Feed aggregator

Assurance construction

Expropriation

Indemnisation des victimes d'infraction

Accident de la circulation

The first edition of the doctoral seminar in Public, International and European Law of the University of Milan will take place on 15, 16 and 17 October 2018. This year’s topic is Big Data and the Law – New Challenges beyond Data Protection.

The seminar will consist of three panels: (1) Big Data and Public Law: artificial intelligence, algorithmic decision and algorithmic transparency, Big data and Public Health, Big data and Taxation; (2) Big Data and State Jurisdiction (The un-territoriality of Data): how territoriality is challenged by the present day dynamics governing the search and seizure of digitized information; (3) Digitization of Public Administration and Big Data: tools, challenges and prospects of the transition to a digitalized public administration.

Each panel will host presentations by three PhD students, followed by a brief discussion by another PhD student.

The seminar will take place in Gargnano, on the shores of Lake Garda, at the historical Palazzo Feltrinelli.

Interested PhD students are encouraged to submit an 800-word abstract of their presentation, in English, by 30 April 2018. The abstracts should address one of the above issues from a public, international (including private international) or EU law perspective.

See here for further information.

Hotlinking is explained at para 17 of [2018] EWHC 550 (Ch) Wheat v Alphabet /Google Inc and Monaco Telecom. (Cross-reference is also made to the related main case against Monaco Telecom, [2017] EWHC 3150 (Ch)). The principal claim against Monaco Telecom is that it has broadcast, and continues to broadcast, an unauthorised duplicate of theirearth.com – claimant’s website. Google is involved in the litigation because claimant alleges that Google’s search engine algorithm has done little to address hotlinking practice, which, it is said, facilitates copyright infringement.

Both cases are a good example of the standards for serving out of jurisdiction, essentially, to what degree courts of the UK should accept jurisdiction against non-UK defendants (here: with claimants resident in the UK). The Brussels I Recast Regulation is not engaged in either cases for neither Monaco nor Alphabet are EU based.

Copyright aficionados are best referred to the judgment to appreciate its impact. The judgment essentially confirms that other than in a B2C context (particularly where EU law applies and privacy is involved), suing (for tort) Google or indeed internet companies not headquartered here, is not an easy proposition.

Geert.

Non lieu à renvoi

Non lieu à renvoi

Non lieu à renvoi

Banque

On 26 February 2018, a well-attended, high-level workshop on the organization of databases on European civil procedural law took place at the Max-Planck-Institute (MPI) Luxembourg that was organized by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Burkhard Hess and our fellow conflictoflaws.net-editor Prof. Dr. Marta Requejo Isidro. The event gathered contributions of experts from the European Commission, the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. The workshop was part of a research project in which the MPI is participating together with major European Universities (Antwerp, Complutense, Freiburg [coordinator], Milan, Rotterdam, Wroclaw), the so called IC²BE study (Informed Choices in Cross-Border Enforcement). The final aim of this endeavor is to assess the working in practice of the “second generation” of EU regulations on procedural law for cross-border cases, i.e., the European Enforcement Order, Order for Payment, Small Claims (as amended by Regulation [EU] 2015/2421) and the Account Preservation Order Regulations. Marta Requejo Isidro has written a detailed report on the workshop that is available at the MPI’s website here.

Le 21 mars 2018, la garde des Sceaux, Nicole Belloubet, et la secrétaire d’État chargée de l’égalité entre les femmes et hommes, Marlène Schiappa, ont présenté en conseil des ministres le projet de loi renforçant la lutte contre les violences sexuelles et sexistes.

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Over the last few years, litigation in European courts against gross human rights violations and widespread environmental disasters has intensified. Recent case law shows that victims domiciled in third States often attempt to sue the local subsidiary and/or its parent company in Europe, which corresponds to the place where the latter is seated. In light of this, national courts of the EU have been asked to determine whether the parent company located in a Member State may serve as an ?anchor defendant? for claims against its subsidiary – sometimes with success, sometimes not:

For example, in Okpabi & Ors v Royal Dutch Shell Plc & Anor, the English High Court, Queen’s Bench Division, by its Technology and Construction Court, decided that it had no international jurisdiction to hear claims in tort against the Nigerian subsidiary (SPDC) of Royal Dutch Shell (RDC) in connection with environmental and health damages due to oil pollution in the context of the group’s oil production in Nigeria. To be more specific, Justice Fraser concluded that the Court lacked jurisdiction over the action, inasmuch as the European parent company did not owe a duty of care towards the claimants following the test established in Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman. Under the Caparo-test, a duty of care exists where the damage was foreseeable for the (anchor) defendant; imposing a duty of care on it must be fair, just, and reasonable; and finally, there is a certain proximity between the parent company and its subsidiary, which shows that the first exercises a sufficient control over the latter.

On 14 February 2018, the Court of Appeal validated the first instance Court’s reasoning by rejecting the claimants appeal (the judgment is available here). In a majority opinion (Justice Sales dissenting), the second instance Court confirmed that the victims’ claims had no prospect of success. Nevertheless, Justice Simon provided a different assessment of the proximity requirement: after analysing the corporate documents of the parent company, he observed that RDS had established standardised policies among the Shell group. According to the Court, however, this did not demonstrate that RDS actually exercised control over the subsidiary. At paragraph 89 of the judgment, Justice Simon states that it is “important to distinguish between a parent company which controls, or shares control of, the material operations on the one hand, and a parent company which issues mandatory policies and standards which are intended to apply throughout a group of companies (…). The issuing of mandatory policies plainly cannot mean that a parent has taken control of the operations of a subsidiary (…) such as to give rise to a duty of care”. Therefore, the Court of Appeal set a relatively high jurisdictional threshold that will be difficult for claimants to pass in the future.

Conversely, in Lungowe v Vedanta, a case that involved a claim against a parent company (Vedanta) seated in the UK and its foreign subsidiary for the pollution of the Kafue River in Zambia, as well as the adverse consequences of such an occurrence on the local population, the Court of Appeal concluded that there was a real issue to be tried against the parent company. Moreover, the Court considered that the subsidiary was a necessary and proper party to claim and that England and Wales was the proper place in which to bring the claims. Apparently, this case involved greater proximity between the parent company and its subsidiary compared to Okpabi. In particular, the fact that Vedanta hold 80% of its subsidiary’ shares played an important role. The same can be said as regards the degree of control of Vedanta’s board over the activities of the subsidiary (see the analysis of Sir Geoffrey Vos at paragraph 197 of the Okpabi appeal).

Unsatisfied with the current landscape, some States adopted –or are in the process of adopting– legislations that establish or reinforce the duty of care or vigilance of parent companies directly towards victims. In particular, France adopted the Duty of Vigilance Law in 2017, according to which parent companies of a certain size have a legal obligation to establish a vigilance plan (plan de vigilance) in order to prevent human rights violations. The failure to implement such a plan will incur the liability of parent companies for damages that a well-executed plan could have avoided. In Switzerland, a proposal of amendment of the Constitution was recently launched, the goal of which consists in reinforcing the protection of human rights by imposing a duty of due diligence on companies domiciled in Switzerland. Notably, the text establishes that the obligations designated by the proposed amendment will subsist even where conflict of law rules designate a different law than the Swiss one (overriding mandatory provision). Finally, some other States, such as Germany, propose voluntary measures through the adoption of a National Action Plan, as this was suggested by the EU in its CSR Strategy.

For further thoughts see Matthias Weller / Alexia Pato, “Local Parents as ‘Anchor Defendants’ in European Courts for Claims against Their Foreign Subsidiaries in Human Rights and Environmental Damages Litigation: Recent Case Law and Legislative Trends” forthcoming in Uniform Law Review 2018, Issue 2, preprint available at SSRN.

Dr. Philipp M. Reuß (University of Munich) is organizing a serialized online symposium on the private international law of parentage and filiation. The conferences will be held in German and feature a list of highly distinguished experts. The first event will take place on 19 April 2018, at 2 p.m. (local time). For the programme and further information on registration, please click here.

Deux décisions du tribunal de l’Union européenne des 1er et 8 mars 2018 permettent de revenir sur les conditions exigées pour la validité d’une marque européenne tenant principalement au caractère distinctif.

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If one needed further illustration that the Brussels I Recast and the Recast Insolvency Regulation do not dovetail (a concept which I explore ia here) [2017] EWHC 2791 (Ch) Agrokor DD is it.

The English courts are being asked to recognise Agrokor’s extraordinary administration as a foreign main proceeding under the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 (CBIR). For the facts of the case and Hogan Lovells breakdown of the judgment see here.

Of note for this blog is that Croatia have not included the emergency procedure foreseen Agrokor Act in the relevant Annexes to the Insolvency Regulation. Consequently no matter how much the procedure in the abstract meets with the definition of insolvency proceedings, it does not fall under the Insolvency Regulation hence recognition and enforcement of same does not follow that Regulation. Neither does it follow Brussels I Recast: for the procedure most definitely meets with the ‘insolvency’ exception under that Regulation. Matthews J justifiably refers to both in passing only, noting they have no calling here.

Recognition was eventually granted. Despite some serious relevant differences between Croatian and English insolvency law, none of these as so serious as to trigger ordre public objections. As Jake Hardy notes: if no man is an island, nor is any debt obligation – no matter how English it has painted itself to be.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 5.

La ministre auprès du ministre de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères, chargée des affaires européennes, Nathalie Loiseau, a officiellement annoncé mercredi 14 mars 2018 le lancement des consultations citoyennes sur l’Europe.

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Le service pénal du parquet général est distinct du greffe de la Cour de cassation. Or l’article 585-2 du code de procédure pénale vise uniquement le greffe de la Cour de cassation. Il en résulte que la date d’arrivée du mémoire au service pénal du parquet général ne peut valoir date à laquelle il parvient au greffe de la Cour de cassation. Un tel mémoire ne saisit donc pas la Cour de cassation des moyens qu’il pourrait contenir.

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Today, the European Council has published a document of guidelines with a view to the opening of negotiations on the overall understanding of the framework for the future relationship EU-UK. In our field of interest those are the relevant ones

10. The future partnership should include ambitious provisions on movement of natural persons, based on full reciprocity and non-discrimination among Member States, and related areas such as coordination of social security and recognition of professional qualifications. In this context, options for judicial cooperation in matrimonial, parental responsibility and other related matters could be explored, taking into account that the UK will be a third country outside Schengen and that such cooperation would require strong safeguards to ensure full respect of fundamental rights.

Judicial cooperation in civil matters is not mentioned.

Guidelines 7 and 15 refer to the CJEU:

7. The European Council further reiterates that the Union will preserve its autonomy as regards its decision-making, which excludes participation of the United Kingdom as a third-country in the Union Institutions and participation in the decision-making of the Union bodies, offices and agencies. The role of the Court of Justice of the European Union will also be fully respected.

15. Designing the overall governance of the future relationship will require to take into account:

iii) the requirements of the autonomy of the EU legal order, including the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union, notably as developed in the jurisprudence.