Droit international général

Josiya & Ors v British American Tobacco Plc & Ors [2021] EWHC 1743 (QB) is the first shot in an important business and human rights case, accusing the defendants of being responsible for working conditions said to include the widespread use of unlawful child labour, unlawful forced labour and the systematic exposure of vulnerable and impoverished adults and children to extremely hazardous working conditions with minimal protection against industrial accidents, injuries and diseases.

I briefly want to flag the 25 June order by Spencer J for it highlights a point I often make when teaching, or sharing my practice experience on, strategic and public interest litigation: that most of these cases are won not by an eloquent speech on grand principles, delivered in Hollywood fashion. Rather, by the dogged determination of invested lawyers, with a keen eye for detail across civil procedure (including standing, statutes of limitation, service, timely filing of procedural , third party and other ways of financing, tort and other applicable law).

The order at issue dismisses an application for strike-out which was essentially based on an alleged lack of documentary proof of claimants’ link to the defendants, leading to claim said to be an abuse of process.

Brussels IA applies to the claim (claim form was filed on 18 December 2020, the particulars of claim – POC on 12 January 2021): claimants aim to avoid forum non conveniens although of course Articles 33-34 might still be raised. Locus causae is said to be Malawi law [19]. Claimants concede [23] they do not at this stage have documentary evidence that categorially links each individual Claimant to one or more of the Defendants or companies within the Defendants’ corporate groups. They tried to obtain this unsuccessfully in pre-trial disclosure.

Claimant’s counsel, Richard Hermer QC, successfully argued a distinction [41]  between what is required for a party to plead the case; and what is required for a party to prove the case at trial.

Held: the claim form without specific identification of the link between individual claimants and specific defendants is not an abuse of process under the circumstances. An application for disclosure may and must be prepared.

Geert.

European Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, Chapter 7.

#bizhumanrights
Unsuccessful strike-out application viz particulars of claim – POC, alleged lack of documented claimants' involvement in Malawi tobacco
Held discussion of intensity of proof suited to discovery application, not strike-out of POC
Josiya ea v BAT ea [2021] EWHC 1743 pic.twitter.com/Dn1u0PSoH3

— Geert van Calster (@GAVClaw) June 25, 2021

July is a short month at the Court of Justice, but a busy one.

Already on 1 July 2021 the judgment on C-301/20, Succession de VJ, was published. The questions, on the European certificate  of succession and copies of it, had been referred by the Austrian Supreme Court:

(1) Is Article 70(3) of Regulation No 650/2012 to be interpreted as meaning that a copy of the certificate issued, in disregard of that provision, without indicating an expiry date, for an unlimited period,
–        is valid and effective indefinitely, or
–        is valid only for a period of six months from the date of issue of the certified copy, or
–        is valid only for a period of six months from another date, or
–        is invalid and unsuitable for use within the meaning of Article 63 of Regulation No 650/2012?

(2) Is Article 65(1) read in conjunction with Article 69(3) of that regulation to be interpreted as meaning that the certificate produces effects in favour of all persons who are mentioned on the certificate by name as heirs, legatees, executors of wills or administrators of the estate, with the result that even those who have not applied for the issue of the certificate themselves can use that certificate pursuant to Article 63 of regulation No 650/2012?

(3) Must Article 69 read in conjunction with Article 70(3) of that regulation be interpreted as meaning that the legitimising effect of the certified copy of a certificate of succession must be recognised if it was still valid when it was first submitted but expired before the requested decision of the authority, or does that provision not preclude national law if the latter requires the certificate to be valid even at the time of the decision?’

AG Campos Sánchez-Bordona’s opinion, focused on the third question, had been released on 29 April 2021. The Court (6th Chamber: L Bay Larsen, N. Jääskinen and C. Toader as reporting judge) has ruled as follows:

(1) Article 70(3) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 [on] matters of succession … must be interpreted as meaning that a certified copy of the European Certificate of Succession, bearing the words ‘unlimited duration’, is valid for a period of six months from the date of issue and produces its effects, within the meaning of Article 69 of that regulation, if it was valid when it was presented to the competent authority;

(2) Article 65(1) of Regulation No 650/2012, read in conjunction with Article 69(3) of that regulation, must be interpreted as meaning that the effects of the European Certificate of Succession are produced with respect to all persons who are named therein, even if they have not themselves requested that it be issued.

AG Richard de la Tour’s opinion on C-277/20, UM (contrat translatif de propriété mortis causa), a request from the same court (i.e., the Austrian Supreme Court), was published as well on 1 July 2021. The main  question concerns a donation mortis causa and whether it falls under the scope of the Regulation:

(1) Is Article 3(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 [on] matters of succession … to be interpreted as meaning that a contract of donation mortis causa entered into between two German nationals habitually resident in Germany in respect of real estate located in Austria, granting the donee a right having the character of an obligation against the estate to registration of his title after the donor’s death pursuant to that contract and the donor’s death certificate, that is without the intervention of the probate court, is an agreement as to succession within the meaning of that provision?

(2) If the answer to the above question is in the affirmative: Is Article 83(2) of Regulation No 650/2012 to be interpreted as meaning that it also regulates the effect of a choice of applicable law made before 17 August 2015 for a contract of donation mortis causa that is to be qualified as an agreement as to succession within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of Regulation No 650/2012?

According to Richard de la Tour, it does (the translation is mine):

Article 3(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 … must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of “pact of succession” includes deeds of inter vivos gift in by virtue of which the transfer, in favor of the donee, of the ownership of a good or of goods which even partially constitute the inheritance of the donor takes place only on his death.

Two opinions of direct PIL interest are scheduled for 8 July 2021, starting with AG Campos Sánchez-Bordonas’ in case C-289/20, IB. The question was referred from the Cour d’appel de Paris. It reads as follows:

Where, as in the present case, it is apparent from the factual circumstances that one of the spouses divides his time between two Member States, is it permissible to conclude, in accordance with and for the purposes of the application of Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003, that he or she is habitually resident in two Member States, such that, if the conditions listed in that article are met in two Member States, the courts of those two States have equal jurisdiction to rule on the divorce?

The decision will be taken by a chamber of five judges: S. Prechal, N. Wahl, F. Biltgen, J. Passer, and L.S. Rossi as reporting judge.

The same day AG M. Szpunar will present his opinion on C-422/20, RK, on the successions regulation. The requests comes from the Oberlandesgericht Köln (Germany) :

Is it necessary, for a declaration of lack of jurisdiction by the court previously seised, as provided for in Article 7(a) of Regulation No 650/2012, that that court should expressly decline jurisdiction, or may even a non-express declaration suffice if it supports the inference, through interpretation, that that court has declined jurisdiction?

Is the court of the Member State whose jurisdiction is intended to follow from a declaration of lack of jurisdiction by the court previously seised in the other Member State competent to examine whether the conditions governing a decision by the court previously seised, as provided for in Articles 6(a) and 7(a) of Regulation No 650/2012, were met? To what extent is the decision of the court previously seised binding? In particular: (a) Is the court of the Member State whose jurisdiction is intended to follow from a declaration of lack of jurisdiction by the court previously seised in the other Member State competent to examine whether the deceased validly chose the law of the Member State in accordance with Article 22 of Regulation No 650/2012? (b) Is the court of the Member State whose jurisdiction is intended to follow from a declaration of lack of jurisdiction by the court first seised in the other Member State competent to examine whether a request for a declaration of lack of jurisdiction, as provided for in Article 6(a) of Regulation No 650/2012, has been brought by one of the parties to the proceedings before the court previously seised? (c) Is the court of the Member State whose jurisdiction is intended to follow from a declaration of lack of jurisdiction by the court first seised in the other Member State competent to examine whether the court previously seised rightly assumed that the courts of the Member State of the chosen law are better placed to rule on the succession?

Are Articles 6(a) and 7(a) of Regulation No 650/2012, which presuppose a choice of law ‘pursuant to Article 22’, applicable even where the deceased has made no express or implied choice of law in a testamentary disposition made before 17 August 2015, but the law applicable to the succession is capable of being inferred only from Article 83(4) of Regulation No 650/2012?

Judges Bay Larsen, Toader and Jääskinen will be in charge, with C. Toader acting as reporting judge.

A hearing will take place the same day on C-421/20, Acacia, from the Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf (Germany). The case has been allocated to judges E. Regan, K. Lenaerts, M. Ilešič, I. Jarukaitis and C. Lycourgos (reporting judge):

In proceedings for an infringement of Community designs, can the national court dealing with the infringement proceedings having international jurisdiction pursuant to Article 82(5) of the Community Designs Regulation apply the national law of the Member State in which the court dealing with the infringement proceedings is situated (lex fori) to subsequent claims in relation to the territory of its Member State?

If Question 1 is answered in the negative: Can the ‘initial place of infringement’ for the purposes of the CJEU judgments in Cases C-24/16, C-25/16, Nintendo, regarding the determination of the law applicable to subsequent claims under Article 8(2) of Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 … on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (‘Rome II’) also lie in the Member State where the consumers to whom internet advertising is addressed are located and where goods infringing designs are put on the market within the meaning of Article 19 of the Community Designs Regulation, in so far as only the offering and the putting on the market in that Member State are challenged, even if the internet offers on which the offering and the putting on the market are based were launched in another Member State?

AG P. Pikamäe’s opinion on C-262/21 PPU, A, is expected on 14 July 2021. The case, from the Korkein oikeus (Finland), requires the interpretation of Regulation 2201/2003 in relation to the Dublin III Regulation. The 1980 Hague Convention is also at stake:

Must Article 2(11) of Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 [on] matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility … (‘the Brussels II bis Regulation’), relating to the wrongful removal of a child, be interpreted as meaning that a situation in which one of the parents, without the other parent’s consent, removes the child from his or her place of residence to another Member State, which is the Member State responsible under a transfer decision taken by an authority in application of Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘the Dublin III Regulation’), must be classified as wrongful removal?

If the answer to the first question is in the negative, must Article 2(11) of the Brussels II bis Regulation, relating to wrongful retention, be interpreted as meaning that a situation in which a court of the child’s State of residence has annulled the decision taken by an authority to transfer examination of the file, but in which the child whose return is ordered no longer has a currently valid residence document in his or her State of residence, or the right to enter or to remain in the State in question, must be classified as wrongful retention?

If, in the light of the answer to the first or the second question, the Brussels II bis Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that there is a wrongful removal or retention of the child, and that he or she should therefore be returned to his or her State of residence, must Article 13(b) of the 1980 Hague Convention be interpreted as precluding the child’s return, either (i) on the ground that there is grave risk, within the meaning of that provision, that the return of an unaccompanied infant whose mother has personally taken care of him or her would expose that child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation; or (ii) on the ground that the child, in his or her State of residence, would be taken into care and placed in a hostel either alone or with his or her mother, which would indicate that there is a grave risk, within the meaning of that provision, that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation: or (iii) on the ground that, without a currently valid residence document, the child would be placed in an intolerable situation within the meaning of that provision?

If, in the light of the answer to the third question, it is possible to interpret the grounds of refusal in Article 13(b) of the 1980 Hague Convention as meaning that there is a grave risk that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation, must Article 11(4) of the Brussels II bis Regulation, in conjunction with the concept of the child’s best interests, referred to in Article 24 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and in that regulation, be interpreted as meaning that, in a situation in which neither the child nor the mother has a currently valid residence document in the child’s State of residence, and in which therefore have neither the right to enter nor the right to remain in that State, the child’s State of residence must make adequate arrangements to secure that the child and his or her mother can lawfully remain in the Member State in question? If the child’s State of residence has such an obligation, must the principle of mutual trust between Member States be interpreted as meaning that the State which returns the child may, in accordance with that principle, presume that the child’s State of residence will fulfil those obligations, or do the child’s interests make it necessary to obtain from the authorities of the State of residence details of the specific measures that have been or will be taken for the child’s protection, so that the Member State which surrenders the child may assess, in particular, the adequacy of those measures in the light of the child’s interests?

If the child’s State of residence does not have the obligation, referred to above in the fourth question, to take adequate measures, is it necessary, in the light of Article 24 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, to interpret Article 20 of the 1980 Hague Convention, in the situations referred to in the third question, points (i) to (iii), as meaning that that provision precludes the return of the child because the return of the child might be considered to be contrary, within the meaning of that provision, to the fundamental principles relating to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms?

Judges J.C. Bonichot (as reporting judge), L. Bay Larsen, C. Toader, M. Safjan and N. Jääskinen have been appointed to this preliminary ruling.

The judgement on C-30/20, Volvo, a request from the Juzgado de lo Mercantil nº 2 de Madrid (Spain) will be published the following day:

Should Article 7(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 … on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, which establishes that a person domiciled in a Member State may be sued in another Member State: ‘… in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, in the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur’, be interpreted as establishing only the international jurisdiction of the courts of the Member State for the aforesaid place, meaning that the national court with territorial jurisdiction within that State is to be determined by reference to domestic rules of procedure, or should it be interpreted as a combined rule which, therefore, directly determines both international jurisdiction and national territorial jurisdiction, without any need to refer to domestic regulation?

AG Richard de la Tour’s opinion  was delivered on 22 April 2021. The chamber is composed by judges J.C. Bonichot, L. Bay Larsen, C. Toader, M. Safjan (as reporting judge) and N. Jääskinen.

The decision of the same chamber on joined cases C-152/20 SC Gruber Logistics – C-218/20 Sindicatul Lucrătorilor din Transporturi, both from the Tribunalul Mureș (Romania), will be published on the same day. The questions referred are quite similar.

The questions in C-152/20 were phrased as follows:

Is Article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 [on the law applicable to contractual obligations, ‘Rome I’] to be interpreted as meaning that the choice of law applicable to an individual employment contract excludes the application of the law of the country in which the employee has habitually carried out his or her work or as meaning that the fact that a choice of law has been made excludes the application of the second sentence of Article 8(1) of that regulation?

Is Article 8 of [the Rome I Regulation] to be interpreted as meaning that the minimum wage applicable in the country in which the employee has habitually carried out his or her work is a right that falls within the scope of ‘provisions that cannot be derogated from by agreement under the law that, in the absence of choice, would have been applicable’, within the meaning of the second sentence of Article 8(1) of the regulation?

Is Article 3 of [the Rome I Regulation] to be interpreted as meaning that the specification, in an individual employment contract, of the provisions of the Romanian Labour Code does not equate to a choice of Romanian law, in so far as, in Romania, it is well-known that there is a legal obligation to include such a choice-of-law clause in individual employment contracts? In other words, is Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 to be interpreted as precluding national rules and practices pursuant to which a clause specifying the choice of Romanian law must necessarily be included in individual employment contracts?

And here are the questions raised in C-218/20:

Interpretation of Article 8 of [the Rome I Regulation]: does the choice of law applicable to an individual employment contract exclude the application of the law of the country in which the employee has habitually carried out his or her work or does the fact that a choice of law has been made exclude the application of the second sentence of Article 8(1) of that regulation?

Interpretation of Article 8 of [the Rome I Regulation]: is the minimum wage applicable in the country in which the employee has habitually carried out his or her work a right that falls within the scope of ‘provisions that cannot be derogated from by agreement under the law that, in the absence of choice, would have been applicable’, within the meaning of the second sentence of Article 8(1) of the regulation?

Interpretation of Article 3 of [the Rome I Regulation]: does the specification, in an individual employment contract, of the provisions of the Romanian Labour Code equate to a choice of Romanian law, in so far as, in Romania, it is well-known that the employer predetermines the content of the individual employment contract?

AG Campos Sánchez-Bordona’s opinion, of 22 April 2021, is not available in English yet.

The same day, a hearing is foreseen on case C-581/20, TOTO, on provisional measures under Regulation 1215/2012, among other:

Is Article 1 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/12 … to be interpreted as meaning that a case such as that described in this order for reference must be regarded in whole or in part as a civil or commercial matter within the meaning of Article 1(1) of that regulation?

After the right to make an application for provisional/protective measures has been exercised and the court having jurisdiction as to the substance of the matter has already ruled on that application, is the court seised of an application for interim relief on the same basis and under Article 35 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/12 … to be regarded as not having jurisdiction from the point at which evidence is produced that the court having jurisdiction as to the substance of the matter has given a ruling on that application?

If it follows from the answers to the first two questions referred that the court seised of an application under Article 35 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/12 … has jurisdiction, must the conditions for the ordering of protective measures under Article 35 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/12 of the European Parliament and of the Council be interpreted independently? Should a provision which does not allow a protective measure to be ordered against a public body in a case such as the present one be disapplied?

Once again, judges J.C. Bonichot, L. Bay Larsen, M. Safjan, N. Jääskinen and C. Toader have been appointed, this time with C. Toader acting as reporting judged.

Summer holiday starts on 16 July 2021.

(NoA: worth reading as well is AG M. Szpunar’s opinion on the cassation appeal C-638/19 P, regarding investment arbitration and state aid, published on 1 July 2021; a press release in French is available here).

As I seem to be in a comparative mood today, consider Hydrodec Group Plc [2021] NSWSC 755, in which a suggestion of COMI in the UK, of a company incorporated there, was dismissed in favour of COMI in the US. Cooper Grace Ward have the relevant background here. The result of the order is that the company will be wound up under Australian law.

Hydrodec Group Plc is the parent company for a corporate group comprised of: subsidiaries located in the UK, Australia and Japan that were not trading; and a sole trading subsidiary located in the United States of America, which owns valuable assets. As CGW report, Hydrodec contended that its COMI was in the UK because, among other things: it has an address in the UK; its affairs are administered in the UK by directors that reside in the UK; its main asset was its shareholding in a subsidiary, in the UK; and the majority of its creditors are in the UK. 

The judge however reportedly (see the CGW overview; I have not been able to locate judgment at this stage) disagreed on the following grounds. COMI must be identified by reference to criteria that are objective and ascertainable by third parties (ditto in the EU under the EIR). The A16(3) UNCITRAL Model Law presumption of COMI in the place of registered office does not apply seeing as the corporation has two of these. The only trading entity within the corporate group controlled by Hydrodec was in the USA.  Hydrodec described the USA as its ‘key market’ and the focus of Hydrodec’s plans for growth. The principal creditor of the corporate group controlled by Hydrodec was in the USA. The administration of the affairs of Hydrodec involved, in substance, the administration of the operations of the USA subsidiary. Finally, Hydrodec’s primary focus was the re-financing of its operations in the USA.

The judgment shows the specificity of determining COMI in the case of a corporation which itself does not have a market focus.

European Private International law, 3rd ed. 2021, 5.65 ff.

The latest issue of the „Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts (IPRax)“ features the following articles:

O. Remien: The European Succession Regulation and the many questions of the European court practice – five years after entry into force

After five years of application of the European Succession Regulation it is time to have a look at European court practice: The general connecting factor of habitual residence has somehow been addressed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in E.E., but especially national court practice shows many interesting cases of the necessary overall assessment. Choice of law by the testator is particularly important and a notary should point not only at the present situation, but also at possible developments in the future. Estate planning has become more interesting. The legacy per vindicationem (Vindikationslegat, i.e. with in rem effect) recognized in Kubicka poses specific problems. The position of the surviving spouse under § 1371 BGB in German law has become a highly debated subject and here the aspect of free movement of persons is highlighted. The European Succession Certificate also raises many questions, among them the applicability of the competence rules in case of national notarial succession certificates or court certificates, cases Oberle, WB and E.E.. The article pleads for an equilibrated multilateral approach. Donation mortis causa will have to be dealt with by the ECJ soon. Five years of application of the Succession Regulation – and many questions are open.

 

P. Hay: Product Liability: Specific Jurisdiction over Out-of-State Defendants in the United States

“Stream of commerce” jurisdiction in American law describes the exercise of jurisdiction in product liability cases over an out-of-state enterprise when a product produced and first sold by it in another American state or a foreign country reached the forum state and caused injury there. The enterprise cannot be reached under modern American rules applicable to “general” (claim unrelated) jurisdiction. Can it be reached by exercise of “specific” (claim related) jurisdiction even though it did not itself introduce the product into the forum state? This is an important question for interstate American as well as for foreign companies engaged in international commerce. The applicable federal constitutional limits on the exercise of such “stream of commerce” jurisdiction have long been nuanced and uncertain. It was often assumed that the claim must have “arisen out of” the defendant’s forum contacts: what did that mean? The long-awaited U.S. Supreme Court decision in March 2021 in Ford vs. Montana now permits the exercise of specific jurisdiction when the claim arises out of or is (sufficiently) “related” to the defendant’s in-state contacts and activities. This comment raises the question whether the decision reduces or in effect continues the previous uncertainty.

 

W. Wurmnest: International Jurisdiction in Abuse of Dominance Cases

The CJEU (Grand Chamber) has issued a landmark ruling on the borderline between contract and tort disputes under Article 7(1) and (2) of the Brussels I-bis Regulation. Wikingerhof concerned a claim against a dominant firm for violation of Art. 102 TFEU and/or national competition law rules. This article analyses the scope of the ruling and its impact on actions brought against dominant firms for violation of European and/or national competition law and also touches upon the salient question as to what extent such disputes are covered by choice of court agreements.

 

C.F. Nordmeier: The waiver of succession according to Art. 13 Regulation (EU) 650/2012 and § 31 IntErbRVG in cases with reference to third countries

According to Art. 13 Regulation (EU) 650/2012, a waiver of succession can be declared before the courts of the state in which the declarant has his habitual residence. The present article discusses a decision of the Cologne Higher Regional Court on the acceptance of such a declaration. The decision also deals with questions of German procedural law. The article shows that – mainly due to the wording and history of origin – Art. 13 Regulation (EU) 650/2012 presupposes the jurisdiction of a member state bound to the Regulation (EU) 650/2012 to rule on the succession as a whole. Details for establishing such a jurisdiction are examined. According to German procedural law, the reception of a waiver of succession is an estate matter. If Section 31 of the IntErbRVG is applicable, a rejection of the acceptance demands a judicial decree which is subject to appeal.

 

P. Mankowski: The location of global certificates – New world greets old world

New kinds of assets and modern developments in contracting and technology pose new challenges concerning the methods how to locate assets. In many instances, the rules challenged are old or rooted in traditional thinking. Section 23 of the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO) is a good example for such confrontation. For instance, locating global certificates requires quite some reconsideration. Could arguments derived from modern legislation like the Hague Intermediated Securities Convention, Art. 2 pt. (9) EIR 2015 or § 17a DepotG offer a helping hand in interpreting such older rules?

 

S. Zwirlein-Forschner: All in One Star Limited – Registration of a UK Company in Germany after the End of the Brexit Transition Period

Since 1 January 2021, Brexit has been fully effective as the transition period for the UK has ended. In a recent decision, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has taken this into account in a referral procedure to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The decision raises interesting questions on the demarcation between register law and company law, on conflict of laws and on the interpretation of norms implementing EU law. This article comments on these questions.

 

K. Sendlmeier: Informal Binding of Third Parties – Relativising the Voluntary Nature of International Commercial Arbitration?

The two decisions from the US and Switzerland deal with the formless binding of third parties to arbitration agreements that have been formally concluded between other parties. They thus address one of the most controversial issues in international commercial arbitration. Both courts interpret what is arguably the most important international agreement on commercial arbitration, the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 1958. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Convention does not preclude non-signatories from being bound by arbitration based on equitable estoppel in US arbitration law. In the Swiss decision, the binding nature of a non-signatory is based on its interference in the performance of the main contract of other parties. According to the established case law of the Swiss Federal Tribunal, this binding approach does not conflict with the New York Convention either.

 

K. Bälz: Can a State Company be held liable for State Debt? Piercing of the Corporate Veil vs. attribution pursuant to Public International Law – Cour d’appel de Paris of 5 September 2019, No. 18/17592

The question of whether the creditor of a foreign state can enforce against the assets of public authorities and state enterprises of that state is of significant practical importance, particularly in view of the increasing number of investment arbitrations. In a decision of 5 September 2019, the Paris Court of Appeal has confirmed that a creditor of the Libyan State can enforce an arbitral award against the assets of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), arguing that – although the LIA enjoys separate legal personality under Libyan law – it was in fact an organ (émanation) of the Libyan State, that was functionally integrated into the state apparatus without clearly separated assets of its own. This approach is based on public international law concepts of state liability and diverges from corporate law principles, according to which a shareholder cannot generally be held liable for the corporation’s debts.

 

O.L. Knöfel: Liability of Officials for Sovereign Acts (acta iure imperii) as a Challenge for EU and Austrian Private International Law

The article reviews a decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Austria (Case 1 Ob 33/19p). The Court held that a civil action for compensation brought in Austria, by the victim of a downhill skiing accident, against a German school teacher on account of alleged negligence during a reconnaissance ride down an Austrian ski slope, does not constitute a “civil and commercial matter” under the Rome II Regulation, as it involves an actum iure imperii (Art. 1 cl. 1 Rome II Regulation). As a consequence, the Court applied German Law, relying on an alleged customary conflicts rule (lex officii principle), according to which indemnity claims against officials who act on behalf of the State are inevitably and invariably governed by the law of the liable State. Finally, the Court held that an action brought directly against a foreign official in Austria is not barred by sec. 9 cl. 5 of the Austrian Act of State Liability (Amtshaftungsgesetz). The Court’s decision is clearly wrong as being at variance with many well-established principles of the conflict of laws in general and of cross-border State liability in particular.

 

E. Piovesani: Italian Ex Lege Qualified Overriding Mandatory Provisions as a Response to the “COVID-19 Epidemiological Emergency”

Art. 88-bis Decree-Law 18/2020 (converted, with modifications, by Law 27/2020) is headed “Reimbursement of Travel and Accommodation Contracts and Package Travel”. This provision is only one of the several provisions adopted by the Italian legislator as a response to the so-called “COVID- 19 epidemiological emergency”. What makes Art. 88-bis Decree-Law 18/2020 “special” is that its para. 13 qualifies the provisions contained in the same article as overriding mandatory provisions.

 

The General Secretariat of the International Social Service (ISS) in Geneva has published an important bilingual study in English and French entitled:  “KAFALAH – Preliminary analysis of national and cross-border practices” – “La KAFALAH: analyse préliminaire de pratiques nationales et transfrontières” (2020).

For a general overview of the ISS and its relationship with PIL, see our previous post “The Role of the International Social Service in the History of Private International Law,” written by Roxana Banu.

Below is a summary of the publication “KAFALAH – Preliminary analysis of national and cross-border practices” based on the foreword drawn up by Hans van Loon, Member of the Institut de Droit International and Former Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and Hynd Ayoubi Idrissi, Professor of Law at the Université Mohammed V and Member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. 

By way of background, please note the difference between adoption and kafalah. As stated in this publication: “the very essence of adoption is the creation of a stable legal and social filiation bond between the adoptee and his/her adoptive  parent(s)  and  (in  full  adoption)  the  cessation  of  the biological bond with the family of origin. From a Western perspective,  this  is  the  main  criterion  for  differentiating  between  adoption  and  kafalah.  From the perspective of countries whose legal systems are based on or influenced by Sharia, despite the specificities of each country, reference is often made to a common approach to adoption – that is, its prohibition.”  (p.15). As to its meaning, “Kafalah is a child protection measure in countries whose legal systems are based on or influenced by Islamic law (Sharia […]). Its effects vary greatly from one country to the next” (p. 4).

***

Despite its modest title, this publication covering 222 pages is a unique and undoubtedly one of the most extensive studies carried out on the institution of the kafalah (also spelled kafala). The kafalah is widely applied in countries whose legal system is based on or influenced by Sharia law. For those countries (except for a minority that also recognise adoption) kafalah is the preeminent child care measure for children without a family environment or with one that is at risk of breakdown. Although the kafalah increasingly interacts with the legal systems of Western countries, it is not well-known or understood in Europe, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. The impetus of this study came from the practical experience of ISS’s International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of the Family at the International Social Service (ISS/IRC), which showed that this lack of understanding can seriously affect children deprived of parental care in cross-border situations.

Following the introduction, Part I sets the international scene of kafalah. An important step to greater international recognition of this institution as an alternative care measure for children deprived of their families was the specific reference to kafalah in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), followed by its inclusion as a child protection measure in the Hague Child Protection Convention (1996) and the UN Guidelines on the Alternative Care of Children (2009). Part I then continues analyzing the various forms, structures and functions of kafalah, comparing it to other protection measures such as adoption, and noting the Western perspective on kafalah.

Part II provides an extensive and detailed overview of the implementation of kafalah and analogous institutions in countries whose legal system is based on or inspired by Sharia law, with in-depth studies on Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sudan, Djibouti, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Tunisia, and practical comments and suggestions by ISS/IRC for each State.  It analyses the many social problems surrounding kafalah in these States, several of which have very large populations (e.g., Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran) or must deal with large numbers of displaced or refugee families and children (e.g., Iraq, Lebanon). Many of these countries are facing poverty, lack of adequate infrastructures for the protection of children and families, stigmatization of single mothers, child abandonment, and child labour, among others. A Technical Note provided by ISS/IRC mentions many ongoing efforts to regulate kafalah in order to better protect children’s rights, and suggests a number of issues to consider, offering practical tools to national stakeholders, including a compelling case study on “Preventing unjustified family separation”.

Part III addresses the recognition of kafalah and analogous institutions in “receiving States”. It starts with a Case Study on “The crucial questions to ask oneself as a professional in a receiving State”, when confronted with a kafalah issue, with alternative suggestions for possible approaches. Then follow: a discussion of the principle of subsidiarity in cross-border kafalah placements; “Considerations about the (non)-applicability of the 1993 Hague Convention to cross-border kafalah placements” by Laura Martínez-Mora (Secretary at the Hague Conference); and a discussion of the 1996 Hague Convention on Child Protection as an international framework for cross-border kafalah. See in particular the interview with Hans van Loon “4. The 1996 Hague Convention on Child Protection: An international framework for cross-border kafalah?,” which provides an insight into the interaction between Kafalah and the modern Hague Children Conventions (pp. 135-137).

Part III concludes with a comprehensive analysis of the treatment of kafalah in several receiving States: Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States of America. Like Part II, Part III concludes with a Technical Note with a summary of positive trends as well as common challenges regarding the kafalah in receiving States, during the four different stages of (1) the pre-placement process; (2) the decision to establish a Kafalah; (3) the transfer of the child and immigration considerations; and (4) the treatment of the kafalah in the receiving State and post-placement considerations.

The study concludes with four Annexes and an extensive bibliography (see in particular Annex IV).

Annex I: Historical and contemporary considerations on Sharia Law, by M. Keshavje Mohammed, a renowned international specialist on cross cultural mediation, offers helpful background insights on the legal systems where kafalah is practiced.

Annex II: International case law relating to kafalah provides an overview and analysis of cases dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Annex III: EU l instruments applicable to kafalah, deals with the European Union Directives on Family Reunification Directive and the Citizens’ Rights Directive and presents case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Annex IV: Tools to foster strengthened cross-border cooperation. This Annex suggests and develops the possibility of strengthening cooperation between kafalah and non-kafalah States through a bilateral agreement. To that end it presents (1) a Checklist for the establishment of such a bilateral agreement: how to ensure better protection of children placed abroad under a kafalah in (and beyond) the context of the 1996 Hague Convention, and (2) a Model for the establishment of such an agreement regarding the cross-border placement of children in a foster family or institution, or their provision of care by kafalah or an analogous institution. It offers one Model for States that are both bound by the 1996 Hague Convention, and another, more extensive, one for States that are not both bound by the 1996 Hague Convention.

Annex IV concludes with a brief overview, written by Justice V. Bennett and M. MacRitchie, on the benefits of direct judicial communication and sharing the Australian experience on how direct judicial communication could be applied to cross-border kafalah placements

A short post for comparative conflicts purposes. Readers might be aware of the minimum contacts rule in US jurisdictional analysis.  Rice J excellently summarises the issues in his order denying a strike-out application (‘motion to dismiss’) on the basis of lack of jurisdiction.

‘Under the Due Process Clause, a court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant only where “the defendant ha[s] certain minimum contacts with the forum state such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” [Picot v. Weston, 9th Cir. 2015) (quoting Int’l Shoe Co. v. Wash., [1945])….

Personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant may take two forms:
general jurisdiction or specific jurisdiction. General jurisdiction requires connections with the forum “so continuous and systematic as to render the foreign corporation essentially at home in the forum State (Ranza). Specific jurisdiction, by contrast, may only be exercised “when a case aris[es] out of or relate[s] to the defendant’s contacts with the forum.”

Shandong essentially argue that they are kept at arm’s length from US jurisdiction because they are not the one importing the tires into the US: a separate corporation imported, a third distributed. The judge however (in the process dismissing Shandong’s assertion that the goods were shipped FOB – Free on Board), found that Shandong delivered tires into the stream of commerce, was involved, in consequence of its contractual duties, in shipping the tires to Washington ports, and has taken steps for creating tires compliant with state and federal law to arrive in Washington pursuant to the supply agreement.  This echoes the EU jargon of ‘directing activities at’ the state of Washington.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, para 2.460, para 4.48 ff.

Comparative law claxon, special jurisdiction, product liability
Court finds Shandong delivered tires into US commerce, was involved in shipping them to WASH ports, has undertaken to comply with US state, federal law per supply agreement with Bridgestonehttps://t.co/AcGzp4hw9D https://t.co/WkGT25CnGM pic.twitter.com/VDcxBGYTEm

— Geert van Calster (@GAVClaw) June 14, 2021

The new issue of the Revue Critique de Droit International Privé (2/2021) is out.

It contains eight articles and numerous case notes.

The editorial by Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po), Dominique Bureau (University of Paris II) and Sabine Corneloup (University of Paris II) will soon be available in English on the Dalloz website (Devoir de réserve ?), as well as the first four articles which all deal with the reserved share in successions (réserve héréditaire) from an international perspective*.

*This subject is highly topical at this moment in France since a draft bill on the compliance with the Republican principles (projet de loi confortant le respect des principes de la République) is being debating by members of the National Assembly as well as senators. It contains a provision (see article 13) aiming at protecting French heirs regarding assets located in France, against any foreign law applicable to the succession which would not provide for a reserved shared for children (see article 912 of the French Civil Code). During its first reading in April the Senate deleted the provision (see here and here). A new reading has started in July before the National Assembly. To be continued!

The articles in the special issue are as follows:

• Une ultime (?) bataille de la réserve héréditaire, by Paul Lagarde
• Quelques observations relatives à la réserve héréditaire dans le projet de loi confortant le respect des principes de la République, by Cécile Pérès
• Contre le retour du droit de prélèvement en droit français : une vue de la pratique du droit international, by Diane Le Grand de Belleroche
• Le prélèvement compensatoire du projet d’article 913 du code civil à l’épreuve des exigences européennes et constitutionnelles, by Suzel Ramaciotti
• Droit de prélèvement, réserve héréditaire, protection des héritiers contre les discriminations, quelle méthode ?, by Natalie Joubert

The last three articles are dealing with various PIL issues.

In the first article, Christelle Chalas and Horatia Muir Watt discusse the corporate environmental responsibility from the perspective of international jurisdiction (Vers un régime de compétence adapté à la responsabilité environnementale des entreprises multinationales ? Point d’étape post-Brexit – Affaires Municipio de Mariana v. BHP plc & BHP group Ltd ; Okpabi and others v Royal Dutch Shell Plc and another).

The second article written by Vincent Richard presents the Recast Service Regulation (La refonte du règlement sur la notification des actes judiciaires et extrajudiciaires).

Regulation (EU) no 2020/1784, adopted on 25 november 2020, recasts Regulation (EC) no 1393/2007 on the service in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters. Under the recast, transmitting agencies shall transfer documents to receiving agencies through a decentralised IT system such as e-CODEX. The recast also encourages electronic service to the addressee where the latter agrees. The reform creates new responsibilities for receiving agencies without correcting some of the Regulation’s shortcomings.

Finally, in the third article, Christine Budzikiewicz introduces the reform of international adoption law in Germany (La réforme du droit de l’adoption internationale en Allemagne).

The full table of contents is available here.

On Tuesday, July 6, 2021, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its twelfth monthly virtual workshop in private international law at, exceptionally, 15:00-16:30. Since January of this year, we have been alternating between English and German language. Hannah Buxbaum (Indiana University) will speak, in English, about the topic

Equivalence Regimes in Transnational Regulation: From Comparability to Convergence

The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-uphere This is the twelfth such lecture in the series, after those by Mathias Lehmann in June, Eva-Maria Kieninger in July, Giesela Rühl in September, Anatol Dutta in October, Susanne Gössl in November, Marc-Philippe Weller in December, Macjiej Szpunar in January, Dagmar Coester-Waltjen in February, Horatia Muir Watt in March, Burkhard Hess in April, Marta Pertegas in May, and Tania Domej in June. The series will take a summer break in August and return in September. Stay tuned! If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de

 

 

 

 

In Perform Content Services Ltd v Ness Global Services Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 981 the Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed the appeal against the High Court judgment which I discussed here.

Two grounds of appeal were at play [34]:

(1) The Court was wrong as a matter of law to interpret Article 33 to mean that jurisdiction was not “based on” domicile by reason of a non-exclusive English court jurisdiction clause that conferred prorogated jurisdiction on the English Court pursuant to Article 25;

(2) The Court was wrong to conclude that a stay was not necessary for the proper administration of justice within the meaning of Article 33(1)(b). The court wrongly failed to place any or any sufficient weight on the fact that the NJ and English proceedings were mirror image proceedings giving rise to the risk of irreconcilable judgments, the core purpose of Article 33 and a core feature of the concept of the administration of justice under the Article. The court wrongly took account of the non-exclusive English court jurisdiction clause and/or an English governing law clause and/or wrongly took account of its assessment that the centre of gravity was Slovakia and/or failed to place any or any sufficient weight on the material connections between the parties and the United States and/or wrongly placed significant reliance on connections between the parties, the dispute and the UK.

On the first issue Flaux C refers ia to UCP and to Citicorp (the latter had not been referred to by the first instance judge, I suggested it could have been), to hold that choice of court under A25 BIa being exclusive or not has no relevance. Like the first instance judge, he rules that A33-34 cannot apply if choice of court has been made in favour of an EU court, exclusive or not.

He then deals obiter, like the judge had done, with the issue whether an A33-34 stay would have been in the interest of the sound administration of justice. He emphasises [66] the wide catchment area of ‘all the circumstances of the case’ per recital 24, and suggests this must potentially also include the connections which the case has with the EU Member State and indeed the specific court (per the choice of court clause) concerned.

On that he is right. But he is wrong in my view to support Turner J’s analysis at [67] in Municipio, without any nuance.

Turner J and Flaux C are both right that, the fact itself that the factors which a judge considers in holding that the proper administration of justice does not require a stay, might theoretically have also been relevant in a common law forum non conveniens exercise, does not invalidate the judge’s approach under A33-34. However the problem with the judge’s A33-34 analysis in Municipio is,

Firstly, that it is a case of the tail wagging the dog. The proper administration of justice analysis, exclusively populated by forum non criteria indeed with full reference to that forum non analysis, was put to the front without proper engagement with the substantive conditions for A33-34 to apply at all.

Further, the DNA of A33-34 as I have reported before ( I am preparing an overview for publication), is much, much different from the forum non DNA. By cutting and pasting of the criteria indeed by cross-reference to the forum non criteria without further ado, the A33-34 analysis is irreparably broken. It becomes a case of mixing the blank rounds with the live bullets.

It is worth emphasising that the limited A33-34  analysis are obiter findings only.

Geert.

European Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, 2.539 ff.

Perform Content Services v Ness Global Services [2021] EWCA Civ 981
Appeal dismissed in an A33-34 BIa, forum non conveniens (light) case
For the High Court judgment see https://t.co/z75qFQafqg
More soonhttps://t.co/CJhGxsamFQ

— Geert van Calster (@GAVClaw) July 1, 2021

The Nigeria Group on Private International Law held its inaugural lecture on June 21, 2021. The video recording of the event is now available on the Group’s website: here  

This post was drafted by Paul Lorenz Eichmüller, Vienna.

This year’s third issue of the German journal “Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts” (IPRax) contains two articles and several other case discussions of interest for European private international law. 

In the first article, Andrew Dickinson (University of Oxford) discusses the applicable national and international rules of private international law that have been in force in the UK since the end of the transition period on 1 January 2021. He focuses primarily on jurisdiction matters and the recognition of foreign judgements, as well as choice of law for contract and tort claims. 

The abstract reads: 

At 11pm (GMT) on 31 December 2020, the United Kingdom moved out of its orbit of the European Union’s legal system, with the end of the transition period in its Withdrawal Agreement and the conclusion of the new Trade and Cooperation Agreement. This article examines the impact of this realignment on private international law, for civil and commercial matters, within the legal systems of the UK, the EU and third countries with whom the UK and the EU had established relationships before their separation. It approaches that subject from three perspectives. First, in describing the rules that will now be applied by UK courts to situations connected to the remaining EU Member States. Secondly, by examining more briefly the significance for the EU and its Member States of the change in the UK’s status from Member State to third country. Thirdly, by considering the impact on the UK’s and the EU’s relationships with third countries, with particular reference to the 2007 Lugano Convention and Hague Choice of Court Convention. The principal focus will be on questions of jurisdiction, the recognition and enforcement of judgments and choice of law for contract and tort.  

The second article by Susanne Zwirlein-Forschner (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich) concerns itself with the issue of foreign road charge claims brought in front of German courts. Particular emphasis is placed on questions of private international law.  

The abstract reads (translated from German): 

Tolling of public roads has experienced a renaissance in Europe for reasons of equivalence and climate protection. In some Member States, the modern toll systems are designed in such a way that the recovery of unpaid fees is carried out before civil courts. If such an action for payment of a foreign toll is brought before a German court, complex problems of PIL and international civil procedure arise, which will be examined in this article. 

Among the case discussions, two judgments by the CJEU shall be pointed out: firstly, the contribution by Wiebke Voß (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law) on the decision C-215/18, Primera Air Scandinavia, which dealt with the delineation of contract and tort claims; and secondly, the case note by Chris Thomale (University of Vienna) on the decision C-433/19, Ellmes Property Services, which has already been discussed on this blog. 

A full table of contents can be found here. 

Jens M. Scherpe and Elena Bargelli are the editors of a collection of essays titled The Interaction between Family Law, Succession Law and Private International Law, recently published by Intersentia.

The blurb reads:

There can be no doubt that both substantive family and succession law engage in significant interaction with private international law, and, in particular, the European Union instruments in the field. While it is to be expected that substantive law heavily influences private international law instruments, it is increasingly evident that this influence can also be exerted in the reverse direction. Given that the European Union has no legislative competence in the fields of family and succession law beyond cross-border issues, this influence is indirect and, as a consequence of this indirect nature, difficult to trace.

This book brings together a range of views on the reciprocal influences of substantive and private international law in the fields of family and succession law. It outlines some key elements of this interplay in selected jurisdictions and provides a basis for discussion and future work on the reciprocal influences of domestic and European law. It is essential that the choices for and within certain European instruments are made consciously and knowingly. This book therefore aims to raise awareness that these reciprocal influences exist, to stimulate academic debate and to facilitate a more open debate between European institutions and national stakeholders.

The authors of the contributions are Elena Bargelli (Univ. Pisa), Anne Barlow (Univ. Exeter), Elena D’Alessandro (Univ. Turin), Elise Goossens (KU Leuven), Nigel Lowe (Cardiff Univ.), Robert Magnus (Univ. Bayreuth), Maire Ni Shuilleabhain (Univ. College Dublin), Walter Pintens (KU Leuven), Pablo Quinza Redondo (Univ. Valencia), Lukas Rass-Masson (Univ. Toulouse), Anne Sanders (Univ. Bielefeld), Jens M. Scherpe (Univ. Cambridge), Wendy Schrama (Utrecht Univ.) and Denise Wiedemann (MPI Hamburg).

Further information, including the table of contents can be found here.

AG De La Tour delivered today his opinion in case C‑277/20 (UM), which is about the Successions Regulation. The opinion is currently available in all EU official languages (save Irish), albeit not in English. Here is the French version (to check whether an English translation has finally been made available, just click on the link below and change the language version):

« L’article 3, paragraphe 1, sous b), du règlement (UE) no 650/2012 […] doit être interprété en ce sens que relèvent de la notion de « pacte successoral » les actes de donation entre vifs en vertu desquels le transfert, au profit du donataire, de la propriété d’un bien ou des biens qui constituent même partiellement le patrimoine successoral du donateur n’intervient qu’à son décès ».

Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=243669&pageIndex=0&doclang=FR&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=23944552

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case C‑301/20 (UE, HC v Vorarlberger Landes- und Hypothekenbank AG, intervening parties: Estate of VJ), which is about the Successions Regulation:

“1. Article 70(3) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 […] must be interpreted as meaning that a certified copy of the European Certificate of Succession, bearing the words ‘unlimited duration’, is valid for a period of six months from the date of issue and produces its effects, within the meaning of Article 69 of that regulation, if it was valid when it was presented to the competent authority;

2. Article 65(1) of Regulation No 650/2012, read in conjunction with Article 69(3) of that regulation, must be interpreted as meaning that the effects of the European Certificate of Succession are produced with respect to all persons who are named therein, even if they have not themselves requested that it be issued”.

Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=4EB7F36D35D24BF4E135A4654D292A60?text=&docid=243642&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=23943665

Back in April we reported about the Opinion delivered by AG Campos Sánchez-Bordona in the case Vorarlberger Landes- und Hypotheken-Bank, C-301/20, which revolves around the effects produced by an European Certificate of Succession and its certified copy, time-wise (first and third questions) as well as ratione personae, by reason of the person concerned (second question). At the request of the Court, the Opinion covered only the third preliminary question. In today’s judgment, the Court addresses all three questions.

In brief, the case concerned a certified copy of an European Certificate of Succession, which bore a marking ‘unlimited’ in the ‘Valid until’ field (element linked to the first and third questions). Moreover, the certified copy in question was issued on the application of only one of the two heirs concerned by the main proceedings emanating from Austria (element linked to the second question).

 

First and third questions, effects time-wise

The Court considered that the first and third question should be examined jointly; for the Court, by these two questions the referring court sought to establish whether a certified copy of an European Certificate of Succession which bears a marking ‘unlimited’ is valid and produces its effects (described in Article 69 of the Succession Regulation) with no further limitation, as long as this copy was valid when it was first submitted to the concerned authority (paragraph 20).

According to the Court’s answer, such certified copy is valid for six month following its issuance and continues to produce its effects, in the sense of Article 69 of the Regulation, if it was valid when it was first submitted to the competent authority (paragraph 37).

 

Second question, effects by reason of the person concerned

By its second question, the referring court sought to establish whether an European Certificate of Succession produces its effects only in favour of the person who has applied for it (under this hypothesis, only that person could use the certificate and rely on its effects) or it produces such effects in favour of all persons who are mentioned in its content by name as heirs, legatees, executors of wills or administrators of the estate, regardless whether they applied for it.

The Court clearly approved the second hypothesis; the European Certificate of Succession produces its effects in favour of all persons mentioned in it, whether they have applied for the issue of certificate or not (paragraph 45).

 

The judgment can be consulted here (in French).

Conventions & Instruments  

On 31 May 2021, Georgia deposited its instrument of accession to the HCCH 1965 Service Convention and the HCCH 1970 Evidence Convention. With the accession of Georgia, the Service Convention now has 79 Contracting Parties. It will enter into force for Georgia on 1 January 2022, subject to the Article 28 procedure. For the Evidence Convention, with the accession of Georgia it now has 64 Contracting Parties. The Convention will enter into force for Georgia on 30 July 2021. More information is available here.

Meetings & Events 

On 1 June 2021, the HCCH and the Asian Business Law Institute co-hosted the webinar “HCCH 1970 Evidence Convention and Remote Taking of Evidence by Video-link”, part of the ongoing celebrations of the Evidence Convention’s golden anniversary. More information is available here.

On 1 June 2021, the HCCH participated in a virtual Regional Discussion on Children’s Rights and Alternative Care, organised by the Council of Europe in preparation to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child Day of General Discussion on this theme. More information is available here.

On 21 June 2021, the HCCH participated in the virtual inaugural event of the Nigeria Group on Private International Law. The recording of the event is available here.

 

Vacancy: The HCCH is currently seeking an Assistant Legal Officer. The deadline for the submission of applications is 23 July 2021 (00:00 CEST). More information is available here.

 

These monthly updates are published by the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), providing an overview of the latest developments. More information and materials are available on the HCCH website.

On 25 June 2021, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom issued a ruling in General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd (Respondent) v State of Libya (Appellant) [2021] UKSC 22 on the right of the claimant to dispense service to a foreign State, by invoking exceptional circumstances. The court ruled that in proceedings to enforce an arbitration award against a foreign State under the 1996 Arbitration Act, the State Immunity Act (SIA) requires the arbitration claim form or the enforcement order to be served through the Foreign, Commonwealth (and Development) Office (“FCO”) to the State’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, thus excluding the application of pertinent CPR rules.

Background

General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd (“GD”) is part of the General Dynamics group, a global defense conglomerate. Libya is a sovereign state which, at the time of these proceedings, had two competing governments. A dispute arose between the parties over a contract for the supply of communications systems. In January 2016, an arbitral tribunal in Geneva made an award of approximately £16 million (plus interest and costs) in favor of GD. The Award remains unsatisfied, but GD wishes, and has attempted, to enforce it in England and Wales. In July 2018, the High Court made an order which, amongst other things, allowed GD to enforce the Award, dispense with the requirement on it to serve a claim form or any associated documents on Libya and provided for Libya to be notified of the order (as the initial hearing had been held without notice).

Subsequently, Libya applied to the High Court to set aside those parts of the initial order dispensing with service. It referred to section 12(1) of the SIA, which requires service of ‘any writ or other document required to be served for instituting proceedings against a State’ to be transmitted to that state’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the FCO. It asserted that, as no service in this manner either of the arbitration claim form or of the High Court’s order giving permission to enforce the Award had occurred, the order had to be set aside and the Award could not be enforced. Accordingly, it argued, any assets of Libya in the jurisdiction could not be used to satisfy the Award. The High Court’s initial order was therefore overturned. However, the Court of Appeal restored the High Court’s initial order finding that it was not mandatory for the arbitration claim form or order permitting enforcement to be served through the FCO ([2019] EWCA Civ 1110). The State of Libya appealed.

Ruling

The Supreme Court was called to address the following issues:

Issue 1: In proceedings to enforce an arbitration award against a foreign State under section 101 of the 1996 Act, does section 12(1) of the SIA require the arbitration claim form or the enforcement order to be served through the FCDO to the State’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

Issue 2: Even if section 12(1) applies, in exceptional circumstances, can the court dispense with service of the enforcement order under rules 6.16 and/or 6.28 of the CPR?

Issue 3: Must section 12(1) be construed as allowing the court to make alternative directions as to service in exceptional circumstances where the claimant’s right of access to the court would otherwise be infringed?

The court summarised the judgment as follows.

Issue 1

The majority of the Court allowed Libya’s appeal on the first issue. They considered that a broad reading of section 12(1) of the SIA is appropriate, on account of the considerations of international law and comity which are in play. The words “other document required to be served for instituting proceedings against a State” in section 12(1) are wide enough to apply to all documents by which notice of proceedings in this jurisdiction is given to a defendant State. In the particular context of enforcement of arbitration awards against a State, the relevant document will be the arbitration claim form where the court requires one to be served, or otherwise will be the order granting permission to enforce the award. In cases to which section 12(1) applies, the procedure which it establishes for service on a defendant State through the FCO is mandatory and exclusive, subject only to the possibility of service in accordance with section 12(6) in a manner agreed by the defendant State.

The minority would have dismissed Libya’s appeal on the first issue. They considered that that Parliament intended the applicability of section 12(1) of the SIA to depend on what was required by the relevant court rules. If, as in this case, the operation of the relevant rules does not require service of the document instituting proceedings, then that document will fall outside section 12(1) of the SIA. Documents which do not institute proceedings, such as the enforcement order, fall outside the scope of section 12(1) of the SIA entirely. Where section 12(1) of the SIA does not apply, the status quo of State immunity provided for in section 1 of the SIA must prevail.

Issue 2

The majority’s answer to this question is “No”. Lord Lloyd-Jones explained that section 12(1) of the SIA does not require the court to refer to the CPR to determine whether a document is one which is required to be served. Rule 6.1(a) of the CPR also makes clear that in this instance the CPR do not purport to oust the requirements of section 12(1) of the SIA. The CPR cannot give the court a discretion to dispense with a statutory requirement in any event.

The minority’s answer to this question is “Yes”. Lord Stephens considered that, if the court exercises a discretion to dispense with service in exceptional circumstances, then the relevant document is no longer a document that is “required to be served” for the purposes of section 12(1) of the SIA. In his view, this interpretation gives effect to the underlying purpose of the legislation because it facilitates the restrictive doctrine of State immunity.

Issue 3

General Dynamics argued that the service requirements in section 12(1) of the SIA may prevent a claimant from pursuing its claim, which would infringe article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) as well as the constitutional right of access to the court. It therefore contended that section 12(1) should be construed, pursuant to section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (“HRA”) and/or common law principles, as allowing the court to make alternative directions as to service in exceptional circumstances.

The majority of the Court rejected this argument. They held that the procedure prescribed by section 12(1) of the SIA is a proportionate means of pursuing the legitimate objective of providing a workable means of service which conforms with the requirements of international law and comity, in circumstances of considerable international sensitivity. The procedure cannot therefore be considered to infringe article 6 of the ECHR, or to engage the common law principle of legality. The court cannot therefore interpret section 12 of the SIA as (for example) permitting substituted service, given that a fundamental feature of the provisions is their mandatory and exclusive nature.

The minority would interpret section 12(1) of the SIA as allowing the court to make alternative directions as to service if the claimant’s right of access to the court would otherwise be infringed. They considered that denying access to a court in circumstances where diplomatic service is impossible or unduly difficult would not be proportionate to the legitimate aim of complying with international law to promote comity and good relations between States.

Assessment

The case concerns the application of internal rules of the UK. We will therefore refrain from any comment on the domestic landscape, and approach the issue from a broader perspective.

Some clarifications first:

1. The case falls outside the scope of the EU Service Regulation: Service of process was supposed to take place outside the boundaries of the European Union.
2. The case falls outside the scope of the 1965 Hague Service Convention: The State of Libya is not a signatory of the convention aforementioned.
3. There is no bilateral convention between the UK and the State of Libya in the field of judicial cooperation in civil matters.

Efforts to notify the defendant

As evidenced from the text of the Court of Appeal judgment, the Claimant had permission to dispense with service of the Arbitration Claim Form dated 21 June 2018, any Order made by the Court and other associated documents, pursuant to Civil Procedure Rules 6.16 and 6.28. The Claimant was allowed to courier the Arbitration Claim Form, the Order and the associated documents to the following addresses:

1. Interim General Committee for Defence, Ghaser Bin Gashour, Tripoli, Libya;
2. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ash Shatt St, Tripoli, Libya; and
3. Sefrioui Law Firm, 72 Boulevard de Courcelles, 75017 Paris, France.

All three addresses were associated with the Government of National Accord, the recognised government of Libya. The Defendant could, within two months of the date of this order, apply to set aside this Order and the Award could not be enforced until after the expiration of that period, or, if the Defendant applied to set aside this order within two months of the date of this Order, until after the application has been finally disposed of.

The proceedings did come to the attention of Libya which has applied (within the specified two-month period) to set aside paragraphs 4 and 5 of the order and to vary paragraphs 6 and 7 so that the period for any application to set aside paragraphs 1 to 3 will run from the date of service of the order pursuant to section 12 of the State Immunity Act.

Hence, the question was not whether the State of Libya was aware of the proceedings; it was rather whether the notification met with the requirements of UK law, i.e. with section 12 of the State Immunity Act.

European and global good practices

In the EU context, we could refer to Article 19(1)b of the Service Regulation, which reads as follows:

1. Where a writ of summons or an equivalent document has had to be transmitted to another Member State for the purpose of service under the provisions of this Regulation and the defendant has not appeared, judgment shall not be given until it is established that:

 b the document was actually delivered to the defendant or to his residence by another method provided for by this Regulation;

and that in either of these cases the service or the delivery was effected in sufficient time to enable the defendant to defend.

The same rule applies in the field of the 1965 Hague Service Convention. Article 15(1)b states that,

Where a writ of summons or an equivalent document had to be transmitted abroad for the purpose of service, under the provisions of the present Convention, and the defendant has not appeared, judgment shall not be given until it is established that –

1. b)  the document was actually delivered to the defendant or to his residence by another method provided for by this Convention,

and that in either of these cases the service or the delivery was effected in sufficient time to enable the defendant to defend.

Violation of the defendant’s procedural rights?

In light of the factual situation, it is substantially improbable that the procedural breach has caused an essential injury to the appellant’s defense rights. The State of Libya filed timely an application to set aside the arbitral award, apparently because it received the courier in one of the addresses aforementioned.

Formal service prevails over actual knowledge of the proceedings?

As a conclusion, we wish to underline that the State of Libya was not deprived of its rights to challenge the award. Admittedly, GD could have attempted to serve the documents pursuant to the SIA, before opting for notification by courier. It did so, because it was given the right by the High Court order. In addition, GD attempted subsequently to serve the documents, by following the requirements of section 12 of the SIA, however to no avail.

And now what?

GD is obliged to follow the conditions stipulated in Section 12 SIA. According to the most favorable estimates, evidenced in the judgment of the Court of Appeal, service will be effected no sooner than a year following transmission. Of course, it may not be excluded that service will not take place at all. This will be the moment when article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights comes into play.

 

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation – SLAPPs (I look at them comparatively in my Monash Strategic and Public Interest Litigation Unit, LAW5478) are a well-known tool to silence critics. Based on defamation, they (or the threat with them) aim to shut down the voice of opposition. Not many find the energy, financial resources and nerves to fight a protected libel suit in court.

The EP recently published the study led by Justin Borg-Barthet and carried out by him and fellow researchers at the University of Aberdeen. At the substantive level, distinguishing between SLAPPs and genuine defamation suits is not straightforward. As Justin et al point out, there is an important private international law element to the suits, too. Clearly, a claimant will wish to sue in a claimant-friendly libel environment. Moreover, where a deep-pocketed claimant can sue in various jurisdictions simultaneously, this compounds the threat.

The Brussels and Lugano regime is particularly suited to the use of SLAPPs as a result of the CJEU case-law on Article 7(2) forum delicti. The Handlungsort /Erfolgort distinction as such already tends to add jurisdictional gateways. In more recent years this has been compounded by the additional ‘centre of interests’ gateway per CJEU e-Date and Bolagsupplysningen – even if this was recently somewhat contained by the Court in Mittelbayerischer Verlag. As I have flagged before, Brussels Ia’s DNA is not supportive of disciplining abusive forum shopping, as illustrated ia in competition law and intellectual property law cases.

For these reasons, the report (Heading 4, p.33 ff) suggests dropping the availability of Article 7(2) and sticking to Article 4 domicile jurisdiction, supplemented with (unlikely) choice of court.

The European Parliament more than the European Commission has picked up the defamation issues both for BIa and for applicable law under Rome II (from which the issue is hitherto exempt; the report reviews the applicable law issues, too). It remains to be seen whether with this report in hand, Parliament will manage to encourage the EC to pick up the baton.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, para 2.431 ff, 4.24 ff.

 

In a series of posts published at the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, Gary Born argues that States Should Not Ratify, and Should Instead Denounce, the Hague Choice-Of-Court Agreements Convention.

At the invitation of the Editors of the EAPIL Blog, Trevor Hartley, Professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, replies.

Gary Born starts by saying that the 2005 Hague Choice-of-Court Convention gives choice-of-court agreements the same enforceability and effect as arbitration agreements. This, he argues, is wrong because, while the parties to an arbitration agreement can choose the individual arbitrators, the parties to a choice-of-court agreement can only choose the country, or the court, from which the judges will be drawn: they cannot choose the individual judges. The reason he finds this objectionable is that the judges in many countries are corrupt or incompetent. He cites various statistics to show this. He names a number of countries which he says are especially bad: Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, the Congo and Nicaragua. However, none of these countries is a Party to the Hague Convention; so choice-of-court agreements designating their courts would not be covered.

There can be no doubt that corrupt, biased or incompetent judges do exist, as do corrupt, biased or incompetent arbitrators. However, even though the parties to a choice-of-court agreement cannot choose the individual judges who will hear their case, they can choose the country the courts of which will hear it. They can even choose the particular court: Article 3(a) of the Convention. And since there are many countries where the judges are not corrupt, biased or incompetent—several EU countries, as well as the United Kingdom, spring to mind—the parties can, if they choose, ensure that the judges hearing their case are unbiased, competent and impartial. If the parties insist on choosing the courts of a country where judicial corruption is a problem, they have only themselves to blame.

Moreover, it cannot be said that the Convention does not deal with this problem. Article 6(c) provides that the obligation of a court of a Contracting State other than that of the chosen court to suspend or dismiss proceedings covered by an exclusive choice-of-court agreement does not apply  if giving effect to the agreement ‘would lead to a manifest injustice or would be manifestly contrary to the public policy of the State of the court seised.’ While Article 9(e) provides that recognition and enforcement of  a judgment given by a court of a Contracting State designated in an exclusive choice-of-court agreement may be refused if it would be ‘manifestly incompatible with the public policy of the requested State, including situations where the specific proceedings leading to the judgment were incompatible with fundamental principles of procedural fairness of that State.’

Born tries to argue that the grounds for refusing to recognize a judgment under the Hague Convention are insufficient compared with those applicable to arbitration awards under the New York Convention. Little would be gained by a detailed analysis of the two sets of provisions. However, it can be said that the grounds in the Hague Convention are wide ranging—Article 9 has seven paragraphs, each setting out a different ground—and they provide ample opportunities for any court willing to use them to refuse recognition. The same courts will decide on recognition of judgments under the Hague Convention as on the recognition of arbitration awards under the New York Convention. There is no reason to believe that they will be less willing to refuse recognition in the former case than in the latter. In any event, if parties think that their rights will be better protected under an arbitration agreement than under a choice-of-court agreement, there is nothing to stop them from opting for the former. To deprive them of that choice by denouncing the Hague Convention would not enhance party autonomy: it would seriously limit it.

It should finally be said that the provisions on recognition and enforcement in the Hague Convention are very similar to those of the Brussels Regulation and the common law. The Brussels Regulation, rather than the New York Convention, was in fact the model for the Hague Convention. The most important difference between the two is that the grounds for non-recognition are considerably more extensive under the Hague Convention than under the Brussels Regulation. Both the Brussels Regulation and the common law seem to have operated satisfactorily for many years now.

The ERC Building EU Civil Justice team in Rotterdam is running a series of seminars, covering a variety of topics in the field of European civil justice and international litigation.

On Thursday 1 July, 16-18 hrs CET, the webinar is dedicated to the topic Representing Future Generations: Private Law aspects of Climate Change Litigation. Speakers are Chantal Mak, Geert Van Calster and Sanne Biesmans, and the panel is moderated by Jos Hoevenaars. They will address the relationship between climate litigation, fundamental rights and the role of European judges; private international law aspects of climate litigation and strategic aspects; and liability aspects of climate litigation and implications of the recent Dutch Shell judgment (see our earlier blogpost).

Participation is free of charge. You can register here at Eventbrite.

The two remaining sessions of the series are dedicated to:

• The Arbitralization of Courts – Friday, 2 July (09:30-11:30 CET), with Georgia Antonopoulou and Masood Ahmed as speakers and moderated by Xandra Kramer (register)

• European Civil Justice in Transition: Past, Present & Future – Thursday 15 July  (15.30-17.30 CET) with Alan Uzelac, Burkhard Hess, John Sorabji and Eva Storskrubb, moderated by Alexandre Biard and Xandra Kramer (register)