Flux européens

An overdue post on the Hungarian Supreme Court’s judgment 2020.3.72.a, finding an implied choice of law pro Hungarian law, made by a Serbian and Hungarian party to a contract for agency and business counseling. In the absence of choice of law, per Article 4 Rome I, applicable law would have been Serbian law. Yet the SC held that the conduct of the Serbian business party in the litigation, made for implicit choice of law.

Under Rome I, choice of law may be made and changed at any time during the course of the contract. Whether it can also be made by conduct of litigation is somewhat disputed. Arguments pro rely heavily on a parallel with impromptu choice of court in Brussels Ia, by submission. The Hungarian courts had assessed the merits of the case on the basis of Hungarian law, and the Serbian defendant had engaged in that discussion in a detailed, substantive statement of defence without any objections to Hungarian law being the lex contractus. This, the courts held and the SC agreed, meant parties had made an implied choice of law by their conduct. A change of heart by defendant upon appeal was a unilateral change of law, which cannot bind the parties.

Richard Schmidt sent me the judgment and has additional analysis here– on which I relied for I do not read Hungarian. Scholarship has engaged with the issue and this SC judgment will be highly relevant material for that discussion.

Geert.

(Handbook of) European Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 3, Heading 3.2.4.

 

 

Performing Right Society Ltd v Qatar Airways Group QCS [2020] EWHC 1872 (Ch) concerns the infringement or not of copyright via Qatar Airways’ inflight entertainment system known as “Oryx One”. Holding on an application for a stay on grounds of forum non conveniens or alternatively on case management grounds, Birss J on Friday first of all noted the relevance of Lucasfilm Limited v Ainsworth [2011] UKSC 39 that the English court can have jurisdiction over claims for infringement of copyright by non-UK acts and under non-UK law where there is a basis for in personam jurisdiction. Which there is because of the presence of the aircraft on the ground or in the territorial airspace of the UK – the airline was served at the London address of the UK branch (defendant, QATAR Airways Group Q.C.S.C. is not domiciled in the UK, I gather). Lucasfilm did not itself deal with forum non.

I flag this case for Birss J gives a good summary of the approach to forum non, building of course on Spiliada but also with reference to Vedanta, Okpabi etc., all reviewed on the blog. Note at 16-17 claimant’s and defendant’s alternative formulations of the Stage 1 cq 2 tests following Spiliada.

The defendant has summarised the test in Spiliada as follows:

“(1) Is there another available forum which is clearly and distinctly the natural forum, that is to say, the “forum with which the action has the most real and substantial connection”?

(2) If there is, is England nevertheless the appropriate forum, in particular because the court is not satisfied that substantial justice will be done in the alternative available forum?”

At: claimant’s rival formulation is:

“Stage 1: Qatar Airways bears the burden of satisfying the Court that the Qatari court is an available forum with competent jurisdiction to determine PRS’s claim and is clearly or distinctly a more appropriate forum than England for the trial of the issues. If it fails to satisfy the Court of these matters, a stay should be refused.

Stage 2: If the Court determines that the Qatari court is prima facie more appropriate, it must nevertheless refuse to grant a stay if PRS demonstrate that, in all the circumstances of the case, it would be unjust for it to be deprived of the right to trial in England.”

The distinctions may seem trivial. However they relate to, firstly, burden of proof and secondly, which factors need to be considered in which stage (and therefore, proven by whom). In particular, it is suggested that issues such as the location of witnesses arose at the first stage yet that at least aspects of the points which were debated about expert witnesses (of foreign law) arose at the second stage not the first.

Birss J ends up summarising Stage 1 as entailing the following headings:

i) the personal connections the parties have to the countries in question; ii) factual connections which the events relevant to the claim have with the countries; iii) applicable law; iv) factors affecting convenience or expense such as the location of witnesses or documents.

I will leave readers to digest the arguments under the various headings themselves, Birss J concludes that Qatar is not clearly a more appropriate forum and does not therefore consider Stage 2.

Readers will remember that the CJEU in Owusu objected to forum non on the basis of its unpredictability. Now, I am not one for arguing that following Spiliada and Vedanta, and given the authority rule to which common lawyers and judges are attuned, forum non be unpredictable. Neither can one posit however, seeing the intensity of the discussion here and in many other cases, that it is an entirely clear exercise.

Geert.

 

 

Application (dismissed) for stay of a claim of worldwide infringement of #copyright, on grounds of forum non conveniens or alternatively on case management grounds.
References of course UKSC Lucasfilm. https://t.co/sXPxUgpbdH

— Geert Van Calster (@GAVClaw) July 17, 2020

 

 

Wagenknecht / Conseil européen
Ressources propres des Communautés
Le Tribunal rejette un recours visant à faire constater que le Conseil européen aurait illégalement refusé d’exclure le Premier ministre tchèque, en raison d’un conflit d’intérêts allégué, des réunions de cette institution portant sur l’adoption du cadre financier pluriannuel de l’Union européenne 2021/2027

Thank you Nathalie Smuha for first signalling the €600,000.00 fine which the Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA) issued on Tuesday against Google Belgium, together with a delisting order of uncertain reach (see below) and an order to amend the public’s complaint forms. The decision will eventually be back up here I am assume (at vanished yesterday) however I have copy here.

Nauta Dutilh have very good summary and analysis up already, and I am happy to refer. Let me add a few things of additional note:

• The one-stop shop principle of the GDPR must now be under severe strain. CNIL v Google already put it to the test and this Belgian decision further questions its operationalisation – without even without for the CJEU to answer the questions of the Brussels Court of Appeal in the Facebook case. At 31, the DPA refers to a letter which Google LLC had sent on 23 June 2020 (a few days therefore after the French decision) to the Irish DPA saying that it would no longer object to national DPAs exercising jurisdiction in right to be forgotten cases. Of note is that in ordinary litigation, deep-pocket claimants seeking mozaik jurisdiction seldom do that because it serves the general interest.
• Having said that, the Belgian DPA still had to establish jurisdiction against Google Belgium. Here, CJEU Google v Spain, Google v CNIL, and Wirtschaftsakademie led the DPA to take a ‘realistic’ /business plan approach (such as Jääskinen AG in Google Spain) rather than a legally pure approach: at 80 following extensive reference to CJEU authority, and to the effet utile of the GDPR, the DPA holds that it matters little whether the actual processing of the date takes places outside of the EU, by Google employees ex-EU, and that Google Belgium’s activities are supportive only. A Belgian resident’s right to be forgotten has been infringed; a Google entity is available there: that would seem to suffice.
• That left the issue of the territorial reach of the delisting request. The DPA arguably cuts a few corners on the Google Belgium issue; here, it is simply most vague: at 81 ff it refers to the jurisdictional decision in e-Date Advertising, that for infringement of privacy within Brussels Ia, the courts of the person’s centre of interests are best placed to hear the case in its entirety, holding this should be applied mutatis mutandis in GDPR cases and removal orders. It then holds at 85 that neither Google v CNIL nor Belgian law give it specific power to impose a worldwide delisting order, yet at 91 that an EU-wide delisting order would seem an effective means of redress, to end up in its final order (p.48-49) not identifying a territorial scope for delisting.

I am confused. I suspect I am not the only one.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed.2016, chapter 2, Heading 2.2.8.2.5.

 

On 14 July 2020, Austria ratified the Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, which will enter into force for Austria on 12 September 2020.

Source: here

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case C‑249/19 (JE v KF), which is about Rome III.

Context: “11 JE and KF, who are Romanian nationals, married in Iași (Romania) on 2 September 2001.

12 On 13 October 2016, JE applied for a divorce to the Judecătoria Iași (Court of First Instance, Iași, Romania).

13 By judgment of 31 May 2017, that court declined jurisdiction to hear that application in favour of the Judecătoria Sectorului 5 București (Court of First Instance of the Fifth District of Bucharest, Romania).

14 By a judgment of 20 February 2018, that court, on the basis of the nationality of both spouses referred to in Article 3(1)(b) of Regulation No 2201/2003, established that the Romanian courts had general jurisdiction to hear the application for divorce made by JE. Furthermore, on the basis of Article 8(a) of Regulation No 1259/2010, it designated Italian law as the law applicable to the dispute of which it was seised, on the ground that, on the date on which the application for divorce was filed, the habitual residence of the spouses was in Italy.

15 In that regard, that court held that, under Italian law, an application for divorce made in circumstances such as those of the main proceedings could be filed only if a legal separation of the spouses had previously been established or declared by a court and if at least three years had elapsed between the date of that separation and the date on which the application for divorce was filed with the court.

16  Given that the existence of a court decision establishing or pronouncing such a separation had not been proven and that Romanian law does not provide for legal separation proceedings, that court held that those proceedings had to be conducted before the Italian courts and that, consequently, any application to that effect made to the Romanian courts was inadmissible.

17 JE lodged an appeal against that judgment before the referring court, claiming, inter alia, that the court at first instance should have applied Article 2600(2) of the Civil Code, which constitutes the transposition into Romanian law of Article 10 of Regulation No 1259/2010.

18 In that regard, JE is of the opinion that, since Italian law is restrictive as regards the conditions required for divorce, Romanian law should apply to the application for divorce.

19 In JE’s view, that solution also flows from the fact that the application of Italian law is manifestly incompatible with the public policy of the forum and that, consequently, that application must, in accordance with Article 12 of that regulation, be disapplied”.

Question refered to the Court of Justice: “‘Is the expression “the law applicable pursuant to Article 5 or Article 8 makes no provision for divorce”[, in Article 10 of Regulation No 1259/2010,] to be interpreted (a) in a strict, literal manner, that it is to say only in respect of a situation where the foreign law applicable makes no provision for any form of divorce, or (b) more broadly, as also including a situation where the foreign law applicable permits divorce, but does so in extremely limited circumstances, involving an obligatory legal separation procedure prior to divorce, in respect of which the law of the forum contains no equivalent procedural provisions?’”.

Decision of the Court of Justice: “Article 10 of Council Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010 […] must be interpreted as meaning that the expression ‘where the law applicable by virtue of Article 5 or Article 8 makes no provision for divorce’ applies only where the foreign law applicable makes no provision for divorce in any form”.

Source: here

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case C‑253/19 (MH, NI v OJ, Novo Banco SA), which is about the Insolvency bis Regulation:

“The first and fourth subparagraphs of Article 3(1) of Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on insolvency proceedings must be interpreted as meaning that the presumption established in that provision for determining international jurisdiction for the purposes of opening insolvency proceedings, according to which the centre of the main interests of an individual not exercising an independent business or professional activity is his or her habitual residence, is not rebutted solely because the only immovable property of that person is located outside the Member State of habitual residence”.

Source: here

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case C‑80/19 (E. E. with the presence of: Kauno miesto 4-ojo notaro biuro notarė Virginija Jarienė, K.-D. E.), which is about the Succession Regulation. The judgment 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):

« 1) Le règlement (UE) no 650/2012 […] doit être interprété en ce sens que relève de la notion de « succession ayant une incidence transfrontière » une situation dans laquelle le défunt, ressortissant d’un État membre, résidait dans un autre État membre à la date de son décès, mais n’avait pas rompu ses liens avec le premier de ces États membres, dans lequel se trouvent les biens composant sa succession, tandis que ses successibles ont leur résidence dans ces deux États membres. La dernière résidence habituelle du défunt, au sens de ce règlement, doit être fixée par l’autorité saisie de la succession dans un seul desdits États membres.

2) L’article 3, paragraphe 2, du règlement no 650/2012 doit être interprété en ce sens que, sous réserve d’une vérification par la juridiction de renvoi, les notaires lituaniens n’exercent pas des fonctions juridictionnelles lors de la délivrance d’un certificat national d’hérédité. Toutefois, il appartient à la juridiction de renvoi de déterminer si ces notaires agissent par délégation ou sous le contrôle d’une autorité judiciaire et, en conséquence, peuvent être qualifiés de « juridictions », au sens de cette disposition.

3) L’article 3, paragraphe 1, sous g) du règlement no 650/2012 doit être interprété en ce sens que, dans le cas où la juridiction de renvoi considérerait que les notaires lituaniens peuvent être qualifiés de « juridictions », au sens de ce règlement, le certificat d’hérédité qu’ils délivrent, peut être considéré comme étant une « décision », au sens de cette disposition, de telle sorte que, aux fins de le délivrer, ces notaires peuvent appliquer les règles de compétence prévues au chapitre II dudit règlement.

4) Les articles 4 et 59 du règlement no 650/2012 doivent être interprétés en ce sens qu’un notaire d’un État membre, qui n’est pas qualifié de « juridiction », au sens de ce règlement, peut, sans appliquer les règles générales de compétence prévues par ledit règlement, délivrer les certificats nationaux d’hérédité. Si la juridiction de renvoi considère que ces certificats remplissent les conditions prévues à l’article 3, paragraphe 1, sous i), du même règlement, et peuvent, dès lors, être considérés comme étant des « actes authentiques », au sens de cette disposition, ceux-ci produisent, dans les autres États membres, les effets que l’article 59, paragraphe 1, et l’article 60, paragraphe 1, du règlement no 650/2012 attribuent aux actes authentiques.

5) Les articles 4, 5, 7 et 22 ainsi que l’article 83, paragraphes 2 et 4, du règlement no 650/2012 doivent être interprétés en ce sens que la volonté du de cujus ainsi que l’accord entre ses successibles peuvent conduire à la détermination d’une juridiction compétente en matière de successions et à l’application d’une loi successorale d’un État membre autre que celles qui résulteraient de l’application des critères dégagés par ce règlement ».

Source : here

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case C‑73/19 (Belgium v Movic BV, Events Belgium BV, Leisure Tickets & Activities International BV), which is about Brussels I bis. The judgment 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):

Context : « Le 2 décembre 2016, les autorités belges ont assigné en justice devant le président du rechtbank van koophandel Antwerpen-afdeling Antwerpen (tribunal de commerce, division d’Anvers, Anvers, Belgique), en formation de référé, Movic, Events Belgium et Leisure Tickets & Activities International, en demandant à titre principal, d’une part, de faire constater que ces sociétés pratiquaient la revente, en Belgique, au moyen de sites Internet gérés par elles, des titres d’accès à des événements pour un prix supérieur à celui initial, activité constitutive des infractions aux dispositions de la loi du 30 juillet 2013 et du CDE, et, d’autre part, d’ordonner la cessation de ces pratiques commerciales.

18 À titre accessoire, les autorités belges ont demandé d’ordonner des mesures de publicité de la décision prononcée aux frais desdites sociétés, d’imposer une astreinte de 10 000 euros par infraction constatée à partir de la signification de cette décision et de dire pour droit que les infractions futures pourront être constatées par simple procès–verbal dressé par un fonctionnaire assermenté de la direction générale de l’inspection économique, conformément au CDE.

19 Les trois sociétés en cause ont soulevé une exception d’incompétence internationale des juridictions belges, en soutenant que les autorités belges avaient agi dans l’exercice de la puissance publique, de sorte que leurs actions ne relevaient pas du champ d’application du règlement no 1215/2012 »

Decision : “L’article 1er, paragraphe 1, du règlement (UE) no 1215/2012 […] doit être interprété en ce sens que relève de la notion de « matière civile et commerciale », figurant à cette disposition, une action opposant les autorités d’un État membre à des professionnels établis dans un autre État membre dans le cadre de laquelle ces autorités demandent, à titre principal, à ce que soit constatée l’existence d’infractions constituant des pratiques commerciales déloyales prétendument illégales et ordonnée la cessation de celles-ci, ainsi que, à titre accessoire, à ce que soient ordonnées des mesures de publicité et à ce que soit imposée une astreinte ».

Source : here

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case  C‑658/18 (UX v Governo della Repubblica italiana), which is about the status of Judges of the Peace and a judicial victory for the latter with rather wide financial consequences for Italy and beyond. The judgment 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):

“1) L’article 267 TFUE doit être interprété en ce sens que le Giudice di pace (juge de paix, Italie) relève de la notion de « juridiction d’un des États membres », au sens de cet article.

2) L’article 7, paragraphe 1, de la directive 2003/88/CE […] concernant certains aspects de l’aménagement du temps de travail, et l’article 31, paragraphe 2, de la charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne doivent être interprétés en ce sens qu’un juge de paix qui, dans le cadre de ses fonctions, effectue des prestations réelles et effectives, qui ne sont ni purement marginales ni accessoires, et pour lesquelles il perçoit des indemnités présentant un caractère rémunératoire, peut relever de la notion de « travailleur », au sens de ces dispositions, ce qu’il appartient à la juridiction de renvoi de vérifier.

La clause 2, point 1, de l’accord-cadre sur le travail à durée déterminée conclu le 18 mars 1999, qui figure à l’annexe de la directive 1999/70/CE du Conseil, du 28 juin 1999, concernant l’accord-cadre CES, UNICE et CEEP sur le travail à durée déterminée, doit être interprétée en ce sens que la notion de « travailleur à durée déterminée », figurant à cette disposition, peut englober un juge de paix, nommé pour une période limitée, qui, dans le cadre de ses fonctions, effectue des prestations réelles et effectives, qui ne sont ni purement marginales ni accessoires, et pour lesquelles il perçoit des indemnités présentant un caractère rémunératoire, ce qu’il appartient au juge de renvoi de vérifier.

La clause 4, point 1, de l’accord-cadre sur le travail à durée déterminée conclu le 18 mars 1999, qui figure à l’annexe de la directive 1999/70, doit être interprétée en ce sens qu’elle s’oppose à une réglementation nationale qui ne prévoit pas le droit pour un juge de paix à bénéficier d’un congé annuel payé de 30 jours, tel que celui prévu pour les magistrats ordinaires, dans l’hypothèse où ce juge de paix relèverait de la notion de « travailleur à durée déterminée », au sens de la clause 2, point 1, de cet accord-cadre, et où il se trouverait dans une situation comparable à celle d’un magistrat ordinaire, à moins qu’une telle différence de traitement ne soit justifiée par les différences de qualifications requises et la nature des tâches dont lesdits magistrats doivent assumer la responsabilité, ce qu’il incombe à la juridiction de renvoi de vérifier »

Source : here

I reviewed Szpunar AG’s Opinion in C-73/19 Belgische Staat v Movic BV et al here. The CJEU held this morning. At the time of posting an English version of the judgment was not yet available. The case at issue concerns enforcement of Belgium’s unfair trading act by the public authorities of the Member State. Movic BV of The Netherlands and the others defendants practices ticket touting: resale of tickets for leisure events.

The court is more succinct than the AG in its analysis yet refers repeatedly to points made by Szpunar AG without itself therefore having to refer to so extensive an analysis.

The fact that a power was introduced by a law is not, in itself, decisive in order to conclude that the State acted in the exercise of State authority (at 52). Neither does the pursuit of the general interest automatically involve the exercise of public powers (at 53). With respect to the authorities’ powers of investigation, it would seem that the Court like the AG reads (at 57) C‑49/12 Sunico as meaning that to exclude proceedings from the scope of ‘civil and commercial matters’, it must be determined, in concreto, whether the public authority uses evidence which it has in its possession as a result of its public powers of investigation, hence putting it in a different position as a person governed by private law in analogous proceedings. Collecting evidence in the same way as a private person or a consumer association could, does not fall within that category (at 58).

Neither the request for penalty payments nor an application for an injunction makes the proceedings drop out off Brussels Ia: both instruments are available to private parties, too. That is not however the case for the observation of continued infringement by mere civil servant oath as opposed to bailiff certification. This, the Court holds like the AG, does amount to exercise of public authority (at 62) however (at 63) that element alone escapes BIA, it does not so taint the other part of the proceedings.

As I noted in my review of first Advocate General Szpunar’s Opinion, the need for highly factual considerations sits uneasily with the Regulation’s expressed DNA of predictability. However this squares with the CJEU case-law on ‘civil and commercial’. 

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Heading 2, Heading 2.2.

Région de Bruxelles-Capitale / Commission
Agriculture
L’avocat général Bobek préconise une interprétation plus ouverte des critères de l’affectation directe

YouTube
Liberté d'établissement
Selon l’avocat général Saugmandsgaard Øe, en l’état actuel du droit de l’Union, les exploitants de plateformes en ligne, telles que YouTube et Uploaded, ne sont pas directement responsables de la mise en ligne illégale d’œuvres protégées effectuée par les utilisateurs de ces plateformes

État belge (Regroupement familial - Enfant mineur)
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
La date à prendre en compte, pour déterminer si un membre de la famille d’un regroupant familial est un « enfant mineur », est la date de présentation de la demande d’entrée et de séjour

Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
Les États membres doivent accorder une indemnisation à toute victime d’une infraction intentionnelle violente, y compris à celles résidant sur leur propre territoire

AFMB e.a.
Sécurité sociale des travailleurs migrants
L’employeur de chauffeurs de poids lourds salariés dans le transport international routier est l’entreprise de transport qui exerce l’autorité effective sur ces chauffeurs, supporte leur charge salariale et dispose du pouvoir effectif de les licencier

Commission / Roumanie (Lutte contre le blanchiment de capitaux)
Ressources propres des Communautés
La Roumanie et l’Irlande sont condamnées à payer à la Commission, respectivement, une somme forfaitaire d’un montant de 3 000 000 euros et de 2 000 000 euros

Facebook Ireland et Schrems
Rapprochement des législations
La Cour invalide la décision 2016/1250 relative à l'adéquation de la protection assurée par le bouclier de protection des données UE-États-Unis

Bundeszentralamt Fur Steuern (Being the Federal Central Tax Office of the Federal Republic of Germany) & Ors v Heis & Ors [2019] EWHC 705 (Ch) was held in March 2019 bit only came unto BAILII recently and had not caught my attention before.

The primary question raised is whether appeals by the applicants, the German Federal Tax Office (“the GTA”) and by Deutsche Bank AG (“DB”) against the rejection by the Joint Special Administrators (“the Administrators”) of MF Global UK Limited (“MFGUK”) of their respective proofs of debt, to allow the underlying claim which forms the subject of the proof to be resolved by the specialist German tax or fiscal courts, which both the applicants (for different reasons) contend are the natural forum for the determination of the claims and the forum in which they can be resolved most efficiently.

The underlying issue concerns German withholding tax.

The GTA has at all times maintained that its claim should be determined in Germany by the German tax courts, per the UK-Germany double taxation Treaty, based on the OECD model convention (for those in the know: it is Article 28(6) which the GTA has suggested exclusively reserves its GTA Claim to the German Courts). However it felt compelled to submit a proof in MFGUK’s UK administration proceedings in order to preserve its rights.

Under German law, it is within the GTA’s power to give a decision on MFGUK’s objection to relvant Amended Tax Assessment Notices. If and when it did so, it would then be for MFGUK, if it wished to pursue the matter further, to file an appeal against that decision by the GTA with the Fiscal Court of Cologne. The Fiscal Court of Cologne is one of the 18 fiscal courts in Germany which are the courts of first instance for tax matters. That seems a natural course to take however here the GTA is caught in a conundrum: at 18: the GTA has not yet formally rejected MFGUK’s objection. This is because such objection would establish proceedings in Germany, and there is a procedural rule of German law that, in order to prevent parallel proceedings, a German court will automatically defer to the court first seized of a matter. Accordingly, it seems likely that if the GTA were to reject MFGUK’s objection before the Stay Application has been decided by the UK Court, on any appeal by MFGUK, the Fiscal Court of Cologne might as a matter of comity defer to this Court in order to avoid parallel proceedings.

At 57: Brussels Ia is not engaged for the case concerns both the insolvency and the tax exclusion of Articles 1.1 and 1.2.b. At 56 Hildyard J considers the issues under English rules on the power to stay, with a focus on the risk of irreconcilable judgments.

At 84 Hildyard J holds that the GTA read too much into A28(6) and that there is no exclusive jurisdiction, leaving the consideration of whether a stay might be attractive nevertheless (at 89 ff the issue is discussed whether German courts could at all entertain the claim). This leads to an assessment pretty much like a stay under Brussels Ia as ‘related’ (rather than: the same, to which lis alibi pendens applies) cases. Note at 87(6) the emphasis which the GTA places on the actual possibility of consolidating the cases – similar to the arguments used in BIa A33-34 cases such as Privatbank and later cases).

At 115 the impact of this case having public law impacts becomes clear: ‘It seems to me that, despite my hunch that there will also be considerable factual enquiry, and a factual determination of the particular circumstances may determine the result …, the legal issues at stake are not only plainly matters of German law, but controversial and complex issues of statutory construction of systemic importance and substantial public interest in terms of the legitimate interests of the public in the protection of its taxation system from what are alleged to be colourable schemes.’

And at 116, referring ia to VTB Capital v Nutritek, ‘the risk of inconsistent decisions in concurrent proceedings in different jurisdictions, is the more acute when in one of the jurisdictions the issue is a systemic one, or may be decided in a manner which has systemic consequences. Especially in such a context, there is a preference for a case to be heard by the courts of the country whose law applies.’ Reference to VTB is made in particular with resepect to the point that Gleichlauf (the application by a court of its own laws) is to be promoted in particular (at [46] in VTB per Lord Mance: “it is generally preferable, other things being equal, that a case should be tried in a country whose law applies. However, this factor is of particular force if issues of law are likely to be important and if there is evidence of relevant differences in the legal principles or rules applicable to such issues in the two countries in contention as the appropriate forum.’

At 117: ‘even if the factual centre of gravity may be London, the jurisdiction likely to be most affected by the result is Germany: and even if the US approach of ‘interest analysis’ is not determinative in this jurisdiction it does not seem to me to be an impermissible consideration.’

Held, at 121, there is here ‘a sufficiently “rare and compelling” reason for granting the stay sought by the GTA, provided that the German Fiscal Court are an available forum in which to determine the substance of the disputes.’ At 122 Hildyard J seeks assurances ‘insofar as the parties’ best endeavours can secure it, resolution of both the GTA Claim and the Later MFGUK Refund Claim as expeditiously as possible. That seems to me necessary in order to safeguard this jurisdictions’ insolvency processes and for the protection of the interests of the body of creditors as a whole.’

Then follows at 131 ff extensive analysis of the impact of this stay decision on the related case of Deutsche Bank, with at 190 a summary of the issues to be decided. Held at 218: ‘By careful selection of potentially dispositive issues, I consider that there is some prospect of that process enabling a determination without recourse to the intricacies of German tax law which are to be decided in the context of the GTA Claim; whereas an immediate stay guarantees a long delay before this court can determine the matter, based on presently hypothetical claims, after a long wait for non-binding guidance from the German court which may result from other cases to which DB is not a party.’ However at 219 the prospect of a stay after all is held out, should a quick resolution of those issues not be possible.

Most interesting.

Geert.

 

A fine example of the public /private divide, and forum conveniens in international litigation.
Application for a stay to allow underlying claim to be resolved by DE fiscal courts.
BIa not engaged: tax and insolvency exemption.
Engages OECD rules and double taxation treaty. https://t.co/Z4WA1h4Dtq

— Geert Van Calster (@GAVClaw) June 15, 2020

Irlande / Commission
Aide d'État
Le Tribunal de l’Union européenne annule la décision de la Commission sur des rulings fiscaux irlandais en faveur d’Apple