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Incapacité - Administration légale sous contrôle judiciaire - Responsabilité de la banque

I have often argued that the European Commission and by extension the EU’s Insolvency Regulation is wrong in taking as a starting point that forum shopping in insolvency matters as a rule needs to be discouraged. This aversion towards forum shopping is one of the main reasons for the UK and other Member States to keep Schemes of Arrangement and other restructuring devises well out off the reach of the Regulation. (The Brussels I recast for instance allows for much more strategic choice of court use).

Thank you Debra Dandeneau for flagging the US Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York’s decision in Ocean Rig. The Court essentially argues that to use forum shopping in a restructuring /insolvency case is absolutely acceptable provided it is done in good faith, particularly with a view to maximizing chances of survival and /or maximal recovery by the creditors. Note that the Court, in determining COMI for the various companies in the group, pays specific attention to the ascertainability, by third parties, of COMI.

A judgment to be applauded. And this posting, incidentally, is the 500th on this blog. To 1000 and beyond!

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 5, Heading 5.1, Heading 5.4.6.

Les renseignements transmis par les attachés de sécurité intérieure ne constituent pas des actes de police judiciaire et ne peuvent en conséquence servir d’unique fondement à une déclaration de culpabilité.

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Les renseignements transmis par les attachés de sécurité intérieure ne constituent pas des actes de police judiciaire et ne peuvent en conséquence servir d’unique fondement à une déclaration de culpabilité.

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Twitter injunctions – Twinjunctions if you like, rather like Facebook or Google Removal orders, provide classic scenarios for the consideration of the territorial scope of injunctive and enforcement proceedings. Michael Douglas has great review of [2017] NSWSC 1300 X v Twitter. On 28 September 2017, the Supreme Court of New South Wales awarded its final injunction with global reach, directed towards Twitter Inc (based at CAL) and its Irish counterpart, Twitter International Company.

Plaintiff requested removal of tweets and accounts, and also requested ia that Twitter disclose information relating to the identity of a troll, flagging a potential action against that person for breach of confidence. Twitter refused, appealing to its privacy policy. The eventual injunction went very far indeed, as Michael details. Of the issues under discussion, of interest to this post are the jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief against foreign defendants who do not appear; and the appropriateness of injunctions expressed to operate ‘everywhere in the world’.

Now, what is refreshing about Pembroke J’s review of the issues is his non-doctrinal analysis of the issue of jurisdiction. He emphasises that there is a long history of courts of equity making in personam orders that are intended to operate extra-territorially (the Court’s jurisdiction is one in equity); (at 40) that Twitter unlike other defendants may disagree with the ruling but will not seek to avoid its social responsibility; that there is a public interest in issuing the worldwide order (and in enforcing it: Pembroke J flags that there are Australia-based assets against which enforcement may be sought); and that given his experience with Twitter, it can be expected to use its best endeavours to give effect to the proposed orders, despite its objection that it is not feasible to pro-actively monitor user content.

Eventually of course the trouble with such an assessment, without consideration of wider issues of public and private international law, is that the issuing, or not, of orders of this kind by the courts, depends on the defendant’s attitude towards compliance. That is hardly a solution serving equal access to the law or indeed equity.

Geert.

 

 

Le délai de contestation de l’enregistrement d’une déclaration de nationalité court à compter de la date à partir de laquelle le procureur de la République a été mis en mesure de découvrir la fraude ou le mensonge.

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Le délai de contestation de l’enregistrement d’une déclaration de nationalité court à compter de la date à partir de laquelle le procureur de la République a été mis en mesure de découvrir la fraude ou le mensonge.

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Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional, vol. 9, nr. 2, has just been released. Cuadernos is a bi-annual electronic law journal specialized in International Private Law, Uniform Law and Private Comparative Law, open to contributions in different languages. It is edited by the Private International Law Department of the University Carlos III, Madrid.

All contents can be freely downloaded. Here is the index of the section “Estudios”:

Miguel Gómez Jene, El convenio arbitral: statu quo (The arbitration agreement: statu quo)

Hilda Aguilar Grieder, Problemas de Derecho Internacional Privado en la contratación de seguros: especial referencia a la reciente directiva (UE) 2016/97 sobre la distribución de seguros (Private International Law problems of the international insurance contracts: the new directive (UE) 2016/1997 about distribution of insurance)

Isabel Antón Juárez, La oposición del régimen económico matrimonial y la protección del tercero en Derecho Internacional Privado (The opposition of the matrimonial property regime and the protection of the third party in Private International Law)

Ilaria Aquironi, L’addebito della separazione nel diritto internazionale privato dell’Unione Europea (Judicial decisions as to the causes of separation under EU private international law)

Naiara Arriola Echaniz, La Unión Europea y la Organización Mundial del Comercio: comenzando un diálogo proto- constitucional (The European Union and the World Trade Organization: a budding proto-constitutional dialogue)

Irene Blázquez Rodríguez, Libre circulación de personas y Derecho Internacional Privado: un análisis a la luz de la jurisprudencia del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea (Free movement of persons and International Private Law: an analysis in the light of the case law of the European Court of Justice)

María Asunción Cebrián Salvat, La competencia judicial internacional residual en materia contractual en España (The Spanish rules of residual jurisdiction in matters related to contract)

Silvia Pilar Badiola Coca, Algunas consideraciones sobre el régimen de la responsabilidad civil del porteador en la legislación marítima de Emiratos Árabes Unidos (Some considerations regarding the maritime carrier liability under the United Arab Emirates maritime law)

Clara Isabel Cordero Álvarez, Incidencia de las normas imperativas en los contratos internacionales: especial referencia a las normas de terceros estados desde una aproximación europea (Overriding mandatory provisions in international contracts: a special reference to foreign overriding mandatory provisions from a European approach)

Eva de Götzen, Recognition of same-sex marriages, overcoming gender barriers in Italy and the Italian law no. 76/2016 on civil unions. First remarks (Riconoscimento dei matrimoni omosessuali, superamento delle barriere di genere in Italia e legge n. 76/2016 sulle unioni civili. Prime riflessioni)

Carlos Manuel Díez Soto, Algunas cuestiones a propósito del derecho de participación del autor de una obra de arte original sobre el precio de reventa (droit de suite) (Some questions concerning the artist’s resale right (droit de suite)

Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Protección de las personas migrantes indocumentadas en España con arreglo al Derecho Internacional y Europeo de los derechos humanos (Protection of undocumented migrant persons in Spain under international and European human rights law)

Ádám Fuglinszky, Hungarian law and practice of civil partnerships with special regard to same-sex couples (Das Ungarische Recht und praxis von lebenspartnerschaften mit besonderer rücksicht auf gleichgeschlechtliche pare)

Natividad Goñi Urriza, El sometimiento de las adquisiciones minoritarias que no otorgan el control a las normas sobre el control de las concentraciones (The control under merger rules of acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings)

Luis Ignacio Gordillo Pérez, El TJUE y el Derecho Internacional: la defensa de su propia autonomía como principio constitucional básico (The CJEU and International Law: the defence of its own autonomy as a basic constitutional principle)

Thais Guerrero Padrón, Sobre los funcionarios de la Unión Europea y su régimen de seguridad social: los tributos como cotizaciones sociales a efectos del TJUE (Issues about officials of the European Union and its social security regime: taxes as social contributions to the effects of the CJEU)

Carlos María López Espadafor, Lagunas en el Derecho Tributario de la Unión Europea (Gaps in the tax law of the European Union)

Isabel Lorente Martínez, Brexit y cláusulas de sumisión en los contratos internacionales (Brexit and prorrogation clauses in international contracts)

Diana Marín Consarnau, Las uniones registradas en España como beneficiarias del derecho de la UE a propósito de la Directiva 2004/38/CE y del Reglamento (UE) 2016/1104 (Spanish “registered partnerships” as beneficiaries of EU law according to the Directive 2004/38 (EC) and the Regulation (EU) 2016/1104)

Fabrizio Marongiu Buonaiuti, La disciplina della giurisdizione nel Regolamento (UE) n. 2016/679 concernente il trattamento dei dati personali e il suo coordinamento con la disciplina contenuta nel regolamento “Bruxelles I-bis” (Jurisdiction under Regulation (EU) no. 2016/679 concerning the processing of personal data and its coordination with the “Brussels I-bis” regulation)

Alfonso Ortega Giménez, El fenómeno de la inmigración y el problema de los denominados “matrimonios de conveniencia” en España (The phenomenon of immigration and the problem of the denominated “convenience marriages” in Spain)

Marta Requejo Isidro, La protección del menor no acompañado solicitante de asilo: entre Estado competente y Estado responsable (The protection of unaccompanied minors asylum-seekers: between competent state and responsible state)

Mercedes Sánchez Ruiz, La regulación europea actual sobre emplazamiento de producto y la propuesta de reforma de la directiva de servicios de comunicación audiovisual (The current European rules governing product placement and the new legislative proposal amending the audiovisual media services directive)

Stella Solernou Sanz, Los límites a la autonomía privada en el marco del contrato de transporte de mercancías por carretera (Limits on private autonomy in the framework of the contract for carriage of goods by road)

Lenka Válková, The interplay between jurisdictional rules established in the EU legal instruments in the field of family law: testing functionality through simultaneous application with domestic law (L’interazione tra le regole di giurisdizione all’interno degli strumenti giuridici dell’UE nell’ambito del diritto di famiglia: la prova del funzionamento attraverso l’applicazione simultanea del diritto nazionale)

This intriguing book examines the fundamental juridical nature, classification and enforcement of choice of court agreements in international commercial litigation. It integrates the comparative and doctrinal analysis of choice of court agreements under the Brussels I Recast Regulation, the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements (‘Hague Convention’) and the English common law jurisdictional regime into a theoretical framework. In this regard, the book analyses the impact of a multilateral and regulatory conception of private international law on the private law enforcement of choice of court agreements before the English courts – highly recommendable for all who are interested in choice of court agreements!

For more information see here.

Thank you Stephen Pittel for alerting me to 2017 SCC 34 Google Inc. v Equustek Solutions Inc. – alternative review ia here, and apologies for my late reporting: the case came to my attention late June. I have of course posted before on various aspects of worldwide removal and other orders, particularly in the context of the EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’.

Equustek sued Datalink for various intellectual property violations and found alleged insufficient co-operation from Google in making it difficult for users to come across Datalink’s offerings. Google seemingly did not resist jurisdiction, but did resist the injunction and any ex-Canada effect of same.

The majority in the case however essentially applied an effet utile consideration: if as it found it did, it has in personam jurisdiction over defendant, an extraterritorial reach is not problematic if that is the only way to make the order effective. An order limited to searches or websites in Canada would not have addressed the harm: see Stephen’s verbatim comment (referring to para 38 of the judgment).  Google was ordered to de-index globally.

Dissenting opinions suggested Datalink could be sued in France, too, however this I suppose does not address the effet utile consideration of the majority.

Geert.

 

 

 

Prof. Fabrizio Marrella, Chair of International Law (“Cà Foscari” University of Venice & LUISS University of Rome) has recently published “Manuale di diritto del commercio internazionale” (CEDAM, 2017). A presentation has been kindly provided by the author (the complete TOC is available on the publisher’s website):

Following the success of previous publication by the same Author, this book provides the first University textbook of International Business Law in Italian designed to introduce students and practitioners to this fundamental field of law. It classifies different sources of law affecting trasnational business operations according to their origin and legal system (National – i.e. Italian, European Union, Intergovernmental and non national – i.e. new lex mercatoria and the Unidroit Principles for international Commercial Contracts, as well as identifies the different actors in the field (companies, States, Intergovernmental Organizations, Non Governmental Organizations).

In such a framework, rules of International Economic Law (from WTO to the new EU Customs Code, from economic treaties to embargos) provides the setting into which the core contract are operationals. Thus, the main perspective of the book is that of Private International Law by which different rules are applied according to their sphere of application. Among the topics discussed, there are the main transnational business contracts (i.e. sales, transport, payment methods, insurance, agency and distribution contracts, intellectual property, trade finance, bank guarantees, foreign direct investments) and the most prominent dispute resolution mechanisms such as Arbitration and ADRs.

The book takes into proper account, inter alia, the Unidroit Principles for International Commercial Contracts 2016; EU Regulation n. 1215/2012 (Regulation Brussels Ia) and the new ICC Arbitration Rules 2017.

Title: F. Marrella, “Manuale di diritto del commercio internazionale”, Padua, CEDAM, 2017.

ISBN: 978-88-13-36293-5. Price: EUR 55. Pages: XXXII-800. Available at CEDAM.

Une loi étrangère qui ignore la réserve héréditaire n’est pas en soi contraire à l’ordre public international français.

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Une loi étrangère qui ignore la réserve héréditaire n’est pas en soi contraire à l’ordre public international français.

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Dans un rapport publié le 28 septembre 2017 mettant fin à l’évaluation de la France en matière de lutte contre la corruption, le groupe anticorruption du Conseil de l’Europe (GRECO) dresse le bilan des mesures prises par l’État français au regard des recommandations qu’il a formulées depuis 2009.

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Dans un rapport publié le 28 septembre 2017 mettant fin à l’évaluation de la France en matière de lutte contre la corruption, le groupe anticorruption du Conseil de l’Europe (GRECO) dresse le bilan des mesures prises par l’État français au regard des recommandations qu’il a formulées depuis 2009.

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Internship applications at the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH – Hague office) are now open for the March-May 2018 period and will close at midnight (Central European Time) on Friday 1st December 2017.

The duration of the internship will be two to three months. Applications must comply with the requirements set out in the following link: https://www.hcch.net/en/recruitment/internships.

Internships offered by the HCCH are not remunerated.

Bail rural - Procédure civile

We are pleased to report that Conflict of Laws.net has recently been selected as one of the Top 100 UK Law Blogs on the web. As you can see here, we have been ranked 33th. We thank all our editors and contributors for their commitment and, of course, our readers who have made this success possible.

As Bot AG put it, Joined Cases C-24 and 25/16 Nintendo v Big Ben gave the Court an opportunity to  determine the territorial scope of a decision adopted by a court of a Member State in respect of two co-defendants domiciled in two different Member States concerning claims supplementary to an action for infringement brought before that court.

The case concerns the relation between Brussels I and Regulation 6/2002 – which was last raised in the recent BMW case, particularly as for the former, the application of Article 6(1) (now 8(1))’s rule on anchor defendants. And finally the application of Rome II’s Article 8(2): the identification of the ‘country in which the act of infringement was committed’. In this post I will focus on the impact for Brussels I (Recast) and Rome II.

The Landgericht held that there had been an infringement by BigBen Germany and BigBen France of Nintendo’s registered Community designs. However, it dismissed the actions in so far as they concerned the use of the images of the goods corresponding to those designs by the defendants in the main proceedings.

The Landgericht ordered BigBen Germany to cease using those designs throughout the EU and also upheld, without territorial limitation, Nintendo’s supplementary claims seeking that it be sent various information, accounts and documents held by the defendants in the main proceedings, that they be ordered to pay compensation and that the destruction or recall of the goods at issue, publication of the judgment and reimbursement of the lawyers’ fees incurred by Nintendo be ordered (‘the supplementary claims’).

As regards BigBen France, the Landgericht held that it had international jurisdiction in respect of that company and ordered it to cease using the protected designs at issue throughout the EU. Concerning the supplementary claims, it limited the scope of its judgment to BigBen France’s supplies of the goods at issue to BigBen Germany, but without limiting the territorial scope of its judgment. It considered the applicable law to be that of the place of infringement and took the view that in the present case that was German, Austrian and French law.

BigBen France contends that the German courts lack jurisdiction to adopt orders against it that are applicable throughout the EU: it takes the view that such orders can have merely national territorial scope. Nintendo ia takes the view that German law should be applied to its claims relating to BigBen Germany and French law to those relating to BigBen France.

Taking into account the objective pursued by Article 6(1) of Regulation No 44/2001, which seeks inter alia to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments, the existence of the same situation of fact must in such circumstances — if proven, which is for the referring court to verify, and where an application is made to that effect — cover all the activities of the various defendants, including the supplies made by the parent company on its own account, and not be limited to certain aspects or elements of them. If I understand this issue correctly (it is not always easy to see the jurisdictional forest for the many IP trees in the judgment), this means the Court restricts the potential for the use of anchor defendants in Article 8(1).

As for the application of Article 8(2) Rome II, at 98 and following inter alia analysis of the various language versions of the Article, the CJEU equates the notion ‘country n which the act of infringement is committed’ with the locus delicti commissi:  ‘it refers to the country where the event giving rise to the damage occurred, namely the country on whose territory the act of infringement was committed.‘ At 103: ‘…where the same defendant is accused of various acts of infringement falling under the concept of ‘use’ within the meaning of Article 19(1) of Regulation No 6/2002 in various Member States, the correct approach for identifying the event giving rise to the damage is not to refer to each alleged act of infringement, but to make an overall assessment of that defendant’s conduct in order to determine the place where the initial act of infringement at the origin of that conduct was committed or threatened.’

At 108 the Court rules what this means in the case at issue: ‘the place where the event giving rise to the damage occurred within the meaning of Article 8(2) of [Rome II] is the place where the process of putting the offer for sale online by that operator on its website was activated’.

At 99 however it warns expressly that this finding must be distinguished as being issued within the specific context of infringement of intellectual property rights: Regulation 6/2002 as well as Rome II in its specific intention for IP rights, aims to guarantee predictability and unity of a singly connecting factor. This is a very important caveat: for while this approach by the CJEU assists with predictability, it also hands means for applicable law shopping and, where the Court’s approach for locus delicti commissi in IP infringement extended to jurisdiction, for forum shopping, too.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.11.2; Chapter 3.