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Readers of our blog will recall that the European legislature, in 2013, adopted the Regulation on Online Dispute Resolution (ODR-Regulation) in consumer matters (alongside the Directive on Alternative Dispute Resolution) (see our previous post).  We are therefore happy to report that the interactive website, the so-called ODR-platform, envisaged by the ODR-Regulation has finally been launched on 15 February 2016. The platform is accessible here in all EU languages. It serves as a single point of entry for consumers and professionals seeking to settle a dispute out of court. It is available for disputes that arise from online contracts between consumers and professionals living in the EU.

Grèce / Commission
Aide d'État
La Cour confirme l’obligation pour l’État grec de récupérer auprès des agriculteurs grecs l’aide d’État illégale de 425 millions d’euros versée à la suite de mauvaises conditions climatiques

The Council of the European Union is expected to adopt a decision authorising Austria to sign and ratify, and Malta to accede to, the Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters.

The Hague Service Convention is already in force for all Member States, with the exception of Austria and Malta. The two countries have expressed their willingness to become a party to the Convention. The Council, for its part, considered that it is in the interest of the Union that all Member States are parties to the Convention.

As stated in the preamble of the draft Council decision, the Convention comes with the external competence of the Union, “in so far its provisions affect the rules laid down in certain provisions of Union legislation or in so far as the accession of additional Member States to the Convention alters the scope of certain provisions of Union legislation”, such as Article 28(4) of Regulation No 1215/2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (Brussels Ia).

The Union, however, is not in a position to accede to the Convention, as the latter is only open to States, not to international organisations. Hence the decision to authorise Austria and Malta to ratify, or accede to, the Convention “in the interest of the European Union”.

 

The programme of the 2016 edition of the International Seminar on Private International Law organized by Prof. Fernández Rozas and Prof. de Miguel Asensio, to be held in Madrid on 14-15 April 2016, has been released and is available here.

Venue:

Salón de Grados de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Complutense, Avda. Complutense, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid.

Main speakers:

Jürgen Basedow (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg) – Consistency in EU Private International Law

Cristina González Beilfuss (Universidad de Barcelona, Spain) – On the recent reforms of Spanish international civil procedure law.

Christian Heinze (Leibniz University Hanover, Germany) – Competition law damages claims and jurisdiction agreements.

Roberto Baratta (University of Macerata, Italy) – Fundamental Rights and Family Private International Law

Thalia Kruger (Antwerp University, Belgium) – The Hague, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and the Bosporus. The best interests of abducted children?

Pietro Franzina (University of Ferrara, Italy) – Do we need a EU legislative measure on the international protection of adults?

Mauro Rubino-Sammartano (Corte Europea de Arbitraje) – Arbitration and Public Policy.

Sebastien Manciaux (Université de Bourgogne, France)- La oferta de arbitraje en arbitraje de inversión: especificidades y dificultades planteadas por esta modalidad de arbitraje.

Emmanuel Guinchard (University of Northumbria, UK) – La transposition en Europe de la directive 2013/11/UE relative au règlement extrajudiciaire des litiges de consommation. L’exemple de la France et du Royaume-Uni.

Bertrand Ancel (Université Paris II)

Additional information on the seminar is available here.

La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme condamne, en vertu de l’article 2 de la Convention européenne (droit à la vie), le manquement des autorités nationales à l’obligation positive de prendre des mesures préventives et suffisamment concrètes pour protéger un individu dont la vie est menacée.

En carrousel matière:  Oui Matières OASIS:  Néant

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Non renvoyée au Conseil constitutionnel

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Paris, 26 février 2016

Edina Márton has authored a book on “Violations of Personality Rights through the Internet: Jurisdictional Issues under European Law”. The book has been published by Nomos in cooperation with Hart Publishing.

The official abstract reads as follows:

This book considers jurisdictional issues on violations of personality rights through the Internet under the so-called ‘Brussels-Lugano Regime’ and centres on the special rule of jurisdiction in matters relating to tort, delict, or quasi-delict. It notes the governing objectives and underlying principles of this special rule; analyses its interpretation through the judgments of the ECJ, especially Bier, Shevill, and eDate and Martinez; and explores views expressed in legal theory and national judicial practice regarding its application for localising online violations of personality rights.

The book aims to examine how the eDate and Martinez-approaches advance administrability, predictability, and litigational justice and to assess whether they are suitable jurisdictional bases in Europe, where common legal norms, interests, and values increasingly integrate and connect persons. It concludes that they are not and recommends their possible reform.

Further information is available on the publisher’s website.

As readers will be aware, the Rome II Regulation on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations, harmonises Member States’ governing law rules on non-contractual obligations (not entirely accurately known in short as ‘tort’). Article 15 clarifies that the scope of the law applicable is very wide, and indeed includes matters which may otherwise be considered to be procedural (hence subject to lex fori): I explained this mechanism in my posting on Wall.  Syred V PZU again concerns Article 15(c) Rome II:

Article 15. Scope of the law applicable
The law applicable to non-contractual obligations under this Regulation shall govern in particular:
…(c) the existence, the nature and the assessment of damage or the remedy claimed;…

The case concerns contributory negligence and quantum of this claim by Mr Syred for injury loss and damage suffered in consequence of a road traffic accident in Poland on 10 February 2010. He and his then girlfriend Kate Cieslar were rear seat passengers in a Fiat Punto, driven by her brother Mr Michal Cieslar, which was involved in a collision with a BMW, being driven by Mr Waclaw Bednorz. The collision caused Mr Syred to be ejected from the Fiat and in consequence to suffer serious injuries, in particular to his brain. He has no memory of the accident. Judgment on primary liability against the Defendants was entered by consent in the two actions on 25 September 2012 and 1 July 2014. Ms Cieslar’s claim in respect of her injuries has been settled.

There is no dispute between the experts for the defence and the plaintiff that a rear seat passenger who fails to wear a seat belt is at fault and negligent for the purpose of the passenger’s civil claims for compensation under Polish law. The experts also agree that the next question in Polish law is whether such negligence caused the injuries or made them worse. They also agree that Polish law in respect of damages for non-pecuniary loss (i.e. the equivalent of general damages for pain and suffering) provides no fixed scales or guidelines relevant to the case and that the judge should seek to assess a reasonable sum taking into account the injuries suffered by the claimant and all the circumstances of the case. Common practice of the Polish civil courts, it was said, is to calculate the non-pecuniary element on the basis of a 2002 table contained in the Ordinance of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy. The Supreme Court of Poland had criticised this practice in civil courts, as too slavish to a social insurance scheme.

In Wall, the CA held that the word ‘law’ in Article 15 of Rome II should be construed broadly and includes practice, conventions and guidelines; so that the assessment of damages should be on that basis. That, Soole J notes here, leaves the question of what the English Court should do if the evidence shows that the foreign courts continue to follow a particular practice despite criticism from the Supreme Court of that country. It is noticeable that the High Court does not wish to impose a precedent rule where there is none (Poland following civil law tradition). However it would be equally impertinent to ignore the criticism of that Supreme Court, that the 2002 table must not be slavishly followed. Soole J therefore ends up taking guidance from the 2002 table, without slavishly following it.

What remains to be seen (as also noted by Matthew Chapman, who alerted me to the case) is whether the High Court may now serve as inspiration for the Polish court. Precedent outsourcing, as it were.

Geert.

Con la sentenza n. 24244 del 27 novembre 2015, le Sezioni unite della Corte di cassazione hanno avuto modo di pronunciarsi sulla portata applicativa dell’art. 5 n. 1 del regolamento n. 44/2001 sulla competenza giurisdizionale e il riconoscimento delle decisioni in materia civile e commerciale (Bruxelles I), corrispondente, oggi, all’art. 7 n. 1 del regolamento n. 1215/2012 (Bruxelles I bis).

La norma in parola istituisce un foro speciale per le liti “in materia contrattuale”, attribuendo la cognizione delle relative domande al giudice del luogo in cui l’obbligazione dedotta in giudizio è stata o dev’essere eseguita. La lett. b) della disposizione precisa peraltro che tale luogo deve per regola essere identificato, in caso di compravendita di beni, nel luogo in cui i beni sono stati o avrebbero dovuto essere consegnati in base al contratto, e, in caso di prestazione di servizi, nel luogo in cui i servizi sono stati o avrebbero dovuto essere forniti in base al contratto.

Si trattava, nella fattispecie, delle domande proposte da una società italiana nei confronti di una società francese volte a ottenere, in relazione alle pretese avanzate da quest’ultima sulla base di alcuni contratti di compravendita che essa affermava di aver concluso con la prima, l’accertamento “dell’insussistenza di qualsivoglia vincolo contrattuale e/o obbligatorio tra le parti” e, in subordine, la “declaratoria della nullità, inesistenza, annullabilità, inefficacia dei contratti tra le stesse asseritamente conclusi”, nonché, in via ancor più gradata, la “loro risoluzione per eccessiva onerosità sopravvenuta”.

La Corte ha affermato, innanzitutto, l’applicabilità al caso in esame dell’art. 5 n. 1, lett. b), del regolamento.

Pur riconoscendo “che la norma sembra riferirsi alle sole azioni indirizzate all’adempimento, e non a quelle volte alla dissoluzione del vincolo, e che d’altra parte le disposizioni sulla competenza derogative del principio generale del foro del convenuto non possono essere interpretate in modo da conferire al regime derogatorio una portata che vada oltre i casi contemplati dalla Convenzione”, il Supremo Collegio ha ritenuto decisivo il fatto che, in fondo, “anche le impugnative per invalidità, inefficacia, inesistenza del negozio, attengono alla ‘materia contrattuale’, in quanto postulano una originaria, effettiva o putativa, assunzione volontaria di un obbligo, del quale tendono in vario modo e con varie formule a conseguire la caducazione”.

Su questa base, rilevato che le domande si riferivano a dei contratti che, stando alla documentazione acquisita al processo, avrebbero comportato la consegna delle merci in questione in territorio francese, la Corte ha asserito l’insussistenza della giurisdizione italiana, rigettando così il ricorso proposto contro la sentenza d’appello pronunciatasi negli stessi termini.

 

La validité de la directive « accueil » (dir. n° 2013/33, 26 juin 2013), en ce qu’elle autorise le placement en rétention d’un demandeur d’asile lorsque la protection de la sécurité nationale ou de l’ordre public l’exige, ne saurait être mise en cause (art. 8, § 3, al. 1er, sous e)). La Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE) se prononce en ce sens, dans un arrêt du 15 février 2016.

En carrousel matière:  Non Matières OASIS:  Néant

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