Flux européens

The Council of the European Union is expected to adopt at its next meeting on Justice and Home Affairs, scheduled to take place on 3 and 4 December 2015, a political agreement on the compromise text of the future regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matters of matrimonial property regimes (see here, however, for a corrigendum), and the compromise text of the future regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of decisions regarding the property consequences of registered partnerships.

The initiative comes one year after the Council had observed that “some member states needed more time to complete their internal reflection process” on the two Commission proposals of 2011 and decided to “re-examine this matter as soon as possible, and by no later than the end of 2015”.

Samuel Fulli-Lemaire, Affaire PIP : quelques réflexions sur les aspects de droit international privé, in Revue Internationale de Droit Économique, 2015, pp. 99-122.

[Abstract] – Plusieurs voies s’offrent aux porteuses d’implants mammaires fabriqués par la société PIP pour l’indemnisation de leurs préjudices. La présente étude aborde certaines des implications, au regard du droit international privé, des actions en responsabilité délictuelle qui peuvent être intentées par les victimes contre le fabricant ou ses dirigeants sociaux, contre son assureur, et enfin contre l’organisme notifié, c’est-à-dire l’entité chargée de conduire la procédure d’évaluation de conformité d’un produit de santé aux exigences européennes. Dans chaque hypothèse, les aspects relatifs à la compétence internationale et à la loi applicable seront évoqués. Il ressort de cette analyse que de nombreuses stratégies contentieuses peuvent être envisagées, et si cette diversité peut sembler servir l’objectif assurément louable d’une meilleure indemnisation des victimes, ou au moins de certaines d’entre elles, elle doit aussi conduire à nuancer la vision du marché intérieur comme un ensemble cohérent. Certaines de ces difficultés pourraient être atténuées, sinon résolues, par la généralisation de mécanismes d’actions de groupe, mais l’articulation de ces derniers et des règles de droit international privé soulèverait d’autres complications.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Geert.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Geert.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Renouvellement du mandat de M. Alfredo Calot Escobar en qualité de greffier de la Cour de justice

The French Cour de Cassation’s in Banque Privee Edmond de Rothschild Europe v X held that a unilateral jurisdiction clause was invalid under (doubtful) reference to (then) Article 23 of the Brussels I Regulation. The clause was held not to be binding under the French doctrine of clauses potestatives, even though the agreed forum was Luxembourg (whence the validity of the clause was judged under the lex fori derogati, not prorogati; that will no longer be possible under the recast Jurisdiction Regulation). In Credit Suisse, it extended this view (without reference this time to clauses potestatives) to choice of court in the context of the Lugano Convention.

In Apple Sales international v eBizcuss.com, the Cour de Cassation effectively qualifies its Rotschild case-law. The Court of Appeal held as unacceptable, under the theory of clauses potestatives, choice of court obliging eBizcuss to sue in Ireland, while allowing Apple Sales International to sue either in Ireland, or the place of registered office of eBizcuss, or any place where Apple Sales would have suffered damage. The Cour de Cassation now held that this clause is perfectly acceptable under Article 23 (now 25)’s regime for it corresponds to the need of foreseeability. (Which more extreme unilateral clauses arguably do not have). As always, the judgment is scant on details of the underlying contract whence it is not entirely clear whether French law was lex contractus or whether the Cour stuck to lex fori as determining validity of choice of court.

Geert.

Less is sometimes more so I shall not attempt to summarise all issues in Case C-198/14 Valev Visnapuu. The case makes for sometimes condensed reading however it perfectly illustrates the way to go about dealing with obstacles to trade put in place for environmental, public health or, as in this case, both reasons.

Mr Visnapuu essentially forum shops Estonia’s lower prices on alcohol by offering Finnish clients home delivery of alcoholic beverages purchased there. No declaration of import is made to Finish customs and excise, thereby circumventing (accusation of course is that this is illegal) a variety of excise duties imposed for public health and environmental reasons, as well as a number of requirements relating to retail licenses and container requirements (essentially a deposit-return system) for beverages.

Confronted with a demand to settle various tax debts, as well as with a suspended prison sentence, Mr Visnapuu turns to EU law as his defence in a criminal proceeding. The CJEU then had to settle a variety of classic trade and environment /public health questions: whether the packaging and packaging waste Directive is exhaustive on the issue of deposit-return system (answer: no and hence the system additionally needs to be assessed vis-a-vis EU primary law: Article 34 ff TFEU or Article 110 TFEU); whether in the context of that Directive excise duties on packaging may be imposed (yes) and packaging integrated into a functioning return system exempt (yes; in the absence of indications that imported systems are less likely to enjoy the exemption); whether the relevant excise duties fall under Article 34 ff TFEU or Article 110 TFEU (answer: it is part of an internal system of taxation hence needs to be judged vis-a-vis Article 110 TFEU); and finally whether the retail licence requirement needs to be judged viz Article 34 or Article 37 TFEU (answer: mixed, given the various requirements at stake). Final judgment on proportionality is down to the Finnish courts.

Readers in need of a tipple would be advised to postpone until after reading the judgment. Again though the case shows that if one keeps a clear head, classic structures of applying EU law go a long way in untangling even complex matters of law and fact.

Geert.

 

 

 

Il nuovo diritto di famiglia – Profili sostanziali, processuali e notarili, vol. IV – Tematiche di interesse notarile – Profili internazionalprivatistici, a cura di Alessandra Cagnazzo, Filippo Preite e Vera Tagliaferri, Giuffrè, 2015, ISBN 9788814201134, pp. 1360, Euro 150.

Tra i contributi di argomento internazionalprivatistico si segnalano: La legge italiana di diritto internazionale privato e le convenzioni internazionali, di Alessandra Zanobetti; Qualificazione e istituti del diritto di famiglia sconosciuti, di Stefano Armellini; La legge applicabile al divorzio nel regolamento c.d. “Roma III”, di Ilaria Viarengo; Il regolamento 2201/2003: circolazione delle sentenze in materia di separazione, divorzio e annullamento del matrimonio, di Ilaria Queirolo; La legge applicabile ai fini della determinazione dello status familiare nella disciplina del ricongiungimento, di Olivia Lopes Pegna; La circolazione delle sentenze ecclesiastiche di nullità del matrimonio, di Alessandra Lanciotti; Il riconoscimento del divorzio notarile, di Maria Caterina Baruffi; Giurisdizione in materia di responsabilità genitoriale: il regolamento n. 2201/2003, di Laura Carpaneto; La convenzione dell’Aja del 1996 sulla protezione dei bambini, di Laura Carpaneto; La libera circolazione delle decisioni in materia di responsabilità genitoriale nel regolamento n. 2201/2003, e Giurisdizione, legge regolatrice, riconoscimento ed esecuzione delle decisioni in materia di obbligazioni alimentari, di Margherita Salvadori; Le proposte di regolamenti dedicate ai regimi patrimoniali tra coniugi e partner in unioni registrate, di Elisabetta Bergamini; La cittadinanza multipla dei minori e diritto al nome, di Emilia Maria Magrone; Il riconoscimento dei provvedimenti di adozione stranieri, di Chiara Tuo; Il riconoscimento dei patti successori tra i coniugi, di Giovanna Debernardi; La sottrazione internazionale di minori, di Luciana Sangiovanni.

Per maggiori informazioni si veda qui.

Trevor C. Hartley, Anti-suit Injunctions in Support of Arbitration: West Tankers Still Afloat, in International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 2015, p. 965 ss.

[Abstract] – In its eagerly awaited judgment in Gazprom, the CJEU declined to follow the Opinion of Advocate General Wathelet that West Tankers is no longer good law. The West Tankers case decided that the courts of one Member State are precluded from granting antisuit injunctions directed at proceedings in the courts of another Member State, even if the proceedings in which the injunction is granted fall outside the scope of the Brussels Regulation by reason of the fact that they are concerned with arbitration. The Gazprom case confirms that West Tankers is still good law.

Ulteriori informazioni sul fascicolo 4/2015 della rivista sono disponibili qui.

SIDIBlog – the blog of the Italian Society of International Law and European Union Law – has issued a call for contributions to an on-line debate on EU Regulation No 848/2015 on insolvency proceedings (recast).

[From the blog] – The EU Regulation No 848/2015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 brings about the revision of the EC Regulation No 1346/2000 in matters of insolvency proceedings: while not departing from the structure of the pre-existing Regulation, the new instrument aims at improving the application of uniform rules under several aspects. With the following post of Professor Stefania Bariatti, and other ones that will be published in the coming weeks, the SIDIBlog intends to start a debate on the novelties contained in the new Insolvency Regulation, trusting to host further contributions of Italian and foreign scholars and practitioners, willing to discuss the issues raised by the new instrument. Prospective contributors can submit their posts at sidiblog2013@gmail.com.

Contributions may be submitted in English, French, Spanish or Italian. The papers received will appear in the next issue of the on-line journal Quaderni di SIDIBlog.

Evidence in Contemporary Civil Procedure. Fundamental Issues in a Comparative Perspective, a cura di C.H. van Rhee e Alan Uzelac, 2015, Intersentia, ISBN 9781780683386, pp. 364, Euro 79.

[Abstract] – Since the start of the new millennium, many contemporary jurisdictions have been revisiting the fundamental principles of their civil procedures. Even the core areas of the civil process are not left untouched, including the way in which evidence is introduced, collected and presented in court. One generator of the reforms in the field of evidence-taking in recent decades has been slow and inefficient litigation. Both in Europe and globally, reaching a balance between the demands of factual accuracy and the need to adjudicate disputes in a swift, cost-effective and efficient way is still one of the key challenges. The second reason that many countries are reforming their law of evidence is related to cultural and technological changes in modern societies. As the balance between, on the one side, traditional human rights such as the right to privacy and due process is shifting towards, on the other side, the modern need for security, efficiency and quick access to justice, the perception of what is admissible or not in the context of evidence-taking is changing as well. In the same sense, the fast pace of modern life commands different practices of fact-finding, accompanied by new methods of selection of evidence that are appropriate for this purpose. Last but not least, the overwhelming penetration of new technologies into all spheres of public and private life has the capacity to dramatically change the methods of the collection and presentation of evidence.

L’indice completo può essere consultato qui. Ulteriori informazioni a questo indirizzo.

The report of the fifth meeting of the Working Group established by the Council on General Affairs and Policy of the Hague Conference on Private International Law to prepare proposals in connection with “a future instrument relating to recognition and enforcement of judgments, including jurisdictional filters” is now available through the Conference’s website (see here for an account of the previous meeting).

The Working Group proceeded on the basis that the Convention should: (a) be a complementary convention to the Hague Choice of Court Convention of 30 June 2005, currently in force for the EU and Mexico; (b) provide for recognition and enforcement of judgments from other contracting States that meet the requirements set out in a list of bases for recognition and enforcement; (c) set out the only grounds on which recognition and enforcement of such judgments may be refused; and (d) not prevent recognition and enforcement of judgments in a contracting State under national law or under other treaties, subject to one provision relating to exclusive bases for recognition and enforcement (covering matters in the fields of intellectual property rights and immovable property).

The proposed draft text of the Convention prepared by the Working Group is annexed to the report.

The Working Group recommended to the Council on General Affairs and Policy (which is expected to meet in March 2016) that the proposed draft text be submitted for consideration to a Special Commission “to be held, if possible, in June 2016”.

It also recommended that matters relating to direct jurisdiction (including exorbitant grounds and lis pendens) be considered by the Experts’ Group in charge of the Judgments Project “with a view to preparing an additional instrument”. In the Working Group’s view, the Experts’ Group “should meet soon after the Special Commission has drawn up a draft Convention”.

Il fascicolo 11/2015 de La nuova giurisprudenza civile commentata riporta il testo di una sentenza, depositata il 9 aprile 2015, con cui la Corte d’Appello di Venezia ha negato l’efficacia in Italia di un provvedimento marocchino che ha dichiarato lo scioglimento del matrimonio contratto fra due cittadini marocchini per l’intervenuto ripudio della moglie da parte del marito.

La pronuncia è accompagnata da un commento di Omar Vanin.

[Dall’abstract fornito dall’autore del commento] – La sentenza veneziana afferma la non riconoscibilità del provvedimento marocchino per inosservanza del principio del contraddittorio, ai sensi dell’art. 64, lett. b) e c), della legge 31 maggio 1995 n. 218, di riforma del sistema italiano di diritto internazionale . La motivazione dapprima delinea per sommi capi la disciplina del ripudio nella shari’a, per poi richiamare la giurisprudenza più recente pronunciatasi sulla questione. Infine, è argomentato il carattere fondamentale e inderogabile del principio del contraddittorio nell’ordinamento italiano, concludendo che il provvedimento straniero che non si conforma nei fatti a tale principio non può trovare ingresso nell’ordinamento interno. La nota alla sentenza descrive la disciplina del ripudio nel particolare contesto del diritto marocchino, anche alla luce delle novelle che hanno interessato l’istituto negli ultimi decenni. Viene poi osservato come il carattere negoziale o meno dell’istituto muta le modalità di eventuale ingresso nell’ordinamento interno dello status personale da esso determinato. Il commento si sofferma sulle soluzioni individuate dalla dottrina e giurisprudenza italiana, nonché dalla giurisprudenza francese. Le ultime battute sono invece dedicate ad una lettura della questione alla luce dell’art. 8 della Convenzione europea dei diritti dell’uomo, sul iritto al rispetto della vita personale e familiare, e della relativa giurisprudenza della Corte di Strasburgo.

Corte d’Appello di Venezia, 9 aprile 2015, in Nuova giurisprudenza civile commentata, 2015, parte I, p. 1029 ss., con nota di Omar Vanin, Ripudio islamico, principio del contraddittorio e ordine pubblico italiano.

In a judgment of 6 October 2015 (Case C-489/14, A v. B), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) clarified the interpretation of Article 19(1) and (3) of Regulation No 2201/2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility (Brussels IIa).

The provisions concerned deal with parallel proceedings. In particular, pursuant to Article 19(1), where proceedings relating to divorce, personal separation and matrimonial annulment, or to parental responsibility, are brought before courts of different Member States and concern the same parties (or the same child), the court second seised shall, of its own motion, stay its proceedings until the jurisdiction of the court first seised is established. Corresponding provisions may be found in Article 27 of the Brussels I Regulation (now Article 29 of the Brussels Ia Regulation) and in Article 21 of the Brussels Convention.

The rule on lis pendens set forth in Article 19 of the Brussels IIa Regulation must be read in conjunction with Article 16 of the same Regulation, which establishes that a court shall be deemed to be seised when the document instituting the proceedings is lodged with the court or, if it has to be served before being lodged, when it is received by the authority responsible for the service, provided that the applicant has not subsequently failed to take the steps he was required to take, respectively, to have the document lodged with the court or served on the respondent.

The dispute in the main proceedings concerned a couple of French nationals habitually resident in the United Kingdom. They were the parents of three minor children. In March 2011, the husband commenced separation proceedings in France; a couple of months later, the wife applied for child support in the UK and filed a petition for divorce, which was dismissed pursuant to Article 19 of the Brussels IIa Regulation. On 15 December 2011, the French court issued a non-conciliation order stating that the issues concerning the children had to be decided in the UK, but retained jurisdiction to adopt certain interim measures. According to the French Civil Code, if divorce proceedings have not been instituted within 30 months of the issuing of the non-conciliation order, all of the provisions of the order are null and void. In the case at hand, the order’s provisions would have expired at midnight of 16 June 2014.

On 13 June 2014, the wife filed a fresh divorce petition in the UK attempting to ensure that it took effect only from the time the French order had expired. On 17 June 2014 the husband brought in turn divorce proceedings in France. This occurred early in the morning, at a time of day when, due to the time differene, it was impossible to bring an action before a United Kingdom court. The husband claimed that the wife’s petition had to be dismissed, as the jurisdiction of the French courts had been established in the terms of Articles 16 and 19 of the Brussels IIa Regulation.

The English court asked the ECJ whether Article 19(1) and (3) of the Brussels IIa Regulation should be interpreted as meaning that, in a situation in which the proceedings before the court first seised in the first Member State expired after the second court in the second Member State was seised, the jurisdiction of the court first seised must be regarded as not being established.

In its judgment, the ECJ begins by identifying the requirements that need to be met for a situation of lis pendens to be established. It first clarifies that this mechanism – aimed at preventing parallel proceedings and avoiding conflicts between decisions within Member States – is “based on the chronological order in which the courts are seised”, according to Article 16 of the Regulation. In addition, the Court recalls that in matrimonial proceedings, the applications brought before different Member States do not have to feature precisely the same cause of action. Thus, lis pendens may exist “where two courts of different Member States are seised, as in the main case, of judicial separation proceedings in one case and divorce proceedings in the other, or where both are seised of an application for divorce”. In the present case, therefore, the French judge had to be considered as first seised.

However, the ECJ further considers that, for lis pendens to exist, the proceedings have to be pending simultaneously before the courts of different Member States. If one set of proceedings expires, the risk of irreconcilable decisions disappears, and so the situation of lis pendens within the meaning of Article 19 of the Brussels IIa Regulation. In practice, “even if the jurisdiction of the court first seised was established during the first proceedings, the situation of lis pendens no longer exists and, therefore, that jurisdiction is not established”.

Accordingly, in a situation such as the one of the main proceedings, where the proceedings before the French court lapsed as a result of the expiry of legal time-limits, the criteria for lis pendens were no longer fulfilled as from the date of that lapse, “and the jurisdiction of that court must, therefore, be regarded as not being established”.

Quite a lot of attention has been going to a Belgian court ordering Facebook to stop collecting data from non-users through the use of so-called datr cookies.  Applicant is Willem Debeuckelaere, the chairman of the Belgian privacy commission, in his capacity as chairman (not, therefore, as a private individual). Our interest here is of course in the court’s finding that it has jurisdiction to hear the case, and that it can apply Belgian law. The judgment is drafted in Dutch – an English (succinct) summary is available here.

Defendants are three parties: Facebook Inc, domiciled in California; Facebook Belgium BVBA, domiciled in Brussels; and Facebook Ireland Ltd., domiciled in Dublin. Facebook Belgium essentially is FB’s public affairs office in the EU. FB Ireland delivers FB services to the EU market.

Directive 95/46 and the Brussels I Recast Regulation operate in a parallel universe. The former dictates jurisdiction and applicable law at the level of the relationship between data protection authorities (DPAs), and data processors (the FBs, Googles etc. of this world). The latter concerns the relation between private individuals and both authorities and processors alike. That parallelism explains, for instance, why Mr Schrems is pursuing the Irish DPA in the Irish Courts, and additionally, FB in the Austrian courts.

Current litigation against FB lies squarely in the context of Directive 95/46. This need not have been the case: Mr Debeuckelaere, aforementioned, could have sued in his personal capacity. If he is not a FB customer, at the least vis-a-vis FB Ireland, this could have easily established jurisdiction on the basis of Article 7(2)’s jurisdiction for tort (here: invasion of privacy): with Belgium as the locus damni. Jurisdiction against FB Inc can not so be established in the basis of Article 7(2) (it does not apply to defendants based outside the EU). If the chairman qq natural person is a FB customer, jurisdiction for the Belgian courts may be based on the consumer contracts provisions of Regulation 1215/2012 – however that would have defeated the purpose of addressing FB’s policy vis-a-vis non-users, which I understand is what datr cookies are about.

Instead, the decision was taken (whether informed or not) to sue purely on the basis of the data protection Directive. This of course requires application of the jurisdictional trigger clarified in Google Spain. German precedent prior to the Google Spain judgment, did not look promising (Schleswig-Holstein v Facebook).

At the least, the Belgian court’s application of the Google Spain test, is debatable: as I note in the previous post,

Article 4(1)(a) of Directive 95/46 does not require the processing of personal data in question to be carried out ‘by’ the establishment concerned itself, but only that it be carried out ‘in the context of the activities’ of the establishment (at 52): that is the case if the latter is intended to promote and sell, in that Member State, advertising space offered by the search engine which serves to make the service offered by that engine profitable (at 55). The very display of personal data on a search results page constitutes processing of such data. Since that display of results is accompanied, on the same page, by the display of advertising linked to the search terms, it is clear that the processing of personal data in question is carried out in the context of the commercial and advertising activity of the controller’s establishment on the territory of a Member State, in this instance Spanish territory (at 57).

Google Spain’s task was providing support to the Google group’s advertising activity which is separate from its search engine service. Per the formula recalled above, this sufficed to trigger jurisdiction for the Spanish DPA. Google Spain is tasked to promote and sell, in that Member State, advertising space offered by the search engine which serves to make the service offered by that engine profitable. The Belgian court withholds jurisdiction on the basis of Facebook Belgium’s activities being ‘inseparably linked’ (at p.15) to Facebook’s activities. With respect, I do not think this was the intention of the CJEU in Google Spain. At the very least, the court’s finding undermines the one stop principle of the data protection Directive, for Belgium’s position viz the EU Institutions means that almost all data processors have some form of public interest representation in Belgium, often indeed taking the form of a BVBA or a VZW (the latter meaning a not for profit association).

The court further justifies (p.16) its jurisdiction on the basis of the measures being provisionary. Provisionary measures fall outside the jurisdictional matrix of the Brussels I (Recast), provided they are indeed provisionary, and provided there is a link between the territory concerned and the provisional measures imposed. How exactly such jurisdiction can be withheld vis-a-vis Facebook Ireland and Facebook Inc, is not clarified by the court.

The court does limit the provisionary measures territorially: FB is only ordered to stop using datr cookies tracking data of non-FB users ‘vis-a-vis internetusers on Belgian territory’, lest these be informed of same.

I mentioned above that the data protection Directive and the Brussels I recast can be quite clearly distinguished at the level of jurisdiction. However findings of courts or public authorities on the basis of either of them, do still face the hurdle of enforcement. That is no different in this case. Recognition and enforcement of the judgment vis-a-vis FB Inc will have to follow a rather complex route, and it is not inconceivable that the US (in particular, the State of California) will refuse recognition on the basis of perceived extraterritorial jurisdictional claims (see here for a pondering of the issues). Even vis-a-vis Facebook Ireland, however, one can imagine enforcement difficulties. Even if these provisionary measures are covered by the Brussels I Recast (which may not be the case given the public character of plaintiff), such measures issued by courts which lack jurisdiction as to the substance of the matter, are not covered by the enforcement Title of the Regulation.

All in all, plenty to be discussed in appeal.

Geert.

 

 

 

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