Feed aggregator

La Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE) juge que, lorsqu’un citoyen de l’Union retourne dans l’État membre dont il possède la nationalité, ce dernier doit favoriser l’octroi d’une autorisation de séjour au partenaire ressortissant d’un État tiers, avec lequel le citoyen a une relation durable.

en lire plus

Former Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), Hans van Loon, has just published a very interesting article on “Principles and building blocks for a global legal framework for transnational civil litigation in environmental matters” in the Uniform Law Review, Vol. 23, Issue 2, June 2018, pp. 298–318.  An abstract is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/ulr/uny020.

He suggests a number of basic structural components – building blocks – for a global legal framework for transnational civil litigation in environmental matters such as: jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement, and judicial and administrative communication and co-operation (pp. 316-318).

Of particular note is the reference to Article 5(1)(j) of the Hague Draft Convention on the Judgments Project, which provides that a judgment is eligible for recognition and enforcement if one of the following requirements is met –

(j) the judgment ruled on a non-contractual obligation arising from death, physical injury, damage to or loss of tangible property, and the act or omission directly causing such harm occurred in the State of origin, irrespective of where that harm occurred.

The author notes the possible challenges that may arise when the harmful event occurred elsewhere (neither in the defendant’s home – Art. 5(1)(a) of the Draft Convention  – , nor in the State of Origin where the act or omission directly causing such harm occurred, see p. 315) and makes recommendations. For more information on this provision and its narrow scope, please refer to the Preliminary Explanatory Report of the Judgments Convention  (paragraph 162bis, pp. 34-35).

Time to tackle the judgments left over from the exam queue. I reviewed Bobek AG’s Opinion in C-27/17 flyLAL here. The CJEU held early July.

Pro memoria: the AG’s suggested for locus damni not place of financial loss, rather the place within the markets affected by the competition law infringement where the claimant alleges loss of sales: damage located in a Mozaik fashion in other words; for locus delicti commissi with full jurisdiction, the AG distinguishes between Article 101 TFEU (place of the conclusion of the agreement) and 102 TFEU (place where the predatory prices were offered and applied); finally with respect to (now) Article 7(5), the activities of a branch: offering the fixed prices or otherwise having been instrumental in concluding contracts for services at those prices suffices for that branch to have participated in the tort.

The Court itself,

• for locus damni reminds us of the findings in Marinari (which tempered the implications of Bier), implying that one needs to decide whether loss of income of the kind alleged by flyLAL may be regarded as ‘initial damage’, or whether it constitutes solely consequential financial damage which cannot, in itself, lead to a forum under Article 7(2). The Court, like the AG, opts for Mozaik, referring inter alia to its judgment in Concurrences: each place where the loss of income consisting in loss of sales occurred, that is to say, the place of the market which is affected by that conduct and on which the victim claims to have suffered those losses, opens up partial jurisdiction. As I noted in my review of the Opinion, this interpretation aids the tortfeasor: locus damni leading to shattered jurisdiction facilitates anti-competitive behaviour.
• for locus delicti commissi, under Article 101 TFEU (cartels), with reference to CDC, the CJEU opts for courts for the place in which the agreement was definitively concluded: this truly is extraordinary for it allows for forum shopping by the cartel participants. For Article 102 TFEU (abuse of dominant position)
  • Prima facie at 52 there is one consolation for those suffering anti-competitive behaviour: the Court holds that the event giving rise to the damage in the case of abuse of a dominant position is not based on an agreement, but rather on the implementation of that abuse, that is to say, the acts performed by the dominant undertaking to put the abuse into practice, in particular by offering and applying predatory pricing in the market concerned. That would seem to suggest full jurisdiction for each of those places where the pricing is offered and applied. However in that para 52 the Court does not verbatim links this to jurisdiction: this it does do in
  • Para 53: ‘If it were to be established that the events giving rise to the main proceedings were part of a common strategy intended to oust flyLAL from the market of flights to and from Vilnius Airport and that those events all contributed to giving rise to the damage alleged, it would be for the referring court to identify the event of most importance in implementing such a strategy out of the chain of events at issue in the main proceedings.‘ Courts holding on jurisdiction must not delve too deep into the substance of the case but still have to employ, without looking too deeply at the merits of the case, the lex causae for the anti-competitive behaviour (per Rome II) to identify that event of most importance. In para 54 too the Court emphasises the need to limit the amount of potential jurisdictions (reference here is also made to Universal Music). I cannot be sure: does the combination of paras 52 and 53 suggest that the Court does not accept jurisdiction for all places where the pricing is offered and applied?
• Finally with respect to Article 7(5), the CJEU at 64 holds that the national courts must in particular review whether the activities carried out by the branch included actual acts of offering and applying the predatory pricing alleged and whether such participation in the alleged abuse of a dominant position was sufficiently significant to be regarded as a close link with the dispute in the main proceedings. Separate accounts are not required to conduct that exercise (at 65).

Essentially therefore the Court firmly pulls the Brussels I Recast’s ‘predictability’ card. This is in the interest of companies behaving anti-competitively. I do not read in this judgment a definitive answer however for as I suggested, the combination of paras 52 ff is simply not clear.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law), 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.11.2

Given that discovery plays an important factor in forum shopping, Hogan J’s very critical comments on the extensive possibilities in Ireland are quite relevant. Arthur Cox have good analysis of [2018] IECA 230 Tobin v MOD here  and I am in general happy to refer.  Those of you interested in comparative litigation really should take a moment to read the Judge’s comments in full. Yet again, it seems to me, a topic for serious PhD (in comparative civil procedure) analysis.

Geert.

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'assises des Alpes Maritimes, 21 février 2018

Tribunal de grande instance de Paris, 3e chambre, 2e section, 13 Juillet 2018

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Metz, chambre sociale, 2e section, 13 février 2018

Those of us who are familiar with the issue of multilingualism and international courts, will  enjoy the discussion of contractual terms in Wahl AG’s Opinion in C-595/17 Apple v eBizcuss. Not only does the issue entre around the precise implications of the wording of a choice of court provision. The Opinion (not yet available in English) also highlights the difficulty of translating the original English of the contractual term, into the languages at the Court.

Current litigation is a continuation of the earlier spats between Apple and eBizcuss, which led to the Cour de Cassation’s 2015 reversed stance on the validity of unilateral choice of court – which I discussed at the time.

The 2002 Apple Authorized Reseller Agreement (in fact the 2005 version which applied after continuation of the contract) included a governing law and choice of court clause reading

„This Agreement and the corresponding relationship between the parties shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Ireland and the parties shall submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of the Republic of Ireland. Apple reserves the right to institute proceedings against Reseller in the courts having jurisdiction in the place where Reseller has its seat or in any jurisdiction where a harm to Apple is occurring.” (emphasis added)

Footnote 3 displays the translation difficulty which I refer to above: parties disagree as to the translation of the contractual clause in French: applicant suggest this should read  „et la relation correspondante”, defendant proposes „et les relations en découlant”. The AG suggest to include both for the purposes of his analysis „Le présent contrat et la relation correspondante (traduction de la requérante)/et les relations en découlant (traduction de la défenderesse) entre les parties seront régis par et interprétés conformément au droit de l’Irlande et les parties se soumettent à la compétence des tribunaux de l’Irlande. Apple se réserve le droit d’engager des poursuites à l’encontre du revendeur devant les tribunaux dans le ressort duquel est situé le siège du revendeur ou dans tout pays dans lequel Apple subit un préjudice.” In Dutch: „De door partijen gesloten onderhavige overeenkomst en de bijbehorende betrekking (vertaling van verzoekster)/de hieruit voortvloeiende betrekkingen (vertaling van verweerster) tussen partijen zullen worden beheerst door en worden uitgelegd volgens het Ierse recht, en partijen verlenen bevoegdheid aan de Ierse rechter. Apple behoudt zich het recht voor om vorderingen jegens de wederverkoper aanhangig te maken bij het gerecht in het rechtsgebied waar de wederverkoper is gevestigd of in een land waar Apple schade heeft geleden.”

This translation issue however highlights precisely the core of the discussion: ‘the corresponding relationship’ suggest a narrow reading: the relationship corresponding to the contractual arrangements. Infringement of competition law does not correspond, in my view. ‘La relation correspondante’ displays this sentiment. ‘(L)es relations en découlant’ suggests a wider reading.

In 2012 eBizcuss started suing Apple for alleged anti-competitive behaviour, arguing Apple systematically favours its own, vertically integrated distribution network.

The Cour de Cassation had rebuked the Court of Appeal’s finding of lack of jurisdiction. In its 2015 decision to quash, (the same which qualified the Court’s stance on unilateral jurisdiction clauses) it cited C-352/13 CDC, in which the CJEU held that choice of court clauses are not generally applicable to liability in tort (the clause would have to refer verbatim to tortious liability): the specific para under consideration is para 69 of that judgment in CDC:

‘the referring court must, in particular, regard a clause which abstractly refers to all disputes arising from contractual relationships as not extending to a dispute relating to the tortious liability that one party allegedly incurred as a result of its participation in an unlawful cartel’.

At issue in Apple /eBizcuss is essentially what kind of language one needs for choice of court to include infringement of competition law (for Dutch readers, I have an earlier overview in Jacques Steenbergen’s liber amicorum here).

Wahl AG emphasises (at 56) that it would not be in the spirit of Article 25 Brussels I Recast (which he analyses in extenso in the previous paras) to require parties to include the exact nature of the suits covered by the choice of court agreement. He is right of course – except those suits in my view do need to be contractual unless non-contractual liability has been clearly included: that in my view is the clear instruction of the CJEU in CDC.

The AG then continues the discussion (which will be redundant should the CJEU not follow his lead) as to whether the clause covers both follow-on (a suit for tort once a competition authority has found illegal behaviour) as well as stand-alone (private enforcement: a party claiming infringement of competition law in the absence of an authority’s finding of same) suits. He suggests there should be no distinction: on that I believe he is right.

Geert.