Agrégateur de flux

Pourvoi c. déc. Cour d'assises des mineurs du Puy-de-Dôme du 23 octobre 2020

Pourvoi c/ décision Cour d'assises d'appel du Gard rendue le 17 novembre 2020

Pourvoi c. déc. Cour d'assises de la Gironde du 16 octobre 2020

Pourvoi c. décision Cour d'appel de Metz du 22 octobre 2020

République tchèque / Pologne
La Pologne doit cesser immédiatement les activités d’extraction de lignite dans la mine de Turów

 Comparative Procedural Law and Justice (CPLJ) is a global project of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law, with the support of the Luxembourg National Research Fund (019/13946847), involving more than one hundred scholars from all over the world.

CPLJ is envisioned as a comprehensive study of comparative civil procedural law and civil dispute resolution schemes in the contemporary world. It aims at understanding procedural rules in their cultural context, as well as at highlighting workable approaches to the resolution of civil disputes.

In this framework, the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law will host its 5th CPLJ Webinar on 4 June 2021, 4:00 – 6:15 pm (CET).

The programme reads as follows:

Chairs:  Margaret Woo (Northeastern University and CPLJ Editor) and Burkhard Hess (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Comparative Procedural Law and CPLJ Editor)

4:00 PM          Ralf Michaels (Max Planck Institute Hamburg for Comparative and International Private Law)

            Decoloniality and Comparative Civil Procedure

4:30 PM          Discussion

5:00 PM          Intermission

5:15 PM          John Haley (University of Washington)

            Historical and Political factors Influencing Dispute Resolution

5:45 PM          Discussion

6:15 PM          End of conference

The full programme is available here.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required by 1 June 2021 via a short e-mail to events@mpi.lu.

(Image credits:  Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

 

Semtech Corporation & Ors v Lacuna Space Ltd & Ors [2021] EWHC 1143 (Pat) at its core concerns an alleged breach of copyright between competitors, with former employees of one acting as a trojan horse in the conspiracy. Purvis DJ held [52 ff] with little difficulty (and with reference ia to Bosworth) that the claim however ‘relates to’ the contract of employment of the two main alleged culprits: ‘ the issues of the scope of their authority and the question of vitiation will be at the centre of their defence, and will have to be considered by reference to the contracts of employment which set out their duties and obligations with regard to Semtech. Thus, the employment contracts are not merely context and opportunity, they provide the entire legal framework for resolving Sornin and Sforza’s defence.’ The case against the two therefore needs to be brought in the employees’ domicile, France, and not in E&W.

Directing the judge away from what seems a prima facie applicable gateway in Brussels Ia is something creative counsel may of course attempt. In the case at issue, the employment DNA was all over the place rather than merely incidental. At 73-74 the judge adds that the protected categories section must of course be considered in isolation to give it its full effect: that the litigation will now splinter against various defendants cannot be rescued by an A8(1) anchor mechanism ‘sound administration of justice’ argument, nor any type of forum conveniens analysis.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, 2.278 ff.

Semtech ea v Lacuna Space ea [2021] EWHC 1143 (Pat) (05 May 2021)
Jurisdiction, protected categories
A22(1) Brussels Ia
Proceedings found to 'relate to' contract of employmenthttps://t.co/3jhqXvK1qn

— Geert Van Calster (@GAVClaw) May 18, 2021

Pourvoi c. déc. Cour d'appel de Paris du 27 septembre 2019

Tribunal judiciaire de Digne-les-Bains, 27 avril 2021

On 12 May 2021, the Court of Justice rendered its long-awaited judgment in the case Vereniging van Effectenbezitters v. BP. The case concerned the international jurisdiction for a collective action based on issuer liability for inaccurate, incomplete and misleading information in capital markets.

The Court ruled that under Article 7(2) Brussels I bis Regulation such actions may be brought at the place where the issuer is subject to statutory reporting obligations, which is usually the place where the financial instruments are traded on a stock exchange. In contrast, they could not be brought at the location of the investment account in which the financial instrument are held.

The ruling is important from a capital markets perspective, yet it also adds another piece to the puzzle of where to localise purely financial or economic loss.

Facts

The facts of this case go back to the accident at the Deep Water Horizon oil platform in 2010, which was one of the biggest environmental disasters of all time and laid the Southern coast of the U.S. to waste.

The Dutch action underlying the reference alleges that BP, who operated the platform, failed to properly inform its shareholders about its security and maintenance programme prior to the accident. What is particular about this case is that the claim was brought by an association under Dutch law as a collective action on behalf of all persons who bought, held or sold BP shares in the three years preceding the accident. It is also important that the shares of BP are dually listed in London and Frankfurt, but not in the Netherlands.

The Rechtbank Amsterdam and the Gerechtshof (Court of Appeal) Amsterdam denied international jurisdiction of the Dutch courts on the grounds that no damage was suffered in the Netherlands.

Legal Questions 

The Dutch Hoge Raad, to which the dispute was presented at last instance, decided to submit a reference for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU. It wanted to know whether Dutch courts have jurisdiction to decide over (1) the collective action, and (2) any individual claim that may be brought subsequently by BP investors. In addition, the Dutch highest court asked two questions on whether Article 7(2) of the Brussels I bis Regulation determines, besides international jurisdiction, internal territorial jurisdiction as well.

Ruling

The CJEU held that the Dutch courts have no jurisdiction over the action brought. Importantly, the court also stated that this jurisdiction is independent of the collective nature of the action. It refused to answer the questions regarding international and internal territorial jurisdiction as they would be merely hypothetical at this stage.

Rationale

The reasoning of the CJEU centres around the well-known question of how purely financial damage is to be localised. This problem has already kept the CJEU busy in many other cases, e.g. Kronhofer, Marinari, Dumez, Kolassa, Universal Music and Löber, to name but a few.

Of these, the most relevant for the current case were Kolassa and Löber, given that both were as well concerned with allegations of incorrect investor information. However, the present case differs from these precedents in that it does not relate to deficiencies of informing the primary market – the market on which financial instruments are issued by the issuer to the investors – through a prospectus. Instead, it concerns deficient information of the secondary market – on which financial instruments are traded amongst investors – through insufficient ad hoc disclosure.

This difference is crucial. In Kolassa and Löber, the CJEU located the loss of investors on the primary market at the place of the investor’s domicile provided that it coincides with the place of establishment of the bank with which the investor held his account. The account meant here was most probably a payment account, because the investor had paid the financial instruments from this account and thus arguably suffered damage there.

The same reasoning could not be applied in the case of Effectenbezitters because many of the investors had already bought (and paid) the financial instruments on the secondary market when the deficient disclosure occurred. The most likely place of the damage they suffered was thus not the place of their payment account, but that of their investment account, i.e. the account in which they hold the BP shares. The difference is important because the payment and the investment account are not necessarily administered by the same institution, and thus do not need to be located at the same place.

Yet in the end, the CJEU did not localise the damage at the place of the investment account. Its main argument was that this would not ensure foreseeability of the competent court in the same way as in the Kolassa and Löber cases (para. 34). Indeed, investors in the secondary market potentially hold their investment accounts anywhere in the world. The issuer could thus not know in which country it may be sued for insufficient investor information.

Instead, the Court opts for the place in which the issuer has to comply with his statutory reporting obligation for the purposes of the listing of its shares on a stock exchange (para. 35). This solution is remarkable. It deviates from the conclusions by AG Sánchez-Bordona, who suggested to disapply Article 7(2) Brussels I bis in such cases for lack of an identifiable place of damage. The Court instead adopts for a ‘market localisation’ of the damage, which has long been defended in the literature.

The collective nature of the action brought is, in the opinion of the Court, “not in itself decisive” for the determination of the place where the harmful event occurred in the sense of Article 7(2) Brussels I bis (para. 36). It thus does not matter for jurisdictional purposes whether the claim is brought on behalf of a number of investors or by an individual investor. In either event, the Dutch courts had no jurisdiction because the BP shares were not listed in the Netherlands.

Provisional Assessment

The ruling of the CJEU is to be welcomed. In particular, the Court must be applauded for rejecting to localise the at the place of the investment account, since such a localisation would have resulted in a dispersal of court competence. This would not only have led to unforeseeable venues from the point of view of the issuer, but also been disadvantageous for investors, as they could have brought a collective action exclusively at the domicile of the issuer (Article 4 in conjunction with Article 63 Brussels I bis).

The solution chosen by the Court to retain the place where shares are listed as the place of damage is certainly ingenuous. This criterion leads to predictable results and chimes well with the regulatory duties, which largely depend on the place where the instruments are traded. It also facilitates the bundling of investor claims in collective actions, provided that the law of the country of listing disposes of a mechanism for collective redress. The Court is also right in holding that collective action and individual actions are not treated differently under the current Brussels Ibis regime.

Two points remain open: (1) the place of damage in case of dual listings in the EU, and (2) the place of damage in case of non-listed financial instruments (those that are traded over the counter – OTC). The Court will possibly have the opportunity to clarify these points in later rulings.

While the decision of the CJEU is thus satisfying from a policy point of view, it is hard to reconcile with the option offered in the Bier case between the ‘place where the damage occurred’ and the ‘place of the event which gives rise to and is at the origin of that damage’.

The CJEU allegedly determined the first place in Effectenbezitters, but it needs considerable tongue twisting to say that the ‘damage occurred’ at the place where the issuer failed to fulfil its statutory duties of information. This is rather the place at the origin of the damage than that where the damage occurred. This point is important, as it may create difficulties in the context of Article 4(1) of the Rome II Regulation, which has taken up the first-mentioned prong of the Bier case and refers to the ‘law of the country in which damage occurs’. In reality, the CJEU has created a new, special localisation rule for wrongful investor information cases, which deviates partially from the Bier case. Transposing this case law to the Rome II Regulation may be difficult.

This is merely a first assessment of the case. The European Association of Private International Law will use the occasion of this ruling for an online symposium on the localisation of financial loss. The question is of general importance and has already been addressed several times on this blog (see e.g. the CJEUs Volkswagen judgement or Rechtbank Rotterdam’s judgment in Petrobas). We will discuss it in more depth, with the first contribution coming from Laura van Bochove (Leiden).

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case C‑913/19 (CNP spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością v Gefion Insurance A/S), which is about Brussels I bis:

“1. Article 13(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 […], read in conjunction with Article 10 thereof, must be interpreted as not applying in the case of a dispute between, on the one hand, a business which has acquired a claim originally held by an injured party against a civil liability insurance undertaking and, on the other hand, that same civil liability insurance undertaking, so that it does not preclude jurisdiction to hear and determine such a dispute from being founded on Article 7(2) or Article 7(5) of that regulation, as appropriate.

2. Article 7(5) of Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted as meaning that an undertaking which adjusts losses in the context of motor liability insurance in one Member State pursuant to a contract concluded with an insurance undertaking established in another Member State, in the name and on behalf of that undertaking, must be regarded as being a branch, agency or other establishment, within the meaning of that provision, where that undertaking:

–        has the appearance of permanency, such as an extension of the insurance undertaking; and

–        has a management and is materially equipped to negotiate business with third parties, so that they do not have to deal directly with the insurance undertaking”.

Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=241468&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=5098926

Advocate General Campos Sánchez-Bordona delivered today his opinion in case C‑25/20 (Alpine Bau), which is about the Insolvency 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):

« L’article 32, paragraphe 2, du règlement (CE) no 1346/2000 […] doit être interprété en ce sens que, lorsque le syndic d’une procédure principale d’insolvabilité produit les créances dans une procédure secondaire, les délais de production de ces créances, ainsi que les conséquences de leur production tardive, sont régis par la loi de l’État dans lequel la procédure secondaire a été ouverte ».

Source : https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=241485&pageIndex=0&doclang=fr&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=5098907

The Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice delivered on Tuesday (18 May 2021) an important decision on the Rule of Law in Romania (joint cases C‑83/19, C‑127/19, C‑195/19, C‑291/19, C‑355/19 et C‑397/19). The judgment is currently available only in a selection of EU official languages, and it is not available in English either. 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) La décision 2006/928/CE de la Commission, du 13 décembre 2006, établissant un mécanisme de coopération et de vérification des progrès réalisés par la Roumanie en vue d’atteindre certains objectifs de référence spécifiques en matière de réforme du système judiciaire et de lutte contre la corruption, ainsi que les rapports établis par la Commission européenne sur la base de cette décision constituent des actes pris par une institution de l’Union, susceptibles d’être interprétés par la Cour au titre de l’article 267 TFUE.

2) Les articles 2, 37 et 38 de l’acte relatif aux conditions d’adhésion à l’Union européenne de la République de Bulgarie et de la Roumanie et aux adaptations des traités sur lesquels est fondée l’Union européenne, lus en combinaison avec les articles 2 et 49 TUE, doivent être interprétés en ce sens que la décision 2006/928 relève, en ce qui concerne sa nature juridique, son contenu et ses effets dans le temps, du champ d’application du traité entre les États membres de l’Union européenne et la République de Bulgarie et la Roumanie, relatif à l’adhésion de la République de Bulgarie et de la Roumanie à l’Union européenne. Cette décision est, aussi longtemps qu’elle n’a pas été abrogée, obligatoire dans tous ses éléments pour la Roumanie. Les objectifs de référence qui figurent à son annexe visent à assurer le respect, par cet État membre, de la valeur de l’État de droit énoncée à l’article 2 TUE et revêtent un caractère contraignant pour ledit État membre, en ce sens que ce dernier est tenu de prendre les mesures appropriées aux fins de la réalisation de ces objectifs, en tenant dûment compte, au titre du principe de coopération loyale énoncé à l’article 4, paragraphe 3, TUE, des rapports établis par la Commission sur la base de ladite décision, en particulier des recommandations formulées dans lesdits rapports.

3) Les réglementations régissant l’organisation de la justice en Roumanie, telles que celles relatives à la nomination ad interim aux postes de direction de l’Inspection judiciaire et à l’institution d’une section du ministère public chargée des enquêtes sur les infractions commises au sein du système judiciaire, relèvent du champ d’application de la décision 2006/928, de sorte qu’elles doivent respecter les exigences découlant du droit de l’Union et, en particulier, de la valeur de l’État de droit énoncée à l’article 2 TUE.

4) L’article 2 et l’article 19, paragraphe 1, second alinéa, TUE ainsi que la décision 2006/928 doivent être interprétés en ce sens qu’ils s’opposent à une réglementation nationale adoptée par le gouvernement d’un État membre, qui permet à ce dernier de procéder à des nominations intérimaires aux postes de direction de l’organe judiciaire chargé de mener des enquêtes disciplinaires et d’exercer l’action disciplinaire à l’encontre des juges et des procureurs, sans que soit respectée la procédure de nomination ordinaire prévue par le droit national, lorsque cette réglementation est de nature à faire naître des doutes légitimes quant à l’utilisation des prérogatives et des fonctions de cet organe comme instrument de pression sur l’activité de ces juges et procureurs ou de contrôle politique de cette activité.

5) L’article 2 et l’article 19, paragraphe 1, second alinéa, TUE ainsi que la décision 2006/928 doivent être interprétés en ce sens qu’ils s’opposent à une réglementation nationale prévoyant la création d’une section spécialisée du ministère public disposant d’une compétence exclusive pour mener des enquêtes sur les infractions commises par les juges et les procureurs, sans que la création d’une telle section

–        soit justifiée par des impératifs objectifs et vérifiables tirés de la bonne administration de la justice et

–        soit assortie de garanties spécifiques permettant, d’une part, d’écarter tout risque que cette section soit utilisée comme un instrument de contrôle politique de l’activité de ces juges et procureurs susceptible de porter atteinte à leur indépendance et, d’autre part, d’assurer que cette compétence puisse être exercée à l’égard de ces derniers dans le plein respect des exigences découlant des articles 47 et 48 de la charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne.

6) L’article 2 et l’article 19, paragraphe 1, second alinéa, TUE doivent être interprétés en ce sens qu’ils ne s’opposent pas à une réglementation nationale régissant la responsabilité patrimoniale de l’État et la responsabilité personnelle des juges au titre des dommages causés par une erreur judiciaire, qui définit la notion d’« erreur judiciaire » en des termes généraux et abstraits. En revanche, ces mêmes dispositions doivent être interprétées en ce sens qu’elles s’opposent à une telle réglementation lorsqu’elle prévoit que le constat de l’existence d’une erreur judiciaire, effectué dans le cadre de la procédure visant à la mise en cause de la responsabilité patrimoniale de l’État et sans que le juge concerné ait été entendu, s’impose dans le cadre de la procédure subséquente liée à une action récursoire visant à la mise en cause de la responsabilité personnelle de celui-ci et lorsqu’elle ne comporte pas, d’une manière générale, les garanties nécessaires pour éviter qu’une telle action récursoire soit utilisée comme instrument de pression sur l’activité juridictionnelle et pour assurer le respect des droits de la défense du juge concerné afin que se trouve écarté tout doute légitime, dans l’esprit des justiciables, quant à l’imperméabilité des juges à l’égard d’éléments extérieurs susceptibles d’orienter leurs décisions et exclue une absence d’apparence d’indépendance ou d’impartialité de ces juges de nature à porter atteinte à la confiance que la justice doit inspirer à ces mêmes justiciables dans une société démocratique et un État de droit.

7) Le principe de primauté du droit de l’Union doit être interprété en ce sens qu’il s’oppose à une réglementation de rang constitutionnel d’un État membre, telle qu’interprétée par la juridiction constitutionnelle de celui-ci, selon laquelle une juridiction de rang inférieur n’est pas autorisée à laisser inappliquée, de sa propre autorité, une disposition nationale relevant du champ d’application de la décision 2006/928, qu’elle considère, à la lumière d’un arrêt de la Cour, comme étant contraire à cette décision ou à l’article 19, paragraphe 1, second alinéa, TUE ».

Source : https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=241381&pageIndex=0&doclang=FR&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=5098836

The Nigerian Group on Private International Law (“NGPIL”) will hold its inaugural lecture on June 21, 2021 at 6pm CEST and 5pm BST. Registration and attendance online is free. For more information on the programme and registration  see the  NGPIL flyer and the NGPIL inaugural programme.

 

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