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La Commission européenne a adressé le 10 février 2016, neuf avis motivés à sept États membres, dont la France, en raison de la non-transposition complète des directives constituant le socle commun du régime d’asile européen.

En carrousel matière:  Non Matières OASIS:  Néant

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Référé - Provision - Responsabilité du fait des produits défectueux

Protection des droits de la personne - Production de preuve -
Atteinte disproportionnée au respect de la vie privée

Avocat - Secret professionnel - Etendue

L’Associazione Italiana per l’Arbitrato ha indetto la settima edizione del premio “Eugenio Minoli”, per le migliori tre tesi di laurea in materia di arbitrato commerciale internazionale discusse nel periodo compreso tra il 1° giugno 2014 e il 30 marzo 2016.

Il termine per la presentazione delle domande scade il 31 maggio 2016.

Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili a questo indirizzo.

Stroumpoulis e.a.
SOPO
Les marins grecs résidant en Grèce et engagés par une société ayant son siège statutaire dans un État tiers et son siège effectif en Grèce bénéficient de la protection du droit de l’Union en cas d’insolvabilité de la société

Garcia-Nieto e.a.
Sécurité sociale des travailleurs migrants
La Cour de justice confirme que certaines prestations sociales peuvent être refusées aux ressortissants d’autres États membres pendant les trois premiers mois de leur séjour

Par un arrêt du 21 janvier 2016, la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne juge la législation chypriote sur les droits à la retraite contraire au droit de l’Union parce qu’elle désavantage les travailleurs migrants par rapport à ceux qui n’exercent leur activité professionnelle qu’à Chypre.

En carrousel matière:  Non Matières OASIS:  Néant

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Lors de leur réunion des 18 et 19 février 2016, le Conseil européen est parvenu à un accord sur un nouvel arrangement pour le Royaume-Uni dans l’Union européenne. Place dorénavant au référendum organisé en juin 2016 pour connaître l’issue de cette situation inédite.

En carrousel matière:  Oui Matières OASIS:  Néant

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Divorce - Mesures provisoires ordonnées par le juge conciliateur ;
Régimes matrimoniaux - Détermination compétence juge conciliateur

Santé publique - Soins sans consentement - Notion de péril imminent

État - Responsabilité -
Fonctionnement défectueux du service de la justice

Shoe Branding Europe / adidas
Propriété intellectuelle et industrielle
adidas peut s’opposer à l’enregistrement, comme marque communautaire, de bandes parallèles apposées sur la face latérale des chaussures de sport

Coca-Cola / OHMI (Forme d'une bouteille à contours sans cannelures)
Propriété intellectuelle et industrielle
Le Tribunal rejette le recours de Coca-Cola qui souhaitait faire enregistrer comme marque communautaire une bouteille à contours sans cannelures

Marjolaine Jakob, the author of this post, is a researcher at the University of Zurich, Faculty of Law.

In October 2015, the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police (Eidgenössisches Justiz- und Polizeidepartement) published a preliminary draft for the reform of the 11th title of the Swiss Private International Law Act (SPILA) on insolvency proceedings and compensation proceedings (Articles 166–175 rev-SPILA) along with an explanatory report. Simultaneously, the consultation procedure (Vernehmlassungsverfahren) was opened, which ended on February 5, 2016. The preliminary draft and the explanatory report are available here.

Summary of the content of the preliminary draft

The preliminary draft aims at improving the existing rules against the background of recent national and international developments in cross-border insolvency law. A complete revision is not intended. The new rules are supposed to facilitate the procedure and the requirements for the recognition of foreign bankruptcies.

Amongst other amendments, the proposal contains the following modifications:

•  It is proposed to abandon the requirement of reciprocity, which is currently still a pre-requisite for the recognition of foreign bankruptcies (cf. art. 166 para 1. lit. c SPILA).
• Following international trends, indirect jurisdiction is to be extended. In future, not only bankruptcy orders rendered at the debtor’s domicile but also those rendered in the state of the centre of main interests of the debtor (under the condition that the debtor was not resident in Switzerland at the time of the opening of the foreign bankruptcy proceedings) should be recognized (art. 166 para. 1 lit. c nr. 2 rev-SPILA).
• Currently, the recognition of a foreign bankruptcy order necessarily leads to the opening of secondary insolvency proceedings with regard to the debtor’s assets located in Switzerland. Claims secured by pledge and privileged claims of creditors domiciled in Switzerland are satisfied in advance. The preliminary draft provides for a rule according to which a a waiver of secondary insolvency proceedings is possible where there is no need for a protection of claims secured by pledge and domestic creditors (art. 174a para. 1 rev-SPILA). In the event of the court approving the request for a waiver, the foreign bankruptcy administrator is supposed to have all powers that the debtor had before the foreign bankruptcy proceedings were opened. Accordingly, assets located in Switzerland would be at the disposal of the foreign bankruptcy administrator in this case (art. 174a para. 2 rev-SPILA).
• The draft also contains a rule according to which domestic authorities and institutions shall coordinate their actions with foreign authorities and institutions (art. 174b rev-SPILA).
• Furthermore, it is proposed that foreign judgments on avoidance claims and insolvency related claims are to be recognised by Swiss courts subject to certain prerequisites (art. 174c rev-SPILA).

Subsequent legislative process

As a next step, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice will prepare a report on the results of the consultation procedure. Based on this report, the Federal Council (Bundesrat), i.e. the Swiss government, will decide on the further procedure.

The Federal Council has the option to submit a final draft to the Federal Parliament, which may either adhere to the preliminary draft or contain limited or extensive amendments. In either case, the final draft is issued a long with a dispatch (Botschaft). Subsequently, the final draft will be discussed in the Parliament.

The Federal Council might, however, also decide to no longer pursue the revision of the 11th title of SPILA or to instruct the Swiss Federal Office of Justice to undertake further clarifications regarding the revision project.

The U.S. Library of Congress has just published its first multinational report which considers some fundamental questions underlying the practice of comparative law: who makes the laws, and how are the laws made? The report covers eleven diverse jurisdictions from Asia, North America and Europe, and discusses the constitutional status and role of the national parliament, its structure and composition, and the lawmaking process in each jurisdiction. For students and scholars of comparative law–and in particular the comparative lawmaking process–this report is a very useful reference tool.

A new article titled “U.S. Discovery and Foreign Blocking Statues,” forthcoming in the Louisiana Law Review, has just been posted to SSRN by Professor Vivian Curran from the University of Pittsburgh. The article tackles the interaction between U.S. discovery and the foreign blocking statutes that impede it in France and other civil law states, and how to understand this interaction at a time when companies are multinational in composition as well as in their areas of commerce. To be sure, U.S. courts continue to grapple with the challenge of understanding why they should adhere to strictures that seem to compromise constitutional or quasi-constitutional rights of American plaintiffs, while French and German lawyers and judges struggle with the challenges U.S. discovery poses to values of privacy and fair trial procedure in their legal systems. Each of these issued is addressed in Professor Curran’s article.

It has already been announced on this blog that the 77th Biennial Conference of the International Law Association will take place from 7 to 11 August 2016 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This year’s main topic will be ‘International Law and State Practice: Is there a North/South Divide?’ 

Further information and programme details are available at the official conference website.

This post is meant to remind our readers that early-bird registration ends on 29 February 2016. We are looking forward to seeing many of you in Johannesburg, so don‘t forget to register!

In Case C-605/14, Komu v Komu, the CJEU stuck to its classic application of the rule of Article 22(1) Brussels I (now Article 24(1) Brussels Recast). This Article prescribes exclusive jurisdiction for (among others) proceedings which have as their object rights in rem in immovable property. Article 25 adds that where a court of a Member State is seised of a claim which is principally concerned with a matter over which the courts of another Member State have exclusive jurisdiction by virtue of Article 22, it shall declare of its own motion that it has no jurisdiction. (emphasis added).

Mr Pekka Komu, Ms Jelena Komu, Ms Ritva Komu, Ms Virpi Komu and Ms Hanna Ruotsalainen are domiciled in Finland and are co-owners of a house situated in Torrevieja (Spain), the first three each with a 25% share and the other two each with a 12.5% share. In addition, Ms Ritva Komu has a right of use, registered in the Spanish Land Register, over the shares held by Ms Virpi Komu and Ms Hanna Ruotsalainen.Wishing to realise the interests that they hold in both properties, and in the absence of agreement on the termination of the relationship of co-ownership, Ms Ritva Komu, Ms Virpi Komu and Ms Ruotsalainen brought an action before the District Court, South Savo, Finland for an order appointing a lawyer to sell the properties and fixing a minimum price for each of the properties. The courts obliged in first instance and queried the extent of Article 22’s rule in appeal.

Co-ownership and rights of use, one assumes, result from an inheritance.

The CJEU calls upon classic case-law, including most recently Weber. At 30 ff it recalls the ‘considerations of sound administration of justice which underlie the first paragraph of Article 22(1) …’ and ‘also support such exclusive jurisdiction in the case of an action intended to terminate the co-ownership of immovable property, as that in the main proceedings.’:

The transfer of the right of ownership in the properties at issue in the main proceedings will entail the taking into account of situations of fact and law relating to the linking factor as laid down in the first paragraph of Article 22(1) of Regulation No 44/2001, namely the place where those properties are situated. The same applies, in particular, to the fact that the rights of ownership in the properties and the rights of use encumbering those rights are the subject of entries in the Spanish Land Register in accordance with Spanish law, the fact that rules governing the sale, by auction where appropriate, of those properties are those of the Member State in which they are situated, and the fact that, in the case of disagreement, the obtaining of evidence will be facilitated by proximity to the locus rei sitae. The Court has already held that disputes concerning rights in rem in immovable property, in particular, must generally be decided by applying the rules of the State in which the property is situated, and the disputes which frequently arise require checks, inquiries and expert assessments which have to be carried out there.

A sound finding given precedent. However I continue to think it questionable whether these reasons, solid as they may have been in 1968, make much sense in current society. It may be more comfortable to have the case heard in Spain for the reasons set out by the Court. But essential? Humankind can perform transcontinental robot-assisted remote telesurgery. But it cannot, it seems, consult the Spanish land registry from a court in Finland. I would suggest it is time to adapt Article 24 in a future amendment of the Regulation.

Geert.

Pourvoi c/ juridiction de proximité de Cannes, 5 octobre 2015