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Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Paris, Chambre de l'instruction, 7 février 2007

Confession time: when teaching the general conflicts course I tend to simply say about Article 71 of the Brussels I Regulation (unchanged in the Recast): ‘it’s complicated’. I have also briefly flagged the Article in my posting on Nickel and Goeldner. I suppose I should not be quite so shy in addressing the relationship even in an introductory conflicts class for, essentially, it is not that complicated at least form a hierarchical point of view. Article 71 mirrors Article 351 TFEU which states that any rights or obligations arising prior to the TFEU shall not be affected by it unless the agreements are not compatible with the TFEU. At stake therefore is a review by the courts whether international agreements between the Member States prior to the creation of the EU, are compatible with the TFEU.

In BAT Denmark v Kazemier and BAT Switserland v Essers, the United Kingdom Supreme Court had to carry out this exercise vis-a-vis the 1956 CMR Convention –   the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road. As Steven Baker notes, Lord Mance kicks off his judgment with the rather delightfully accurate ‘Cigarettes attract smokers, smugglers and thieves’. Tobacco manufactuters are also of course active litigators hence providing us with repeated opportunity to review case-law on a wide variety of contractual and other matters.

In the two appeals, one container load was allegedly hi-jacked in Belgium en route between Switzerland and The Netherlands in September 2011, while another allegedly lost 756 of its original 1386 cartons while parked overnight contrary to express instructions near Copenhagen en route between Hungary and Vallensbaek, Denmark.

The consignors (two of BAT’s corporate vehicles) are claiming against English main contractors who undertook responsibility for the carriage and against sub-contractors in whose hands the cigarettes were when the alleged losses occurred. The carriage was subject to the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road 1956 (“CMR”), given the force of law in the United Kingdom by the Carriage of Goods by Road Act 1965.

English law and English jurisdiction are said to offer the advantage that such duty and/or taxes are recoverable in a CMR claim against carriers, which is not the case in some other jurisdictions (at 4).

Citing (and reading in a particular way) CJEU precedent, in particular  Nipponkoa Insurance Co (Europe) Ltd v Inter-Zuid Transport BV (DTC Surhuisterveen BV intervening), C-452/12, the Supreme Court held (at 57) that CMR represents a balanced jurisdictional régime adopted across a wide-range of some 55 states, only half of which are Union member states. It did not regard its tailored balance as impinging on any of the principles of Union law which the CJEU would have it check against.

CMR applies therefore and under relevant English application, neither of the defendants can be sued in England.

Geert.

Il regolamento europeo sulle successioni. Commentario al Reg. UE 650/2012 applicabile dal 17 agosto 2015, a cura di Andrea Bonomi e Patrick Wautelet, Giuffrè, 2015, pp. XXXIV – 800, ISBN: 9788814201172, Euro 85.

L’indice dell’opera – che ha per autori Andrea Bonomi, Raffaella Di Iorio, Cristina Mariottini, Fabio Padovini, Paolo Pasqualis, Ilaria Pretelli e Maria Margherita Salvadori – è consultabile qui. Maggiori informazioni disponibili a questo indirizzo.

La Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE) considère que le droit de l’Union ne s’oppose pas à l’exclusion d’un soumissionnaire dans l’attribution d’une procédure de passation d’un marché public, faute de s’être engagé à payer un salaire minimal imposé à son personnel.

En carrousel matière:  Oui Matières OASIS:  Néant

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Avec le règlement n° 1259/2010 du 20 décembre 2010, dit « Rome III », et, depuis le 21 juin 2012, les époux peuvent choisir la loi applicable à leur divorce.

À ce jour, le règlement lie seize pays : l’Allemagne, l’Autriche, la Belgique, la Bulgarie, l’Espagne, la France, la Grèce, l’Italie, la Lettonie, la Lituanie, le Luxembourg, la Hongrie, Malte, le Portugal, la Roumanie et la Slovénie.

En carrousel matière:  Non Matières OASIS:  Divorce (Procédure) Divorce (Cas)

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Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Grenoble, 2e chambre, 5 mai 2015

At first sight, it may seem a bit nerdy to report on Dyson, Case T-544/13. Yet (pun alert) once the dust settled on the judgment, the case in my view reveals quite a lot on how the CJEU sees the role of the EC as a regulator involved in all three steps of risk analysis: risk identification; risk management; and risk communication.

Arguably, misleading information often does more damage than a lack of information. It is on this basis that well-known Dyson, producer ia of bagless hoovers (or vacuum cleaners), challenged a delegated EC Regulation which establishes, in its own wording, ‘labelling and the provision of supplementary product information for electric mains-operated vacuum cleaners, including hybrid vacuum cleaners’. The purpose of the Regulation and of its mother Directive on energy labelling, evidently is to encourage consumers to purchase hoovers using less energy.

The contested regulation requires tests conducted with an empty dust bag. That, Dyson essentially argues, is like testing a Ferrari and a 2 CV on fuel consumption, with both cars in stationary condition (my comparison, not theirs). It will, in Dyson’s plea, lead to: (i) reporting of inaccurate information; (ii) ‘during use’ information not being integrated into the energy performance data; (iii) less incentive for manufacturers to invest with a view to improving the energy efficiency of vacuum cleaners; and (iv) labelling which does not serve to attain the objective of reducing energy consumption and, on the contrary, leads to an increase in energy consumption.

The Court held (at 47) that the Commission cannot be criticised for having failed to require tests conducted with a dust-loaded receptacle if, under its broad discretion, it decided that such tests were not yet reliable, accurate and reproducible. Even though the Court in various parts of the judgment acknowledges the inadequacy of the resulting product comparison, it cannot be held that the Commission made a manifest error of assessment by favouring a test conducted with an empty receptacle over a test conducted with a dust-loaded receptacle (at 53).

The judgment entertains many arguments brought forward however they essentially all revolve around the seemingly unavailable nature of appropriate, peer reviewable testing methods. The Court dismisses them all as (pun alert) hot air and effectively requires Dyson to offer the peer reviewable, repeatable alternative.

With respect, I believe the judgment is fundamentally mistaken. It was obviously not considered to be of a very crucial nature (chamber of three). Yet despite its very focussed nature, it reveals a lot about what the EU expects of its Institutions. In this case, misinformation is essentially considered preferable to no information. Surely (pun alert) that sucks.

The case was before the General Court hence appeal with the CJEU is not impossible.

Geert.

 

Si les personnes publiques ont droit à un certain respect de leur vie privée, une naissance ne relève pas seulement de la sphère privée, spécialement celle d’un enfant hors mariage dans une monarchie.

En carrousel matière:  Oui Matières OASIS:  Vie privée

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En l’absence d’une violation manifeste, eu égard aux intérêts supérieurs de l’enfant, d’une règle de droit considérée comme essentielle dans l’ordre juridique d’un État membre ou d’un droit reconnu comme fondamental dans cet ordre juridique, l’article 23 du règlement du 27 novembre 2003 ne permet pas à la juridiction de cet État membre, qui se considère compétente pour statuer sur la garde d’un enfant, de refuser de reconnaître la décision d’une juridiction d’un autre État membre qui a statué sur la garde de cet enfant.

En carrousel matière:  Non Matières OASIS:  Divorce (Effets personnels) Exequatur

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La Commission européenne, dans le cadre de son contrôle régulier de la bonne application du droit de l’Union, a adressé le 19 novembre 2015, deux avis motivés à la France.

En carrousel matière:  Non Matières OASIS:  Néant

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Contrat de travail, exécution

Officiers publics ou ministériels

Protection des consommateurs

Protection des consommateurs

Testament

Société civile professionnelle

Professions médicales et paramédicales

Verein für Konsumenteninformation
Rapprochement des législations
L’augmentation des tarifs de télécommunication en fonction d’un indice des prix à la consommation ne permet pas aux abonnés de dénoncer leur contrat

Espagne / Commission
Aide d'État
Le Tribunal de l’UE confirme la décision de la Commission ordonnant la récupération de l’aide d’État octroyée par l’Espagne aux opérateurs de la plate-forme de télévision terrestre

On 13 October 2015 the European Commission issued a report on the application of Regulation No 1896/2006, establishing a European order for payment procedure. Through a uniform and simplified procedure based on the use of standard forms, the Regulation allows a creditor to request a competent court in a EU Member State to issue an order of payment. If the debtor fails to contest the claim in the way prescribed by the Regulation, the order may be enforced without prior exequatur in the rest of the European Judicial area.

In its report, the Commission begins by addressing the issues relating to the submission of applications for an order of payment and their management by courts.

In particular, as regards the examination of applications, the Commission observes that even though inaccuracies in the information on the parties have in some States led to a high number of returned applications, the forms available in the European e-Justice portal effectively assist users in filling in applications in a correct way.

Whereas some States manage to issue the order of payment within the 30-days period provided by the Regulation, most of the Member States fail to comply with that deadline. In some cases, orders have been issued after no less than nine months from the application. With regard to the costs of the procedure, the Commission finds that fees are similar to those required for litigating under analogous national procedures, which largely vary among Member States.

According to the Commission, the opposition, review and enforcement of the European order of payment do not raise specific questions, even if the rate of opposition to the order differs from one Member State to another.

On a different note, the report underlines the prejudice that might be brought about by orders issued against consumers, as courts are instructed to issue orders for payment without examining the substantive bases of the claim. In this respect, the Commission considers, inter alia, that, since Article 8 of the Regulation requires the court to examine the claim on the basis of the information available to it, the seised court may, in case of doubts as to the justification of part of the claim, issue only a partial order.

The report concludes that the application of the Regulation has improved the handling of uncontested claims in cross-border disputes. Yet, the procedure does not seem to be sufficiently known among businesses, citizens, practitioners and courts. Accordingly, in the Commission’s view, the Regulation needs to be better promoted, including through the opportunities of cooperation provided by the European Judicial Network in Civil and Commercial Matters.