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Tjebbes e.a.
Citoyenneté européenne
L’avocat général Mengozzi propose à la Cour de juger que la perte automatique de la nationalité néerlandaise, qui entraîne la perte de la citoyenneté de l’Union, pour les mineurs résidant en dehors de l’Union européenne est incompatible avec le droit de l’Union

Banger
Citoyenneté européenne
Lorsqu’un citoyen de l’Union retourne dans son État membre d’origine, ce dernier est tenu de favoriser l’entrée et le séjour du partenaire non-UE avec lequel ce citoyen a une relation durable

Autriche / Commission
Aide d'État
Le Tribunal de l’UE confirme la décision par laquelle la Commission a approuvé les aides du Royaume-Uni en faveur de la centrale nucléaire de Hinkley Point C

Advocate-General Bot opined on 4 July 2018 in the case of C-308/17 Leo Kuhn, domiciled at Vienna, who had purchased through an Austrian bank, Greek sovereign bonds. Pursuant to a forced exchanged /haircut carried out by Greece in March 2012, the bonds were replaced with new bonds with a lower nominal value. Mr Kuhn sued to have the initial borrowing terms enforced.

The Advocate-General is of course aware of the similarities with Fahnenbrock – in which he himself had also opined but was not followed by the Court. He first of all points out the similarities between the service Regulation and the Brussels I Recast (both e.g. limiting their scope of application to ‘civil and commercial’ matters), however also flags the specific recitals (in particular: recital 12) suggesting that in the context of the services Regulation the analysis needs to be done swiftly hence only cases which prima facie fall outside the scope of application (including where they manifestly (see the dictum of Fahnenbrock and para 50 of the AG’s Opinion in Kuhn) are not covered by that Regulation.

Coming next to the consideration of the application of ‘civil and commercial’, the facts of this case reflect very much the hybrid nature of much of sovereign debt litigation. In my view yes, the haircut took place within the wider institutional nature of Greece’s debt negotiations with the EU. Yet the ‘collective action clause’ (CAC) which was not part of the original terms and conditions (there was no CAC in the original lex causae, Greek law, but there is one in the newly applicable lex causae, English law: at 63 of the Opinion), was negotiated with the institutional holders of the bond and crammed down the minority holders like Mr Kuhn (at 66). The AG suggest that this does not impact on the qualification of the changes being ‘immediate and direct’, this being the formula employed by the Court in Fahnenbrock.

I am not so sure of the latter but it will be up to the CJEU to decide.

The Advocate General note bene subsequently ‘completes the analysis’ in case the CJEU disagrees with this view, and finds that if the issue is civil and commercial, it can be litigated under Article 7(1)’s rule on special jurisdiction for contractual obligations (the AG at para 88 ff distinguishes the case from C-375/13 Kolassa (in which the CJEU saw no contractual bond between the issuer of the bonds and the acquirer on the secondary market), the obligation at issue, he suggests, having to be performed in Greece. As for the latter element, the Advocate General does refer for the determination of the place of performance to the initially applicable law: Greek law, leaving the later lex causae, English law, undiscussed.

Whether the Court will follow the AG remains of course to be seen.

Geert.

 

The decision is available here and further documentation is available in the following blog: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/animal-science-products-inc-v-hebei-welcome-pharmaceutical-co-ltd/. I would also like to refer to previous posts by fellow editors here and here. The US Supreme Court held that: “A federal court determining foreign law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 44.1 should accord respectful consideration to a foreign government’s submission, but the court is not bound to accord conclusive effect to the foreign government’s statements.”

In a nutshell, the US Supreme Court said that the weight to be given to foreign government statements depends on the circumstances of the case. In particular, it notes that “[t]he appropriate weight [a federal court determining foreign law should give to the views presented by a foreign government] in each case, however, will depend upon the circumstances; a federal court is neither bound to adopt the foreign government’s characterization nor required to ignore other relevant materials. No single formula or rule will fit all cases, but relevant considerations include the statement’s clarity, thoroughness, and support; its context and purpose; the transparency of the foreign legal system; the role and authority of the entity or official offering the statement; and the statement’s consistency with the foreign government’s past positions.”

One thing of note is that the US Supreme Court refers to Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale v. United States Dist. Court for Southern Dist. of Iowa, 482 U. S. 522, which is a very important case in the context of the Hague Evidence Convention.

Marmara University Law School in Istanbul/TURKEY is organizing an international conference on Contractual Issues in Private International Law on 11 October 2018. All the information regarding the application can be found at etkinlik.marmara.edu.tr/contractsinpil

The Spanish version of the 2018 Draft Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments has been made available here.

La Cour de cassation vient d’apporter des précisions sur les modalités d’assignation à résidence d’un étranger.

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