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Pourvoi c/ déc. Cour d'appel de Versailles, 19 janvier 2021

Pourvoi c/ déc. Cour d'appel de Versailles du 5 novembre 2020

Pourvoi c/ déc. Cour d'appel de Nîmes du 26 novembre 2020

Tribunal judiciaire de Périgueux, 20 mai 2021

Tribunal judiciaire de Melun, 18 mai 2021

Pourvoi c/ déc. Cour d'appel de Paris du 20 novembre 2020

Pourvoi c/ déc. Cour d'appel d'Angers du 24 novembre 2020

Tesco Stores
SOPO
Le principe de l’égalité des rémunérations entre travailleurs masculins et travailleurs féminins consacré par le droit de l’Union est invocable directement, pour un « même travail » comme pour un « travail de même valeur », dans des litiges entre particuliers

I reported on the AG’s Opinion in C-913/19 CNP here. The CJEU held on 20 May.

The case essentially queries the application of Section 3 BIa (‘matters relating to insurance’) and Section 2 (the ‘special jurisdictional rules’, in particular contract and tort) in the event of assignment and /or subrogation of claims from the natural person to a professional party. As many of us may have experienced, filing an insurance claim particularly in the automotive sector immediately engages 2, 3 or more distinct businesses: insurance agents, insurers, towing trucks and garages…. The case also discusses whether some of those business may be considered a ‘branch’ of the insurance company on account of their close relationship as experienced by repairers and insureds.

In the case at hand, a road traffic accident occurred in Poland, in which two vehicles collided. The person responsible for the accident had, before that time, taken out a contract for motor liability insurance with Gefion, domiciled at Denmark. The injured party paid to lease a replacement vehicle from the repair workshop to which his damaged vehicle had been entrusted. By way of payment for that lease service arrangement, that person transferred the claim against Gefion to the repair workshop pursuant to a contract for assignment of the claim. Slightly later, pursuant to a new contract for the assignment of claims, the repair workshop assigned that claim to CNP. CNP requested Gefion to pay it the amount invoiced for the lease of the replacement vehicle. That request was sent to the address of Polins, a limited liability company established in Poland,  which represented Gefion’s interests in Poland. Crawford Polska, a company established in Poland and entrusted by Gefion with loss adjustment, then validated the invoice relating to the leasing of the replacement vehicle in part and granted CNP part of the amount invoiced for such lease. In its correspondence, Crawford Polska referred to the possibility of making a claim against it as the entity authorised by Gefion, or directly against Gefion, ‘either under the general provisions on jurisdiction or before the court with jurisdiction for the place where the policyholder, the insured person, the beneficiary or any other person entitled under the insurance contract is resident or established’. CNP then brought an action against Gefion in Poland, citing the information published by Gefion according to which Polins was its principal representative in Poland.  Gefion opposes the subsequent payment order, arguing inter alia that the Polish courts do not have jurisdiction.

Gefion rely in large part on CJEU Hofsoe, which as I noted in my review of UKSC Aspen Underwriting, is not as clear as one might hope. The Court in CNP v Gefion refers again to Hofsoe and Voralberger and zooms in on the professional activities of the corporations involved: [40] no special protection is justified where the parties concerned are ‘professionals in the insurance sector’; [43] CNP recovers claims from insurance undertakings. This precludes  it from being regarded as a party in a weaker position than the other party.

This finding as such arguably has no impact on the authority of Aspen Underwriting, in which the professional party, the Bank, is the named loss payee under the Policy and therefore the “beneficiary” of that Policy.

[46] The Court then confirms that Section 2’s special jurisdictional rules do open up in such circumstances.

As to whether Crawford may be considered a Gefion branch, the Court employs the criteria suggested by the AG (see my review of the opinion) and notes [56] that Crawford has every power to carry out activities involving the loss adjustment and settlement of claims which are binding on the insurer, meaning that Crawford Polska must be regarded as a centre of operations which has the appearance of permanency, such as the extension of a parent body. [57] Whether that centre is materially equipped to negotiate business with third parties, so that they do not have to deal directly with the parent body, is something which the referring court has to verify (and which will therefore determine branch jurisdiction).

Per CJEU Ryanair, [59] Crawford’s role here seems to have been more than just a data hatch: it was an active contributor (in deciding, upon having given such overall authority by Gefion,  only half of the amount claimed would be settled) to the legal situation that led to the dispute in the main proceedings. Therefore provided the aforementioned ‘material equipment’ criterion is met, the dispute is to be regarded as ‘arising out of the operation of the branch’.

All in all a bit more follow-up work to be done by the referring court and, as I noted in my review of the AG’s Opinion, not great publicity for the predictability of jurisdictional rules.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, para 2.293 ff, para 2.73 ff.

Commission / Allemagne (Valeurs limites - NO2)
Environnement et consommateurs
Entre 2010 et 2016, l’Allemagne a dépassé de façon systématique et persistante les valeurs limites pour le dioxyde d’azote (NO2)

Hongrie / Parlement
Droit institutionnel
La Cour rejette le recours de la Hongrie contre la résolution du Parlement déclenchant la procédure de constatation de l’existence d’un risque clair de violation grave, par cet État membre, des valeurs sur lesquelles l’Union est fondée

TEAM POWER EUROPE
Libre circulation des personnes
Pour être considérée comme « exerçant normalement ses activités » dans un État membre, une entreprise de travail intérimaire doit effectuer une partie significative de ses activités de mise à la disposition de travailleurs au profit d’entreprises utilisatrices établies et exerçant leurs activités sur le territoire dudit État membre

Sabine Corneloup (Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas) and Jinske Verhellen (Ghent University) have recently posted on SSRN an article titled Providing legal identity for all – A means to empower migrants to exercise their rights, which forms part of the volume SDG 2030 and Private International Law edited by R. Michaels, V. Ruiz Abou-Nigm and H. van Loon to be published by Intersentia. The volume will be an outcome of the project The Private Side of Transforming our World UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Role of Private International Law. The project, as underlined by its leaders, “aims to raise an awareness of how PIL – with its methods and institutions – is also capable of making a significant contribution in the quest for sustainable development” as defined in UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. The resulting findings will also be presented in the framework of a conference to be held on 9 to 11 September 2021 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg.

The abstract of the article reads as follows:

This paper focusses on Target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which states: “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.” It is a tentative attempt to explore the reciprocal influences between private international law and SDG Target 16.9.

In chapter 1, Target 16.9 will first be presented in itself, before being analyzed in the context of SDG 16 as a whole, as well as in the context of global migration, which also brings other SDGs into the picture and highlights the link to private international law.

The purpose of chapter 2 is twofold: on the one hand, it is to give an overview of existing PIL instruments and methodologies concerning legal identity on a global, regional and national level and, on the other hand, to assess their relevance in a migration context. A survey of the international conventions and EU regulations on private international law will reveal that none of the existing instruments plays a prominent role, if any, in a migration context. Indeed, even though some international conventions and EU regulations contain potentially interesting provisions, none of them has proven relevant, if migration issues such as access to asylum, to a residence permit or to nationality are at stake. At the national level, private international law comes into play in the context of migration, when legal identity is addressed from the perspective of States of destination or States of transit, because then a cross-border element arises.

Chapter 3 takes a different perspective and looks at legal identity issues from the angle of an evolving new global framework according to the SDGs, emphasizing human rights. The question then arises whether this global SDG perspective could improve the situation in the States of origin by promoting and implementing birth registration and consequently impact on legal identity matters in PIL and whether, in its turn, a ‘revitalized’ PIL holds potential to contribute to the further development of the new global framework according to SDG 16.9.

Dans un avis rendu le 28 mai 2021, le Conseil d’État s’est penché sur les conséquences contentieuses de la prolongation du délai de transfert vers l’État membre responsable de l’examen de la demande d’asile en cas de fuite du demandeur.

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Pourvoi. c/ déc. Cour d'assises de Paris du 17 février 2021