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Ross Denton at Baker & McKenzie has a gem of a briefing on the EU’s ‘blocking Regulation’ and what it would mean in light of the US’ mooted sanctions on Iran. Steptoe had earlier also pondered the impact of the US withdrawal from the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ or JCPOA, on the Regulation.

Regulation 2271/96 provides essentially for protection against, and counteracts the effects of the extra-territorial application of the laws of third States. WTO lawyers will remember it mostly from the days of Helms-Burton. As Ross points out, the European Commission now have delegated power to populate the Annex to the list (which details the sanctions the Regulation acts against).

Potentially extra-territorial are in particular US ‘secondary’ sanctions: i.e. those against non-US individuals (or companies) for actions undertaken outside the US.

Of particular interest to readers of the blog – including researchers I would imagine, are Articles 4, 5 and 6, which I have copy-pasted in full below. They deal with recognition and enforcement, co-operation with foreign courts, and recovery of expenses. These Articles are a rare instance where the EU adopt a harmonised approach to recognition and enforcement of judgments originating ex-EU (awaiting the potential Hague Judgments project). [Update 22 May 11:30 AM. As Enio Piovezani comments below, the GDPR, too, includes a relevant rule: See Article 48: ‘Transfers or disclosures not authorised by Union law. Any judgment of a court or tribunal and any decision of an administrative authority of a third country requiring a controller or processor to transfer or disclose personal data may only be recognised or enforceable in any manner if based on an international agreement, such as a mutual legal assistance treaty, in force between the requesting third country and the Union or a Member State, without prejudice to other grounds for transfer pursuant to this Chapter.’]

 

As Ross points out, however, the proverbial US rock is harder than the equally proverbial EU stone, hence in practice many companies choose to abide by the US sanctions, anyways.

My fingers are itching to launch yet another interesting PhD topic on this issue…Takers?

Geert.

 

Article 4

No judgment of a court or tribunal and no decision of an administrative authority located outside the Community giving effect, directly or indirectly, to the laws specified in the Annex or to actions based thereon or resulting there from, shall be recognized or be enforceable in any manner.

Article 5

No person referred to in Article 11 shall comply, whether directly or through a subsidiary or other intermediary person, actively or by deliberate omission, with any requirement or prohibition, including requests of foreign courts, based on or resulting, directly or indirectly, from the laws specified in the Annex or from actions based thereon or resulting therefrom.

Persons may be authorized, in accordance with the procedures provided in Articles 7 and 8, to comply fully or partially to the extent that non-compliance would seriously damage their interests or those of the Community. The criteria for the application of this provision shall be established in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 8. When there is sufficient evidence that non-compliance would cause serious damage to a natural or legal person, the Commission shall expeditiously submit to the committee referred to in Article 8 a draft of the appropriate measures to be taken under the terms of the Regulation.

Article 6

Any person referred to in Article 11, who is engaging in an activity referred to in Article 1 shall be entitled to recover any damages, including legal costs, caused to that person by the application of the laws specified in the Annex or by actions based thereon or resulting therefrom.

Such recovery may be obtained from the natural or legal person or any other entity causing the damages or from any person acting on its behalf or intermediary.

The Brussels Convention of 27 September 1968 on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters shall apply to proceedings brought and judgments given under this Article. Recovery may be obtained on the basis of the provisions of Sections 2 to 6 of Title II of that Convention, as well as, in accordance with Article 57 (3) of that Convention, through judicial proceedings instituted in the Courts of any Member State where that person, entity, person acting on its behalf or intermediary holds assets.

Without prejudice to other means available and in accordance with applicable law, the recovery could take the form of seizure and sale of assets held by those persons, entities, persons acting on their behalf or intermediaries within the Community, including shares held in a legal person incorporated within the Community.

By Guillaume Croisant (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

In October 2017, as already reported in a previous post, the Belgian Government announced its intention to set up a specialised English-speaking court with jurisdiction over international commercial disputes, the Brussels International Business Court (“BIBC”). An update versionof the text has finally been submitted to Parliament on 15 May 2018, after that the Government’s initial draft faced criticisms from the High Council of Justice (relating to the BIBC’s independence and impartiality, its source of funding and its impact on the ordinary courts) and was subject to the review of the Conseil d’Etat.

In the wake of Brexit, the Belgian Government aims at establishing a specialised business court able to position Brussels as a new hub for international commercial disputes, in line with its international status as de factocapital of the EU and seat of many international institutions and companies. Similar projects are ongoing in several jurisdictions throughout the EU, including France, the Netherlands and Germany (see previous post).

The BIBC will have jurisdiction over disputes:

• which are international in nature, i.e. where (i) the parties have their establishment in different jurisdictions, (ii) a substantial part of the commercial relationship must be performed in a third country, or (iii) the applicable law to the dispute is a foreign law. In addition, another language than French, Dutch or German (Belgium’s official languages, which are already used before ordinary courts) must have been used frequently by the parties during their commercial relationship;
• among “enterprises” (i.e. every entity pursuing an economic purpose, including public enterprises which provide goods and services on a market basis); and
• provided that the parties have agreed to the BIBC’s jurisdiction before or after the crystallisation of their dispute.

Subject to potential amendments in Parliament, the main procedural hallmarks of the BIBC can be summarised as follows:

• the procedure will be conducted in English (notices and submissions, evidence, hearings, judgments, etc.);
• while the BIBC remains a State court, the procedure will be based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on international arbitration, which means that the parties will be offered greater flexibility and room to organise the conduct of the proceedings;
• the cases will be heard by ad hocchambers of three judges, one professional and two lay judges (appointed by the president of the BIBC on the basis of a panel of Belgian and international experts in international business law), with the assistance of the Registrar of the Brussels Court of Appeal;
• the BIBC will be granted the power to issue provisional and protective measures (including upon ex parterequests);
• no appeal will be open against the BIBC’s decision (with the exception of an opposition/tierce opposition before the BIBC for absent parties/interested third parties, and a pourvoi en cassation on points of law before the Supreme Court);
• the BIBC should be self-financing and the court fees are therefore going to be significantly increased (to around € 20,000/case).

The Belgian Government aims to have the BIBC up and running by 1 January 2020.

 

Une décision d’exécution d’une mesure de gel prononcée par un État membre de l’Union européenne contre un immeuble peut prendre la forme d’une saisie pénale spéciale immobilière, ces deux actes étant soumis aux même modalités. 

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The most recent issue of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal (available here) is a special issue, guest edited by Janet Walker, Gerard Kennedy and Sagi Peari, considering the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act.  This statute governs the taking of jurisdiction and both staying and transferring proceedings in civil and commercial matters in three Canadian provinces: British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

The abstract to the introductory article states: “In 2016, the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act (“CJPTA”) marked its tenth year in force.  Promulgated by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, and adopted in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, the CJPTA was developed to clarify and advance the law of judicial jurisdiction.  In a symposium hosted by Osgoode Hall Law School, ten leading scholars were invited to present papers on specific questions in order to assess the promise of the CJPTA to meet the needs of Canadians in the years ahead and to provide leadership for the law in other parts of Canada.  This article provides an overview of the issues discussed in the symposium; it places the papers that were presented in the larger context of developments in the law of judicial jurisdiction in Canada and internationally; and it summarizes in an appendix the drafting reforms that might be made to the Act.”

The articles about the CJPTA are:

Judicial Jurisdiction in Canada: The CJPTA—A Decade of Progress (Janet Walker)

Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other? Jurisdiction in Common Law Canada (Stephen G.A. Pitel)

Jurisdiction Motions and Access to Justice: An Ontario Tale (Gerard J. Kennedy)

Has the CJPTA readied Canada for the Hague Choice of Court Convention? (Geneviève Saumier)

General Jurisdiction over Corporate Defendants under the CJPTA: Consistent with International Standards? (Catherine Walsh)

Residual Discretion: The Concept of Forum of Necessity under the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act (Michael Sobkin)

Three Objections to Forum of Necessity: Global Access to Justice, International Criminal Law, and Proper Party (Sagi Peari)

Cross-Border Transfers of Court Proceedings (Vaughan Black)

The Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act and the Hague Conference’s Judgments and Jurisdiction Projects (Joost Blom)

The workshop Cross-Border Debt Recovery in the EU. Application of the “second generation” regulations in France and Luxembourg, taking place at the MPI Luxembourg on June 8th, is organised in the framework of the IC2BE research project “Informed Choices in Cross-Border Enforcement” (JUST-AG-2016-02). Funded by the Justice Programme (2014-2020) of the European Commission, this project aims at assessing the working in practice of the “second generation” of EU regulations on procedural law for cross-border cases – the European Enforcement Order, Order for Payment, Small Claims (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2015/2421) and the Account Preservation Order Regulations. The project is carried out by a European consortium comprising the MPI Luxembourg and the universities of Antwerp, Complutense of Madrid, Milan, Rotterdam and Wroclaw, under the coordination of Prof. Jan von Hein, from the University of Freiburg.

Experts and practitioners from different countries, mainly France and Luxembourg, will get together on the 8th of June to address the application in practice of the above-mentioned regulations in both Member States. Presentations will be given by Prof. Cyril Nourissat, Mr. Marc Cagniart, Prof. Agnieszka Frackowiak-Adamska, Mr. Max Mailliet, Dr. Alina Ontanu, Ms. Julie Jasson, Dr. Katharina Raffelsieper, Ms. Katrien Baetens, Ms. Alice Canet, Mr. Grégory Minne and Ms. Clara Mara-Marhuenda. A panel discussion will follow, with the presence of, i.a., Prof. Gilles Cuniberti, Dr. Justus Froehlich, Mr. Patrick Gielen, Prof. Olivier Hance, Mr. Jona van Leeuwen, Dr. Stephan Lesage-Mathieu, Dr. Carl Friedrich Nordmeier, Dr. Herbert Woopen. The program is available here.

The spoken languages will be English and French.

The workshop is conceived as a closed event. However, people having a special interest on the topic are invited to apply for admission upon condition they provide a short explanation for their interest.

Contact address: veerle.vandeneeckhout@mpi.lu

 

Tribunal de grande instance de Briey, 07 mai 2018

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Dijon - chambre correctionnelle, 09 novembre 2017

Pourvoi c/ Chambre de l'instruction de la cour d'appel de Nancy, 21 décembre 2017

Pourvoi c/ Chambre de l'instruction de la cour d'appel de Nancy, 21 décembre 2017

Pourvoi c/ Chambre de l'instruction de la cour d'appel de Reims, 08 mars 2018

Un doyen des juges qui s’auto-désigne dans une information judiciaire, qui omet de remplir le formulaire de désignation d’une juge d’instruction puis qui régularise ce document en l’antidatant commet-il un faux en écriture publique ?

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The conference titled Pride and Prejudice in Cross-Border Cases will take place at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law on Tuesday 22 May 2018. It is intended to serve as an open forum for scholars and practitioners to address current issues pertaining to private international law. The programme offers selection of topics by speakers from both sides of the Atlantic. Conference fee is not charged, but prior registration is required at zeup@pravri.hr.

Bail commercial

Bail commercial

Propriété immobilière

Procédures civiles d'exécution

Sebastian Mock (University of Hamburg), Kristian Csach (Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice) and Bohumil Havel (Institute of Law, Czech Academy of Science, Prague) have published an “International Handbook on Shareholders’ Agreements – Regulation, Practice and Comparative Analysis” addressing various issues of shareholders’ agreements. The book includes general remarks on specific topics related to shareholders’ agreements and numerous country reports. One chapter also specifically deals with cross-border shareholders’ agreements and private international law. More information is available on the website of the publisher (here).

Les débats à l’Assemblée nationale ont parfois été vifs mais les évolutions du projet de loi ont été peu nombreuses. L’article 2 a particulièrement mobilisé les énergies, l’opposition accusant le gouvernement de vouloir correctionnaliser les viols sur mineurs.

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Bayer CropScience / Commission
Agriculture
Le Tribunal de l’UE confirme la validité des restrictions introduites au niveau de l’UE en 2013 à l’encontre des insecticides clothianidine, thiaméthoxame et imidaclopride en raison des risques pour les abeilles

Karel de Grote - Hogeschool Katholieke Hogeschool Antwerpen
Rapprochement des législations
La directive de l’Union sur les clauses abusives dans les contrats conclus avec les consommateurs peut s’appliquer à un établissement d’enseignement