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Entreprise en difficulté (Loi du 26 juillet 2005) - Contrats en cours

Procédure civile – Santé publique – Responsabilité du fait des produits défectueux.

Association - Action en justice - Procédure civile

I discussed this case with my students the day the judgment came out. Copy of the judgment has travelled with me far and wide. Yet I only now find myself getting round to posting on Anas v Facebook, at the courts at Würzburg back in February. Mr Anas came from Syria as a refugee and took a famous selfie with Frau Merkel. The photo later came to haunt him as fake news sites used it in connecting with accusations of terrorism. Mr Anas thereupon sued Facebook, requesting it to act more swiftly to remove the various content reporting on him in this matter. The Würzburg court obliged. I understand that in the meantime Mr Anas has halted further action against FB which I am assuming includes the appeal which FB must have launched.

Now, the interest for this blog lies not in the issue of fake news, but rather the jurisdictional grounds for the ruling. Mr Anas sued Facebook Ireland, not Facebook Inc. The latter, I would suggest, he might have done on the basis of the Brussels I Recast’s provisions on consumer contracts – albeit that the conditions for that title might not be fulfilled if Mr Anas became a FB user in Syria.

The court did not entertain the consumer title. It did uphold its jurisdiction on the basis of Article 7(2) of the Recast, as lex loci damni. (But without consideration of the Shevill limitation). Awkwardly, it then lest my German fails me, goes on to determine its internal jurisdiction on the basis of German civil procedure law. Plaintiff was domiciled in Berlin; not Würzburg. The judgment therefore turns into the proverbial cake and eating it: Article 7(2) does not just lay down jurisdiction for a Member State: it also identifies the very court in that MS that has jurisdiction. It cancels out internal rules of jurisdiction. With Mr Anas’ domicile in Berlin, Wurzburg as locus damni is not immediately obvious.

German speakers, if I am not reading this right please do comment.

Geert.

(Handbook of) European Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.11.

Andriciuc e.a.
Rapprochement des législations
Lorsqu’un établissement financier octroie un prêt libellé en devise étrangère, il doit fournir à l’emprunteur des informations suffisantes pour lui permettre de prendre sa décision avec prudence et en toute connaissance de cause

Tilly-Sabco / Commission
Agriculture
La Cour annule le règlement de la Commission fixant à zéro le montant des restitutions à l’exportation dans le secteur de la viande de volaille en juillet 2013

The Private International Law Group from the School of Law of Carlos III University of Madrid (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, www.uc3m.es) is delighted to announce its International Congress on matters of matrimonial property regimes and property consequences of registered partnerships (from 16-17 November 2017).

Young researchers are invited to submit their papers about the subject of the Congress. Abstracts, either in Spanish or English (Word format) must be sent to mjcastel@der-pr.uc3m.es (deadline: 30th September 2017), including:

-Name and surname

-Affiliation of the submitting researcher

-Short biographical note (no more than 500 words)

-Title and Summary of the proposed paper (no more than 800 words)

The abstracts will be reviewed by the following Committee:

Alfonso L. Calvo Caravaca, Professor of Private International Law (Carlos III University of Madrid).

Esperanza Castellanos Ruiz, Associate Professor of Private International Law (Carlos III University of Madrid).

Juliana Rodríguez Rodrigo, Associate Professor of Private International Law (Carlos III University of Madrid).

The decision will be notified to the author by 15th October 2017

Successful applicants will present their papers into the Young Researchers Round Table (17th November 2017) and their papers may be published in the Journal Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional.CDT (www.uc3m.es/cdt ).

The organization will not be responsible for the expenses of young researchers’ participation in the Congress.

 

La compétence du juge français ne peut pas être retenue, au titre du déni de justice, dans l’hypothèse où un juge étranger est déjà saisi du litige, même si une société française détient une partie du capital de la société étrangère contre laquelle l’action est intentée.

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Achmea
DISC
Selon l’avocat général Wathelet, la clause d’arbitrage incluse dans l’accord conclu entre les Pays-Bas et la Slovaquie sur la protection des investissements est compatible avec le droit de l’Union

Back in March the the Child & Family Law Quarterly together with Cambridge Family Law hosted a conference on the the impact of Brexit on international family law (see our previous post). Some of the academic papers that were presented at this occasion have now been published in a special Brexit issue of the Child & Family Law Quarterly.

Here is the table of content:

• Brexit and international family law from a continental perspective, Anatol Dutta
• Private international law concerning children in the UK after Brexit: comparing Hague Treaty law with EU Regulations, Paul Beaumont
• Divorcing Europe: reflections from a Scottish perspective on the implications of Brexit for cross-border divorce proceedings, Janeen M Carruthers and Elizabeth B Crawford
• What are the implications of the Brexit vote for the law on international child abduction?, Nigel Lowe
• Not a European family: implications of ‘Brexit’ for international family law, Ruth Lamont

 

L’article 13, point 5, du règlement Bruxelles I, considéré conjointement avec l’article 14, point 2, sous a), de ce règlement, doit être interprété en ce sens qu’une victime disposant d’une action directe contre l’assureur de l’auteur du dommage qu’elle a subi n’est pas liée par une clause attributive de juridiction conclue entre cet assureur et cet auteur.

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La Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE) considère que le Tribunal de l’Union a correctement jugé qu’une initiative citoyenne européenne (ICE) ayant pour objectif d’effacer la dette publique des pays en état de nécessité ne peut être enregistrée.

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Les règles de la directive Accueil du 26 juin 2013 relatives au placement en rétention d’un demandeur d’asile pour établir ou vérifier son identité ou sa nationalité ou lorsqu’il existe un risque de fuite sont compatibles avec le droit fondamental à la liberté. 

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Pourvoi c./ Cour d'appel de Paris, Pôle 5, 23 janvier 2017

Pourvoi c./ Cour d'appel d'Aix en Provence, 5e chambre correctionnelle, 8 février 2017

Cour d'appel de Versailles, 16e Chambre, 7 septembre 2017

Pourvoi c./ Cour d'appel de Paris, Pôle 5, 21 février 2017

Pourvoi c./ Cour d'appel de Nancy, 4ème Chambre des Appels Correctionnels, 12 janvier 2017.

Cour d'appel d'Amiens, Chambre Baux Ruraux, 12 septembre 2017

In Case C-372/16 Sahyouni SAUGMANDSGAARD ØE Opined Friday last (Opinion not yet available in EN at the time of writing of this post; the curia press release on the case helps). The case concerns the scope of application of Rome III, Regulation 1259/2010 (on enhanced co-operation Regulation on divorce and legal separation), as well as the application of its Article 10.  This Article inserts the lex fori for the lex causae, where the lex causae as identified by the Regulation makes no provision for divorce or does not grant one of the spouses equal access to divorce or legal separation on grounds of their sex.

In the previous Sahyouni Case C‑281/15, the request was considered inadmissible for lack of factual beef to the bone to allow the Court to apply its Dzodzi case-law (Joined Cases C‑297/88 and C‑197/89). In that case, the Court had held that the authors of the Treaty did not intend to exclude from the jurisdiction of the Court requests for a preliminary ruling on a provision of EU law in the specific case where the national law of a Member State refers to the content of that provision in order to determine rules applicable to a situation which is purely internal to that State and that, on the contrary, it is manifestly in the interest of the EU legal order that, in order to forestall future differences of interpretation, every provision of EU law should be given a uniform interpretation irrespective of the circumstances in which it is to be applied.

In the case at hand, Rome III is not generally applicable to decisions on divorce and legal separation issued by the authorities of third States. German residual private international law on the matter, however, makes it so applicable.

SAUGMANDSGAARD ØE first of all opines that the national court now does give the CJEU enough information for it to rule on the case. Contrary to what the German legislature
assumed, however, the AG suggests Rome III does not cover divorces which are declared without a constitutive decision of a court or other public authority, such as a divorce resulting from the unilateral declaration of a spouse which is registered by a religious court. Note that the AG for this purpose employs lex fori in the sense of EU law (the Regulation and its preparatory works), to determine whether such divorce is ‘private’ or not; not as might be considered an alternative in the case at hand, Syrian law. Those of us with an interest in Vorfrage may find this interesting.

Next, the AG does complete the analysis should the Court disagree with his view on scope of application. The question whether access to divorce provided for by the foreign law is discriminatory (this is the test of the aforementioned Article 10) must, in the view of the AG, be assessed in the abstract, and not specifically in the light of the circumstances of the case. Therefore, it suffices that the applicable foreign law be discriminatory by virtue of its content for it to be disapplied. This AG suggests that the EU legislature considered that the discrimination at issue, namely that based on the sex of the spouse, is so serious as to warrant unqualified rejection, without the possibility of exception on a case-by-case basis, of the entirety of the law which should have been applied in the absence of such discrimination. This interpretation differs from the standard application of another well-known mechanism, that of ordre public, where any assessment needs to be based on a case-by-case basis.

Finally, the AG examines whether the fact that the spouse discriminated against
possibly consented to the divorce allows the national court not to disapply the foreign law despite its discriminatory nature, and therefore to apply that law. He suggests that question be answered in the negative. The rule set out in Article 10 of the ‘Rome III’ Regulation, which is based on compliance with values considered to be fundamental, is mandatory in nature and therefore, as a result of the intention of the EU legislature, does not fall within the sphere in which the persons at issue can freely waive the protection of their rights.

A judgment to look out for.

Geert.