Agrégateur de flux

La France a présidé le Conseil de l’Union européenne ces six derniers mois. À cette occasion, la Délégation des barreaux de France et Lefebvre Dalloz s’associent pour vous proposer ce podcast dont la vocation est de sensibiliser sur les travaux et les actions conduites dans le domaine de la justice au plan européen.

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Après avoir commencé à encaisser les contrecoups de la crise sanitaire et du déclenchement de la guerre d’Ukraine, la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme, en mai et juin 2022, a semblé retenir son souffle. Avant de se pencher sans doute sur la question cruciale du réchauffement climatique qui sera bientôt exclusivement abordée en Grande chambre puisque la déjà célèbre affaire Duarte Agostinho c/ Portugal et 32 autres États membres du Conseil de l’Europe (n° 39371/20) a donné lieu à son tour à un dessaisissement le 28 juin, elle n’a rien décidé de particulièrement spectaculaire. Le seul arrêt de grande chambre de la période, Savickis et autres c/ Lettonie du 9 juin (n° 49270/11), n’a lui-même qu’un intérêt très contextualisé puisqu’il affirme, pour l’essentiel, que, au regard de l’article 1er du Protocole n° 1 protecteur du droit au respect des biens, le pays balte défendeur n’était pas tenu d’assumer les droits à la retraite accumulés pendant la période soviétique. On peut néanmoins souligner l’existence d’intéressants arrêts et décisions dans des domaines aussi variés que : le formalisme numérique, les droits religieux des personnes détenues ou appartenant à des minorités, la liberté syndicale, la liberté d’expression, la protection de l’environnement, l’accès des personnes handicapées aux bâtiments culturels municipaux, la lutte contre les violences de tous ordres…. Il ne faut pas oublier l’actualité des mesures provisoires.

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The University of Antwerp has a vacancy for a PhD researcher in EU private international law, with a particular emphasis on Union citizenship and its interaction with conflict of laws. The university offers a doctoral scholarship for a period of two years. Following a positive evaluation, the scholarship can be renewed once for another two-year period. Interested persons can apply up until 8 August 2022, and the successful candidate will start on 1 October 2022.

 

The Court of Justice delivered yesterday (7 July 2022) its judgment in case C‑7/21 (LKW WALTER Internationale Transportorganisation AG), which is about the rights of the defence in the Service bis Regulation:

« Article 8(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007 […], read in conjunction with Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as precluding legislation of the Member State of the authority which issued a document to be served, pursuant to which the starting point of the one-week period referred to in Article 8(1) of that regulation, within which the addressee of such a document may refuse to accept it on one of the grounds set out in that provision, is the same as the starting point for the period within which a remedy is to be sought against that document in that Member State”.

Source : https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=262423&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=252837

LKW WALTER
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
Le droit de l’Union s’oppose à une réglementation en vertu de laquelle le point de départ du délai d’une semaine pendant lequel le destinataire peut refuser de recevoir un acte à signifier ou à notifier coïncide avec le délai pour exercer un recours contre ledit acte dans cet État membre

As announced in this blog, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan plans to invite young scholars to present the outcome of their doctoral research on any topic within the field of private international law, transnational law or the law of international arbitration, at a dedicated seminar that will be held annually in Milan (the MECSI Seminar). Each MECSI Seminar will revolve around one scholar.

Those interested in presenting their doctoral research at the second MECSI Seminar of 2022, scheduled to take place in November 2022, are encouraged to send an e-mail to Pietro Franzina (pietro.franzina@unicatt.it) by 15 July 2022.

Applicants must be aged less than 35 and may come from any country. They must have already discussed their PhD dissertation at the time when the application is submitted (however, no more than two years must have passed since the dissertation was discussed). Applications must include a copy of the dissertation, an abstract of the dissertation in English and a CV of the author in English.

Applications must also include a proposal for the seminar presentation consisting of a title followed by abstract of about 1.500 words. The subject matter of the presentation must relate to, but should not necessarily coincide with, the topic of the thesis: the applicant may choose, for instance, to concentrate on one aspect of his or her research, or discuss developments occurred after the dissertation was discussed.

All documents accompanying the application must be in pdf format. The selection process involves, for those shortlisted, a Zoom interview.

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart will cover the travel expenses of the selected scholar up to 600 Euros, and will take care of his or her accommodation at one of the guest houses of the University for up to two nights. During their stay in Milan, the selected scholar will also be invited to give a 45 minute lecture in English to the students attending the course of Private International Law on a topic unrelated to their PhD research.

The first view of two recent private international law articles have recently appeared in International and Comparative Law Quarterly.

Ardavan Arzandeh, “Brownlie II and The Service-Out Jurisdiction under English Law”

FS Cairo (Nile Plaza) LLC v Brownlie (Brownlie II) is arguably the United Kingdom’s highest appellate court’s most significant decision this century on a private international law question. The judgment has ended nearly two decades of debate about the meaning of ‘damage’ sustained in England for the purpose of paragraph 3.1(9)(a) of Practice Direction 6B of the Civil Procedure Rules. In a four-to-one majority ruling, the Supreme Court decided that the provision was to be interpreted widely, such that, in a personal injury claim, any significant harm of any kind suffered by a claimant in England could provide a basis for the service of proceedings on a foreign-based defendant. The article is critical of the majority’s decision, as it is liable to create both immediate and long-term problems in the context of the service-out jurisdiction in England. It also examines the court’s pronouncements on the other question before it concerning proof of foreign law.

 

Richard Garnett, “Determining the Appropriate Forum by the Applicable Law”

The concepts of jurisdiction and applicable law have been traditionally regarded as separate inquiries in private international law: a court only considers the applicable law once it has decided to adjudicate a matter. While such an approach still generally applies in civil law jurisdictions, in common law countries the concepts are increasingly intertwined. This article examines the relationship between jurisdiction and applicable law in two key areas: applications to stay proceedings on the ground of forum non conveniens and to enforce foreign exclusive jurisdiction agreements. While courts generally apply the principle that jurisdiction and applicable law should coincide where possible, there are circumstances where a court may retain jurisdiction despite a foreign governing law or may ‘trust’ a foreign tribunal to apply the law of the forum. This article seeks to establish a framework by which courts may assess the role of the applicable law in forum determinations.

 

Djakhongir Saidov, “An International Convention on Expert Determination and Dispute Boards?”

This article makes a case for an international convention on expert determination (ED) and Dispute Boards (DBs) that would require its Contracting States to recognise agreements on ED/DBs and enforce ED/DB decisions. Whilst strong, the case for the convention may not be compelling as there are arguments against it. But at least the time has come for the international legal community to start thinking about and debating the need for such an international regime. This article takes the first step towards imagining this international regime by evaluating a number of key issues relating to its scope of application.

The Swedish Labour Court held on 1 June 2022 (interim decision AD 2022 No. 33)  that an industrial action taken in Sweden in sympathy with Ukraine was not lawful as it was not proven that a lawful primary action had taken place in Ukraine according to Ukrainian law on international sympathy actions.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, the Swedish Dockworkers Union has taken industrial action to support Ukraine by refusing to load and unload Russian ships. As the trade union had given notice on a renewed industrial action to support Ukraine in May, the trade union pleaded to the Swedish Labour court that it should declare the industrial action lawful in an interim decision. As there is a collective agreement between the employer and the Swedish Dockworkers Union and consequently a strong mutual peace obligation, industrial actions may only be taken in extraordinary situations. One such extraordinary situation is a sympathy action.

Sympathy actions are lawful even though the collective agreement parties are bound by a collective agreement if the primary action is lawful, and the sympathy action is limited in time. This applies also when the sympathy action is taken in solidarity with someone in another country. In such a situation, the Swedish substantive law assessment is dependent on the content of foreign law even if both parties are Swedish. Another exception are political strikes that trade unions may take to demonstrate a political opinion if it is limited to a short period of time.

In the case, the trade union argued that the planned industrial action was a sympathy action to support Ukrainian and Belarusian trade unions in their industrial actions. According to Swedish labour law, the exception for sympathy actions is applicable also in international situations. The employer objected and stated that there were no lawful primary industrial actions in Ukraine or Belarus. As the Swedish substantive law assessment in this regard is dependent on the content of foreign law, the Labour Court pointed out that the parties had not presented proof of the content of foreign law.

Pursuant to the Swedish procedural code, foreign law is both a matter of fact and a matter of law. It is not subject to the principle of iura novit curia, but the court may use the knowledge it has or research the content of foreign law on its own motion. In the decision, the court seems not to have made any effort to research the content. If it would, it is not self-evident how to assess foreign law or even what law that shall be applied as some of the alleged primary industrial actions were taken in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia.

After having declared that it was not a sympathy action, the Labour Court held that the planned industrial action was not either a lawful political industrial action as the intended time period of three weeks was too long. Hence, it would have been a disproportionate limitation of the employer’s right to conduct a business.

This Thursday, the Court of Justice handed down its judgment in the case LKW Walter, C-7/21. In this case, the request for a preliminary ruling originates in the proceedings on a litigation malpractice action, between a company established under Austrian law and the lawyers established in that Member State, who represented the said company in the proceedings before Slovenian courts, in which it acted as a defendant.

In essence, the Austrian lawyers who in the context of the proceedings before Slovenian courts failed to timely lodge the reasoned objection against a decision on enforcement on the behalf of their client, now the defendant lawyers within the proceedings initiated by the said client against them, argue that the time limit set by the Slovenian legislator is not compatible with EU law.

By its request, the referring court seeks the interpretation of the Brussels I bis Regulation, of the Regulation No 1393/2007 (‘Service Regulation’) and of the Article 18(1) TFUE (interdiction of discrimination on the grounds of nationality).

Back in March, we reported on the Opinion presented in this case by AG Pikamäe. To avoid unnecessary repetitions, I allow myself to refer our readers to the previous post were more details about the factual background of the case can be found. As the English version of the Opinion is not yet available, I can also refer the readers to the post on EAPIL blog by Marta Requejo Isidro who provided a translation of the proposed answer.

 

Preliminary question(s)

The referring court asked three questions, with only one of them (second question) being addressed by the Court in its judgment. The answer to the two other questions was considered unnecessary, in the light of the answer to the second question (paragraph 50).

The second preliminary question reads as follows:

“Is Article 8 of [the Service Regulation], read in conjunction with the principles of effectiveness and equivalence, to be interpreted as precluding a national measure which provides that, upon service of the standard form set out in Annex II informing the addressee of his or her right to refuse to accept the document within a period of one week, the period also begins to run in respect of bringing the appeal provided for against the decision on enforcement served at the same time, for which a period of eight days is laid down?”

 

Court’s answer and its reasoning

To put into context the findings of the Court:

On the one hand, Article 8(1) of the Service Regulation provides that it is possible to refuse to accept the document to be served at the time of service or by returning the document to the receiving agency within one week if it is not written in, or accompanied by a translation into, a language which the addressee understands or the official language of the Member State addressed.

The decision on enforcement, drafted in Slovenian, has been served to the Austrian company. The company did not, however, refuse to accept this decision on the basis of Article 8(1) of the Regulation.

On the other hand, the Slovenian provision contested by the defending lawyers establishes a time limit of eight days within which an objection has to be introduced against a decision on enforcement. According to the interpretation of this provision that the Court relied on (point 42 paragraph of the judgment), this time limit starts to run when the decision on enforcement is served to the defending party.

Thus, the time limit for refusal, provided for in Article 8(1) of the Service Regulation, and the time limit to lodge an opposition against a decision on enforcement, provided for in Slovenian law, start to run the same day and virtually coincide.

 

As a reminder, in his Opinion, AG Pikamäe took the view that the Service Regulation, read in conjunction with Article 47 of the Charter, does not preclude a provision of a Member State under which the time limit for lodging an objection against a decision embodied in a judicial document served in accordance with Service Regulation begins to run from the time of service of the document in question, and not only after the expiry of the one-week time limit provided for in Article 8(1) for refusing to accept the document (point 56 of the Opinion).

AG Pikamäe argued in his Opinion, in particular, that the Austrian company ‘deliberately waived its crucial right’, conferred on that party by Article 8(1) of the Service Regulation, to refuse the acceptance of document not translated into the language this party understands/the language of the Member State addressed. Thus, in line with the principle of estoppel, that party could not claim that its right of defence has been violated by the sole fact that the time limit to lodge an objection against the decision on enforcement started to run when this decision has been notified to that party (point 55 of the Opinion).

 

By contrast, the Court came to a different conclusion. It ruled that Article 8(1) of the Service Regulation, read in conjunction with Article 47 of the Charter, has to be interpreted to the effect that it precludes a legislation of a Member State according to which the time limit to refuse the acceptance of an act provided for in Article 8(1) of the Regulation starts to run concurrently to a time limit to lodge an objection against that act, provided for in the said legislation (paragraph 49).

The reasoning of the Court relies mainly on the following arguments.

First, a party served with a document drafted in a language it does not understand/language other than the one of the Member State addressed enjoys the right to make a decision as to whether it refuses to accept that document, within one-week time limit provided for in Article 8(1) of the Service Regulation. If a time limit to contest the decision embodied in this document starts to run simultaneously with the one-week time limit to refuse the acceptance of the document, the party cannot enjoy the full one-week time limit to evaluate whether it desires to accept the document or not (paragraph 42).

Next, and maybe even more interestingly, the Court indicates that, in such situation, the defending party cannot fully enjoy the eight-day time limit provided for under Slovenian law and seems to hint that this outcome is incompatible with Article 47 of the Charter. The Court seems to reason in the following manner : an ‘act’ served to the defendant falls within the scope of application of the Service Regulation [probably due to the fact that it constitutes a ‘document […] transmitted from one Member State to another for service there’ within the meaning of Article 1(1) of the Regulation and/or due to the fact the the ‘document’ is not drafted in the language that the addressee understands/not in the language of the Member State addressed]. The ‘situation’ falls within the ambit of the right to effective judicial protection, enshrined in Article 47 of the Charter, and, in such situations, the Charter requires that the party served with this ‘act’ can use the time limit provided for under national law to its full extent (paragraph 43). [On a side note: it can be a question of debate whether those findings hint that, in similar configurations, it is possible to benchmark national time limits against the requirements stemming from the Charter (implying that such time limits fall within its scope of application, provided that they are applicable to an ‘act’ falling within the scope of application of the Regulation) or those findings just set the ground for the argument presented below.]

Finally, such a scenario, in which two time limits run concurrently, leads to discriminatory treatment of the party served with the document drafted in the language it does not understand, as it cannot enjoy the full time limit set to contest the decision issued against the said party, irrespective of the length of that time limit (‘indépendamment de la durée du délai pour exercer un recours contre cet acte’, paragraph 44; I digress again: it may be a hint that, for the Court, the argument remains valid also where the time limit provided for in national law would be shorter than one-week period provided for in Article 8 of the Service Regulation).

Against this background, the Regulation aims to eliminate such difference in treatment, to the detriment of the party that does not understand the language of the document (paragraph 45). Therefore, the time limit to contest the decision should, in principle, run after the time limit from Article 8(1) of the Service Regulation (paragraph 46).

If not, in practical terms, the concurrence of time limits can potentially incite the party to refuse, by default, the acceptance of the document, without properly considering whether to do so or not; thus, such solution contradicts the objectives of the Regulation (paragraph 47).

The judgment can be consulted here.

I discuss the background to Barings (UK) Ltd & Ors v Galapagos SA [2022] EWHC 1633 (Ch) here. At the end of August 2019 an opening of insolvency proceedings was requested by various Barings companies and Goldman Sachs, in respect of the Respondent, Galapagos S.A. – GSA.

While this request was pending before the English courts, a group of high yield noteholders (including Signal, the main opponent in the English proceedings) procured the replacement of GSA’s English directors with a German director, and the new German director and two creditors brought separate ex parte applications before the Düsseldorf Amtsgericht (District Court) for the opening of insolvency proceedings there. Following the opening of insolvency proceedings by the Düsseldorf court, the English proceedings were stayed. The German proceedings then led to a preliminary reference to the CJEU which resulted in a judgment on 24 March 2022, the judgment I discuss in my previous post.

[12] ff Bacon J summarises the procedural tussle (including the, I believe unreported August 2019 Norris J stay: [2019] EWHC 2355 (Ch)). Justice Norris had stayed the English proceedings believing inter alia that the German courts might dismiss the German proceedings once they had been properly told of the English action.

The dictum in C-723/20 was

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 court of a Member State with which a request to open main insolvency proceedings has been lodged retains exclusive jurisdiction to open such proceedings where the centre of the debtor’s main interests is moved to another Member State after that request has been lodged, but before that court has delivered a decision on it. Consequently, in so far as that regulation is still applicable to that request, the court of another Member State with which another request is lodged subsequently for the same purpose cannot, in principle, declare that it has jurisdiction to open main insolvency proceedings until the first court has delivered its decision and declined jurisdiction.

 

The reference to ‘in so far as that regulation is still applicable’ refers to the Brexit element to the case which surprisingly perhaps was not included in the dictum: COMI presumptions ordinarily serve to protect the first court seized’ privilege to find, or reject, COMI in its jurisdiction however that privilege no longer applies vis-a-vis UK courts post Brexit.

As I note in my earlier review, the CJEU wrongly decided not to answer the German court’s question

Is Article 3(1) of [Regulation 2015/848] to be interpreted as meaning that:

(a)      the courts of the Member State within the territory of which the centre of the debtor’s main interests is situated at the time when the debtor lodges the request to have insolvency proceedings opened retain international jurisdiction to open those proceedings if the debtor moves the centre of its main interests to the territory of another Member State after lodging the request but before the decision opening insolvency proceedings is delivered, and

(b)      such continuing international jurisdiction of the courts of one Member State excludes the jurisdiction of the courts of another Member State in respect of further requests to have the main insolvency proceedings opened received by a court of that other Member State after the debtor has moved its centre of main interests to that other Member State?’

Neither, possibly because the question was not so asked by the referring court, does it entertain the issue of ‘permanency’ required to move COMI to another state (see my previous post for detail).

Applicants in the current case and Bidco say that the effect of the GalapagosCJEU judgment is that GSA’s winding up can and should now proceed in E&W. Signal, however, contends that the English insolvency proceedings should remain stayed or should be dismissed.

Of relevance in that assessment is Article 67(3) (c) withdrawal agreement, which reads

In the United Kingdom, as well as in the Member States in situations involving the United Kingdom, the following provisions shall apply as follows:…

Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council shall apply to insolvency proceedings, and actions referred to in Article 6(1) of that Regulation, provided that the main proceedings were opened before the end of the transition period;

The question in my view is not ‘are the German insolvency proceedings to be regarded as the “main proceedings” within the meaning of Article 3 of the Recast EIR?’ which is the course which the judge seems to follow. Rather, whether either the German or the English insolvency proceedings were to be regarded as main proceedings.

In either case, in my view, main proceedings have been opened and the EU EIR continues to apply as acquired EU law.

[21] Signal’s position is that unless and until the German courts have given effect to CJEU Galapagos by setting aside or otherwise the Düsseldorf insolvency proceedings, the German insolvency proceedings remain the “main proceedings” for the purposes of the Recast EIR. Accordingly, under A67(3) WA the Recast EIR remains applicable and the German proceedings have to be recognised by the English court, precluding the making of a winding up order. If that is wrong, and the Recast EIR does not apply, Signal argue that GSA’s COMI is not in England, such that the UK IR (the retained Insolvency Regulation) does not apply, leaving s. 221 of the relevant UK law as the only jurisdictional basis for a winding up order. In addition, whether under the UK IR or s. 221, Signal contends that the circumstances are such that the court should not exercise its discretion to make the order.

The rather important questions are therefore summarised by Bacon J [23] as

i) The first issue is whether the Recast EIR remains applicable to these proceedings, as Signal contends. That in turn depends on whether the German proceedings are to be characterised as “main proceedings” for the purposes of Article 67(3)(c) of the Withdrawal Agreement. – as I note above, that issue is wrongly formulated.

ii) If the German proceedings are not “main proceedings”, such that the Recast EIR no longer governs the question of jurisdiction of the UK courts in the present case, the next question is whether there is jurisdiction to make a winding up order under the UK IR on the basis that GSA’s COMI is in England. – again see my own caveat above.

iii) The final issue is whether the court should exercise its discretion to make a winding up order under either the UK IR if that is applicable, or alternatively under s. 221 of the Insolvency Act 1986.

[48] the judge has the interim conclusion that up to and until 31 December 2020, the combined effect of the pending application before the High Court and the Recast EIR was to prohibit the German courts from declaring jurisdiction to open main insolvency proceedings. After that date, however, they could quite validly do so, if GSA’s COMI was by then situated in German territory.

I am not convinced that a mere request for opening of proceedings equates opening of these proceedings, and I am not convinced that the fall-back finding of COMI in England [83] ff, applying the Swissport ([2020] EWHC 3556 (Ch), unreported) summary of criteria, is solid: it is exactly on this point that the CJEU’s silence on the issue of ‘permanency’ is frustrating.

The judge concludes that a winding up order in respect of GSA be made however I think her analysis is incorrect and I assume permission to appeal must have been sought.

Geert.

English court concludes, not uncontroversially, that it has jurisdiction to wind-up following unclear CJEU Galapagos, discussed here https://t.co/uCmHjGT0tb

Barings (UK) Ltd & Ors v Galapagos SA [2022] EWHC 1633 (Ch)https://t.co/DMIbLfgxMH

— Geert Van Calster (@GAVClaw) June 30, 2022

Airbnb Ireland et Airbnb Payments UK
SERV
Régime fiscal des locations de courte durée imposant des obligations aux intermédiaires immobiliers : la libre prestation de services ne s’oppose pas à l’obligation de collecte et de communication d’informations ni à celle de retenue d’impôt

Pensionsversicherungsanstalt (Périodes d’éducation d’enfants à l’étranger)
Libre circulation des personnes
Les périodes d’éducation d’enfants accomplies dans d’autres États membres doivent être prises en compte pour le calcul de la pension de vieillesse

The Singapore-based Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI) is organising a second joint webinar with the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) on 27 July.

Titled Cross-border Commercial Dispute Resolution – HCCH 2005 Choice of Court and 2019 Judgments Conventions, the webinar will take place on Wednesday 27 July between 3 to 6pm (Singapore time), and will comprise two sessions to take a holistic look at the Choice of Court and Judgments Conventions. Attendees have the option of attending one or both sessions.

Invited speakers include Sara Chisholm-Batten (Partner, Michelmores LLP), the Honourable Justice David Goddard (Court of Appeal of New Zealand), Justice Anselmo Reyes (International Judge, Singapore International Commercial Court), Nish Shetty (Partner, Clifford Chance LLP) and Dr Ning Zhao (Senior Legal Officer, HCCH).

For more information or to register, see here. Queries about the webinar can be directed to Catherine of ABLI at info@abli.asia.

The region is a hotbed for international commercial litigation, as readers of the blog will know, and the event is very timely.

Geert.

Stefania Bariatti (University of Milan), Ilaria Viarengo (University of Milan) and Francesca C. Villata (University of Milan) edited a book titled EU Cross-Border Succession Law with Edward Elgar Publishing, part of the Elgar European Law and Practice series.

The book provides an overall assessment of EU cross-border succession law. It consists of seven parts dealing with: the scope of application of the EU Succession Regulation; the determination of the applicable law under the EU Succession Regulation; the determination of the jurisdiction under the EU Succession Regulation; the recognition and enforcement of judgments and other instruments under the EU Succession Regulation; the European certificate of succession; cross-border successions and taxation; the impact of the EU Succession Regulation on the national laws on cross-border succession.

Contributors include Stefania Bariatti, Paul Beaumont, Alegría Borrás, Isidoro Calvo Vidal, Zeno Crespi Reghizzi, Stefano Dominelli, Andrew Godfrey, Elise Goossens, Michael Graham, Jayne Holliday, Peter Kindler, Michael Kränzle, Richard Frimston, Luigi Fumagalli, Carlo Alberto Marcoz, Cristina M. Mariottini, Daniele Muritano, Cyril Nourissat, Raul-Angelo Papotti, David Paulus, Giulio Peroni, Francesco Pesce, Lorenzo Prats Albentosa, Ilaria Queirolo, Anna Reis, Gian Paolo Romano, Giulia Vallar, Sonia Velasco, Ilaria Viarengo, Francesca C. Villata.

For further information, see here.

Due to the summer holiday, July 2022 will be a brief month at the Court in terms of delivery of judgments and opinions and the holding of hearings. Nevertheless, until then we are invited to attend, on Thursday 7th, the hearing in C- 639/21 Geos et Geos International Consulting, a case referred by the Cour de cassation (France), with these questions on the Brussels I bis Regulation:

1. Are Article 4(1) and Article 20(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters to be interpreted as meaning that, where it is claimed that a company domiciled in a Member State, and being sued by an employee before the courts of that State, is the joint employer of that employee, who was engaged by another company, that court is not required to assess at the outset whether the employee is jointly employed by those two companies in order to determine whether it has jurisdiction to rule on the claims made against them?
2. Are those articles to be interpreted as meaning that, in such a case, the autonomy of the special rules of jurisdiction over individual contracts of employment does not preclude the application of the general rule that jurisdiction lies with the courts of the Member State in which the defendant is domiciled, set out in Article 4(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012?

The lawsuit at the national level was filed by PB, a former employee of the company Geos International Consulting, established in London, with the conseil de prud’hommes de Montpellier. The core of the matter is the payment of various sums in relation to PB’s dismissal. Alleging a situation of co-employment, PB is seeking to obtain joint and several judgments against the said company and its parent company, Geos, whose head office is located in Puteaux (France). While the conseil de prud’hommes concluded that the French courts had jurisdiction, the Montpellier Court of Appeal arrived at the opposite solution on the basis of Article 21(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012. On appeal, the Court of Cassation is asking about the interpretation of Article 4(1) and Article 20(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012.

The case has been assigned to the 2nd chamber (judges S. Prechal, J. Passer, F. Biltgen, N. Wahl, and L. Arastey Sahún as reporting judge). It will benefit from an opinion by AG N. Emiliou.

On the same day, the decision on C-7/21 LKW WALTER will be handed down. The preliminary reference comes from the Bezirksgericht Bleiburg (Austria). I reported on the questions here, also announcing the opinion by AG P. Pikämae to be published on March 10, 2022.  There is no English translation so far of his proposal to the Court. An interim one could be:

1. Article 8, sections 1 and 3, of Regulation (EC) No. 1393/2007 (…), in relation to article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union European Union, must be interpreted in the sense that it does not oppose a national regulation of the sentencing State according to which the term to file an appeal against a resolution materialized in a judicial document notified or transferred in accordance with Regulation (CE) n º 1393/2007 begins to run from the notification or transfer of the document in question, and not only after the expiration of the period of one week, provided for in section 1 of said article, to refuse to accept said document.
2. Article 45, section 1, letter b), and article 46 of Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012 (…), in relation to article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted in the sense that the recognition and enforcement of a decision that has not been issued in the context of an adversarial procedure must be denied, if the appeal against such decision must be drawn up in a language other than the official language of the Member State in which the defendant resides or, if there are several official languages ​​in that Member State, other than the official language or one of the official languages ​​of the place where he resides, and, according to the law of the Member State in which the decision was issued, the non-extendable period for lodging the appeal is only eight calendar days.
3.  Article 18 TFEU must be interpreted as not applying to a situation in which the addressee of a judicial document has waived his right to refuse to accept service of said document in accordance with Article 8, section 1, of Regulation (EC) No. 1393/2007.

The judgment will be delivered by the 4th chamber (judges C. Lycourgos, S. Rodin, J.C. Bonichot, L.S. Rossi, with O. Spineanu-Matei as reporting judge)

On Thursday 14th, the same chamber, this time with judge Rossi reporting, will deliver the judgment on C-572/21, CC. The request comes from the Högsta domstolen (Sweden). It addresses the interpretation of Articles 8 and 61 of the Brussels II bis Regulation:

Does the court of a Member State retain jurisdiction under Article 8(1) of the Brussels II Regulation if the child concerned by the case changes his or her habitual residence during the proceedings from a Member State to a third country which is a party to the 1996 Hague Convention (see Article 61 of the regulation)?

The dispute on the merits concerns a couple – CC and VO-, and its son M, who was born in 2011. CC has had sole custody of M since his birth. M lived in Sweden until October 2019, when he began to attend a boarding school in Russia. Two months later, VO brought an action against CC claiming that he should be awarded sole custody of M. In the alternative, VO requested that he and CC should have joint custody of M and that their son should be permanently resident with him. CC contested the claims. Principally, she claimed on her own behalf that she should continue to have sole custody of M and, in the alternative, that she and VO should have joint custody of the son. In addition, CC claimed that the tingsrätten (District Court, Sweden) should dismiss VO’s action as inadmissible in so far as it concerned custody and residence. In support of the claim that the action was inadmissible, she argued that M was habitually resident in Russia and that the Swedish courts consequently lacked jurisdiction to rule on questions relating to parental responsibility over M. According to CC, M had acquired habitual residence in Russia in October 2019. She claims that, even if he had not acquired habitual residence then, M had, subsequently acquired habitual residence there. VO contested the claim raised by CC that the action was inadmissible. He argued that M was still habitually resident in Sweden and that, in any event, he was habitually resident in Sweden when the action was brought.

Finally, on the same day the Court will publish AG M. Spuznar’s opinion on C-354/21, Registrų centras, on a request sent by the Lietuvos vyriausiasis administracinis teismas (Lithuania) relating to Regulation 650/2012. The facts of the case are summarized here. The question reads:

Must point (l) of Article 1(2) and Article 69(5) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession be interpreted as not precluding legal rules of the Member State in which the immovable property is situated under which the rights of ownership can be recorded in the Real Property Register on the basis of a European Certificate of Succession only in the case where all of the details necessary for registration are set out in that European Certificate of Succession?

The 5th chamber (judges E. Regan, I. Jarukaitis, D. Gratsias, Z. Csehi, and M. Ilešič reporting) will take care of the interpretation.

On 23 June 2022, the Lisbon Guidelines on Privacy, drawn up by the ILA Committee on the Protection of Privacy in Private International and Procedural Law, were formally endorsed by the International Law Association at the 80th ILA Biennial Conference, hosted in Lisbon (Portugal).

The Committee was established in 2013 further to the proposal of Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. Burkhard Hess (Director at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg) to create a forum on the protection of privacy in the context of private international and procedural law. Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. Burkhard Hess chaired the Committee, and Prof. Dr. Jan von Hein (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) and Dr. Cristina M. Mariottini (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg) were the co-rapporteurs.

In accordance with the mandate conferred by the International Law Association, the Committee – which comprised experts from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America – focussed on the promotion of international co-operation and the contribution to predictability on issues of jurisdiction, applicable law, and circulation of judgments in privacy (including defamation) matters, taking into account, i.a., questions of fundamental rights. In this framework, the Committee expanded its analysis also to the questions arising from the interface of privacy with personal data protection.

The Guidelines are premised on two fundamental principles: notably, (i) foreseeability of jurisdiction, and (ii) parallelism between jurisdiction and applicable law. They are accompanied by a detailed Article-by-Article Commentary, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the Guidelines, complemented by examples, including illustrations taken from copious national, regional and supranational jurisprudence.

Overall, the Committee took note of the fact that, in spite of the differences between legal systems, constitutional values play a major role in the legal treatment of privacy. In particular, substantial layers of public law enter into the equation of private enforcement of privacy. This notion and the limits that stem from the impact that such layers of public law forcibly have on claims must be taken into due consideration with respect to the jurisdiction as well as to the law applicable to these claims and bear a remarkable impact on the subsequent eligibility of privacy judgments for circulation.

Against this background, the Committee proceeded to design a system based, in essence and subject to substantiated exceptions, on the foreseeability of jurisdiction and a principled parallelism between jurisdiction and applicable law. The latter approach has the advantage of saving time and costs, but must be balanced against the danger of forum shopping.  In so far, the approach of the Guidelines (Article 7) distinguishes between jurisdiction based on the defendant’s conduct (Article 3) and jurisdiction localized at the defendant’s habitual residence (Article 4). While a defendant’s conduct that is significant for establishing jurisdiction will usually also indicate a sufficiently close connection for choice-of-law purposes, the general jurisdiction at the defendant’s habitual residence is rather neutral in this regard and thus complemented by a specific conflicts rule. Moreover, a necessary degree of flexibility is introduced by providing for party autonomy (Article 9) and an escape clause (Article 8). In order to take into account that personality rights and privacy protection are rooted in constitutional values, Article 11 contains a provision on public policy and overriding mandatory rules.

The Committee was cognizant that, to date, the recognition and enforcement of a foreign judgment on privacy rights is a matter primarily governed by national law.  In response to this status quo, the Guidelines design a system for the recognition and enforcement of foreign privacy judgments that pursues consistency and continuity (esp. Article 12) with the rules on jurisdiction while also taking into account the characteristic objections to and obstacles that in many instances preclude the circulation of judgments that fall in the scope of the Guidelines (Article 13).

The adoption of the Guidelines marks the completion of the Committee’s mandate.

 

Written by Alyssa S. King and Pamela K. Bookman

International commercial courts—domestic courts, chambers, and divisions dedicated to commercial or international commercial disputes such as the Netherlands Commercial Court and the never-implemented Brussels International Business Court—are the topic of much discussion these days. The NCC is a division of the Dutch courts with Dutch judges. The BIBC proposal, however, envisioned judges who were mostly “part-timers” who may include specialists from outside Belgium. While the BIBC experiment did not pass Parliament, other commercial courts around the world have proliferated, and some hire judges from outside their jurisdictions.

In a new paper forthcoming in the American Journal of International Law, we set out to determine how many members of the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts hire such “traveling judges,” who they are, why they are hired, and why they serve.

Based on new empirical data and interviews with over 25 judges and court personnel, we find that traveling judges are found on commercially focused courts around the world. We identified nine jurisdictions with such courts, in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Kazakhstan, and the Caribbean (the Cayman Islands and the BVI), and The Gambia. These courts are designed to accommodate foreign litigants and transnational litigation—and inevitably, conflicts of laws.

One may assume that these judges largely resemble arbitrators (as was likely intended for the BIBC). But whereas studies  show arbitrators are mostly white, male lawyers from “developed” countries that may be based in the common law or civil law tradition, traveling judges are even more likely to be white and male, vastly more likely to have prior judicial experience and common-law legal training, and are overwhelmingly from the UK and its former dominion colonies. In the subset of commercially focused courts in our study, just over half of the traveling judges were from England and Wales specifically. Nearly two-thirds had at least one law degree from a UK university.

Below is a chart showing the home jurisdiction of the judges in our study.  This includes traveling judges sitting on the BVI commercial division, Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts, Qatar International Court, Cayman Islands Financial Services Division, Singapore International Commercial Court, Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Courts, and Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) Courts as of June 2021.

A look at traveling judges’ backgrounds suggests that traveling judges might be a phenomenon limited to common-law countries, but only half of hiring jurisdictions are in common law states. Almost all hiring jurisdictions, however, are common law jurisdictions. Moreover, almost all are or aspire to be market-dominant small jurisdictions (MDSJ). For example, the DIFC Courts are located in a common law jurisdiction within a non-common-law state that has been identified as a MDSJ.

Traveling judges are a phenomenon rooted not only in the rise of international commercial arbitration, but also in the history of the British colonial judicial service. Today, traveling judges may be said to bring their expertise and knowledge of best practices in international commercial dispute resolution. But traveling judges also offer hiring jurisdictions a method of transplanting well-respected courts, like London’s commercial court, on their shores. In doing so, judges reveal these jurisdictions’ efforts to harness business preferences for English common law into their domestic court systems.  They also provide further opportunities for convergence on global civil procedure norms, or at least common law ones. Many courts have adopted some version of the English Civil Procedure Rules, looking for something international lawyers find familiar and reliable. Judges also report learning from each other’s approaches.

Our article suggests that traveling judges are a nearly entirely common law phenomenon—only a handful of judges were from mixed jurisdictions and only one was a civil law judge. Common law courts may be especially amenable to traveling judges. In contrast to judges in continental civil law systems, common law judges are not career bureaucrats. They come to the judiciary late, usually after having built successful litigation practices. Moreover, the sociologist, and judge, Antoine Garapon observes that common law style-judging can be more personalized, with more room for individual authority rather than that of the office. All these differences are a matter of degree, with exceptions that come readily to mind. Still, as a result, common law judges are more likely have reputations independent of the office they serve. That reputation, in turn, is valuable to hiring governments eager to demonstrate their commercial law bona fides.

These efforts to harness English common law contrast with the efforts to build international commercial courts in the Netherlands or Belgium. The NCC advertises itself as an English-language court built on the foundation of the Dutch judiciary’s strong reputation. As such, it has no need for foreign judges or common law experience. The BIBC likely also would not have relied as heavily on retired English judges, both because its designers envisioned more lay adjudicators (not retired judges) and likely a greater civil law influence. In that sense, its roster of judges might have more closely resembled that of the new international commercial court in Bahrain.

The Dutch, Belgian, and Bahraini examples do share something else in common with the network of courts profiled in Traveling Judges, however. Despite their apparent similarities to arbitration, these courts are domestic courts, and they exist in significantly different political environments. The differences between Dutch and Belgian national politics influenced the NCC’s success in being established and the BIBC’s failure. In Belgium, for instance, the BIBC was maligned as a “caviar court” for foreign companies and the Belgian Parliament ultimately decided against the proposal. As one of us recounts in a related article on arbitration-court hybrids, similar arguments were raised in the Dutch Parliament, but they did not win the day. Several courts in our study, such as those established in the special economic zones in the UAE, did not face such constraints. But they may face others, such as how local courts will recognize and cooperate with a new court operating according to a different legal system and in a different language. The new court in Bahrain overcame local obstacles to its establishment, but it may face yet another set of political constraints and pressures as it proceeds to hear its first cases. Wherever traveling judges travel, local politics will affect both hiring jurisdictions’ ability to achieve their goals and traveling judges’ ability to judge in the way they are accustomed.

 

Les Éditions P. Amaury / EUIPO - Golden Balls (BALLON D'OR)
Propriété intellectuelle et industrielle
Le Tribunal annule la décision de l’EUIPO déclarant la déchéance de la marque de l’Union européenne BALLON D’OR pour les services de divertissement

Puigdemont i Casamajó et Comín i Oliveres / Parlement
Droit institutionnel
Le recours de MM. Carles Puigdemont i Casamajó et Antoni Comín i Oliveres contre le refus de l’ancien président du Parlement de leur reconnaître la qualité de député européen et les droits associés est irrecevable

Entrée en fonctions de deux nouveaux membres du Tribunal de l’Union européenne