Association of Private International Law will be held on 3 June 2022, as part of the conference.

EAPIL members are called upon to elect the chair of the General Assembly, renew the Board of the Association and elect the members of Scientific Council. All three votes will occur online.

Three e-mails have recently been sent to all EAPIL members with instructions on how to cast their vote for each of the above positions, through a voting platform called Abstimmen Online. If you are member and you haven’t received such e-mails, please check your spam folder. Feel free to reach out to the Secretary General (secretary.general@eapil.org) if you need assistance.

The poll, which is currently open, ends on 2 June 2022 at 8 pm CET. The results will be announced during the General Assembly.

See you in Aarhus!

La Cour de justice se prononce de l’Union européenne, pour la première fois, sur la détermination de la loi applicable à l’obligation alimentaire lorsqu’un enfant est retenu par sa mère, malgré l’opposition de son père, dans un État dans lequel il n’avait pas initialement sa résidence habituelle.

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La France préside le Conseil de l’Union européenne pour six mois. À cette occasion, la Délégation des barreaux de France et Lefebvre Dalloz s’associent pour vous proposer ce podcast dont la vocation est de sensibiliser sur les travaux et les actions conduites dans le domaine de la justice au plan européen.

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The Hague Special Commission on the Practical Operation of the 2007 Child Support Convention and 2007 Maintenance Obligations Protocol was held from 17 to 19 May 2022. The meeting resulted in the adoption of over 80 Conclusions & Recommendations, released this week.

“Among other things, HCCH Members and Contracting Parties:

Confirmed that the Convention and Protocol are fit for purpose and reaffirmed their global scope;

Discussed effective access to legal assistance for children, including children studying abroad, for the recovery of maintenance obligations arising from a parent-child relationship;

Emphasised that the right of the child to child support takes precedence over the right of the debtor to privacy in financial matters;

Discussed the enforcement of child support against the debtor’s assets located in another State;

Discussed that child support can be established without necessarily establishing parentage;

Discussed the non-disclosure of personal information when the health, safety or liberty of a person involved in child support recovery could be jeopardised;

Discussed the use of secure means of communication for the recovery of child support, including the iSupport electronic case management and secure communication system for the recovery of cross-border maintenance under the EU 2009 Maintenance Regulation and the 2007 HCCH Child Support Convention;

Reaffirmed their commitment towards the abolition of cheques in their international transfer of maintenance funds;

Took note of the Report of the International Transfer of Maintenance Funds Experts’ Group which highlighted the potential benefits of the Universal Postal Union’s Postal Payment Services Agreement of 6 October 2016 as a cost-effective way to transfer maintenance funds internationally”.

Source: https://www.hcch.net/en/news-archive/details/?varevent=859

The conclusions and recommendations may be found at https://assets.hcch.net/docs/ee328db7-1d7a-4e8a-b765-2e35e937a466.pdf.

On Tuesday, June 7, 2022, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its 23rd monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00-12:30 CEST. Rosario Espinosa Calabuig (Universidad de Valencia) will speak, in English, about the topic

“Sorority, Equality and Private International Law“.

Gender perspective in Private International Law (PIL) can be claimed through the so-called Sorority: Solidarity between women against sexual discrimination. PIL becomes an ethical tool to fight for solidarity and against phenomena such as misogyny and sexism, among others. Different topics (such as application of Islamic law by national authorities, child abduction in cases of gender violence or transnational surrogacy) show how PIL can be a tool to promote equality rights and how sorority can reinforce this equality. So, there is a reciprocal influence between all of them.

The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.

If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.