Agrégateur de flux

The year 2017 marks the 30th anniversary of China’s joining of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). During these 30 years, huge progress has been made in the area of private international law both in China and around the world, and it has greatly facilitated cross-border movement of goods and capital, as well as interactions among peoples of different nations. At the same time, there are a number of challenges emerging. Different nations should work together, jointly meet those challenges and chart the right course for solutions.
With this in mind, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and China Society of Private International Law (CSPIL), with the support of the HCCH, intend to jointly host the Global Forum on Private International Law at Wuhan University in Wuhan, China from 22 to 23 September 2017. The Forum will be organized by the Institute of International Law of the University, with the working language of English.
The theme of the Forum will be: Cooperation for Common Progress- the Evolving Role of Private International Law. The Forum will focus on the following topics:
(1) Common progress through private international law over 30 years: China, HCCH and the world;
(2) The Belt and Road Initiative and international legal cooperation;
(3) A global look at recent developments of private international law;
(4) The Hague Judgments Project.

Registration is open until 5 August, 2017. Further details may be found on the website of CSPIL here.

The text of the announcement above is largely drawn from the website of CSPIL.

Coty Germany
Concurrence
Selon l’avocat général Wahl, un fournisseur de produits de luxe peut interdire à ses détaillants agréés de vendre ses produits sur des plateformes tierces telles qu’Amazon ou eBay

Slovaquie / Conseil
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
L’avocat général Bot propose à la Cour de rejeter les recours de la Slovaquie et de la Hongrie contre le mécanisme provisoire de relocalisation obligatoire de demandeurs d’asile

Mengesteab
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
Un demandeur d’asile peut se prévaloir en justice du fait que l’État membre est devenu responsable de l’examen de sa demande en raison de l’expiration du délai de trois mois dont dispose cet État membre pour demander à un autre État membre de le prendre en charge

A.S.
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
La Croatie est responsable de l’examen des demandes de protection internationale des personnes qui ont franchi sa frontière en masse lors de la crise migratoire de 2015-2016

Conseil / LTTE
Relations extérieures
La Cour déclare que le Tribunal n’aurait pas dû annuler le maintien du Hamas sur la liste européenne des organisations terroristes et lui renvoie l’affaire

La Cour déclare que l’accord sur le transfert des données des dossiers passagers, prévu entre l’Union européenne et le Canada, ne peut pas être conclu sous sa forme actuelle

Thank you Francesca Petronio, Fabio Cozzi & Francesco Falco for flagging the Italian Supreme Court’s judgment no. 16601/2017 of 5 July last. I have tried to locate the judgment in relevant databases but failed – however Francesca et al’s posting gives great overview.

In what is suggested to be a Copernican revolution, the Supreme Court has dropped the Italian legal order’s fundamental objection to punitive damages, which made it near-impossible to obtain recognition and enforcement of in particular US judgments containing such damages. The judgment not surprisingly contains a number of conditions in particular on the excessive nature of such damages.

The judges seem to have been swayed by developments both in Italy (statutory law in places allowing for more than simple compensation of material loss) and US law (truly excessive punitive damages having been reigned in).

Punitive damages are the one example always identified as one of the core applications of ordre public in European recognition and enforcement law. After the Italian example surely this may now be less obvious in many jurisdictions.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.16.

 

 

Les restrictions de communication avec son avocat, imposées à un justiciable en raison du secret d’État, violent les dispositions de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme.

en lire plus

Une aide d’État est prohibée par le droit de l’Union dès lors que les activités qui en découlent sont exercées à des fins économiques, rappelle la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE) dans un arrêt du 27 juin 2017, suivant ainsi les conclusions de l’avocat général Kokott.

en lire plus

A short post mostly for the sake of completeness. In its second recent judgment on insureds as ‘protected category’ under the Brussels I Regulation, the CJEU held last week in C-340/16 Kabeg. Where an employee is injured and the employer is  statutory assignee of the rights of its employee, the employer is subrograted into the rights of the victim and can directly act against the insurer of the vehicle involved.

The Court’s less cautious approach to subrogation than it generally adopts, is influenced by Directive 2009/103, which obliges Member States to put in place such direct action. Article 18: ‘Member States shall ensure that any party injured as a result of an accident caused by a vehicle covered by insurance as referred to in Article 3 enjoys a direct right of action against the insurance undertaking covering the person responsible against civil liability.’

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2.

Le placement en garde à vue d’un étranger, entré irrégulièrement sur le territoire, à la suite d’un contrôle à la frontière française, amène la Cour de cassation à s’interroger sur l’application du droit français au regard de la directive Retour et du code frontières Schengen. Elle pose ainsi trois questions préjudicielles à la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE).

en lire plus

Investment arbitration forms a part of the international litigation arena. And it is a subject which is legally demanding and politically explosive. The 23rd Würzburg Days of European Law (“23. Würzburger Europarechtstage”) at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in Germany aim at an academically sound, open and maybe controversial debate of this topical issue. They will take place on 10 and 11 November  2017 and are organized by Prof. Dr. Markus Ludwigs and Prof. Dr. Oliver Remien, both from the University of Würzburg. The organizers are delighted to have found distinguished speakers and chairs initiating the discussions.

The conference language will be German, but here is an English translation of the program. The conference flyer with the program in German is available here.

Friday November 10th, 2017

13.00   Welcome Addresses

• Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Alfred Forchel, President of the University of Würzburg
• Prof. Dr. Eckhard Pache, Dean of the Faculty of Law

13.15   Welcome and Introduction into the Subjects

• Prof. Dr. Markus Ludwigs
• Prof. Dr. Oliver Remien

13.30   Sovereignty and Investment Arbitration Prof. Dr. Axel Flessner, Humboldt University Berlin

TTIP, CETA & Co. – The Future of Free Trade Agreements in a Changed Political Environment, MdB Prof. Dr. Heribert Hirte, LL.M., Member of the Bundestag, University of Hamburg

14.30   Statement and Discussion of the Papers, Prof. Dr. Dr. Rainer Hofmann, University of Frankfurt/Main

15.15   Coffee Break

15.45   A Multilateral Investment Court as a Progress for the Rule of Law?, Prof. Dr. Isabel Feichtner, LL.M., University of Würzburg

16.15   Statement and Discussion of the Paper, Prof. Dr. Markus Krajewski, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg

16.45   Coffee Break

17.15   Compensation for Infringements and Takings of Property after the Judgment of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Federal Constitutional Court) concerning the Stop to Nuclear Power, Justice Fed. Const. Ct. Prof. Dr. Andreas L. Paulus, University of Göttingen

17.45   Investment Protection Arbitration and EU State Aid Law, Prof. Dr. Marc Bungenberg, LL.M., Saarland University

18.15   Statement and Discussion of the Papers, Prof. Dr. Christian Tietje, LL.M., University of Halle-Wittenberg

19.00   Reception in the Entrance Hall in front of the Neubaukirche

Saturday November 11th, 2017

9.00   “EU-only”? – The Division of Competences between the EU and the Member States for the Conclusion of Free Trade Agreements, Prof. Dr. Michael J. Hahn, LL.M., University of Bern

Are Investment Protection Agreements between EU-Member States a Relict Contrary to EU-Law?, Dr. Thomas Wiedmann, European Commission, Brussels

10.00   Statement and Discussion of the Papers, Prof. Dr. Armin Hatje, University of Hamburg

10.45   Coffee Break

11.15   Enforcement According to ICSID Convention and Setting Aside, Recognition and Enforcement According to the New York Convention, Prof. Dr. Christian Wolf, University of Hannover

Transparency and Third Person Involvement by Way of an Amicus Curiae According to UNCITRAL and ICSID Rules and Arbitration Practice, Dr. Sören Segger, University of Würzburg

12.15   Statement and Discussion of the Papers, Dr. Stephan Wilske, LL.M., GleissLutz Law Firm

13.00   Concluding Remarks by the Organizers

 

Everybody is cordially invited to participate. Participation is free of charge. Please register under http://www.europarechtstage.de.

PGNiG Supply & Trading / Commission
Énergie
Le Président du Tribunal rejette les demandes visant à suspendre l’exécution de la décision de la Commission concernant la mise aux enchères de 50 % des capacités de transport du gazoduc OPAL

In 2010, Professors Franco Ferrari and Stefan Kroell organized a seminar on “conflict of laws in international commercial arbitration”, conscious of the fact that every arbitration raises a number of ‘conflict of laws’ problems both at the pre-award and post-award stage. Unlike state court judges, arbitrators have no lex fori in the proper sense, providing the relevant conflict rules to determine the applicable law. This raises the question of which conflict of laws rules apply and, consequently, the extent of the freedom arbitrators enjoy in dealing with this and related issues. The papers presented at that conference were later published in a book co-edited by the two organizers of said conference. Professors Ferrari and Kroell are now preparing a new edition of the book, which has attracted a lot of attention over the years. Apart from updated versions of the papers published in the first edition (with the following titles: “Conflicts of law in international arbitration: an overview” by Filip De Ly, “The law applicable to the validity of the arbitration agreement: a practioner’s view” by Leonardo Graffi, “Applicable laws under the New York Convention” by Domenico Di Pietro, “Jurisdiction and applicable law in the case of so-called pathological arbitration clauses in view of the proposed reform of the Brussels I-Regulation” by Ruggiero Cafari Panico, “Arbitrability and conflict of jurisdictions: the (diminishing) relevance of lex fori and lex loci arbitri” by Stavros Brekoulakis, “Extension of arbitration agreements to third parties: a never ending legal quest through the spatial-temporal continuum” by Mohamed S. Abdel Wahab, “The effect of overriding manadatory rules on the arbitration agreement” by Karsten Thorn and Walter Grenz, “Arbitration and insolvency: selected conflict of laws problems” by Stefan Kröll, “Getting to the law applicable to the merits in international arbitration and the consequences of getting it wrong” by Franco Ferrari and Linda Silberman, “Manadatory rules of law in international arbitration” by George A. Bermann, “Conflict of overriding mandatory rules in arbitration” by Anne-Sophie Papeil, “The law applicable to the assignment of claims subject to an arbitration agreement” by Daniel Girsberger, “The laws governing interim measures in international arbitration” by Christopher Boog), the new edition seeks to include papers on new topics, such as the law governing arbitrators’ liability, the law governing issues of characterization in commercial and investment arbitration, the law governing limitation periods (including their characterization as procedural or substantive), the law governing the taking of evidence (including the characterization of evidence as procedural or substantive, its admissibility and weight), the law governing damages (including whether different laws govern heads of damages and quantification), the law governing issues fees and costs, the law governing res iudicata, the law governing privilege, the law governing ethical obligations (both of arbitrators and counsel), the role of the Hague Principles on Choice of Law in international arbitration).

The editors welcome the submission of papers on any of the aforementioned topics as well as other topics related to the relationship between conflict of laws and international commercial arbitration. If interested, please submit an abstract (2000 words) and a basic bibliography to Professors Ferrari (franco.ferrari@nyu.edu) and Kroell (stefan.kroell@law-school.de) for acceptance by 1 October 2017. If accepted, the paper will need to be submitted (in blue book format) by 1 February 2018. 

The book Treatment of Foreign Law – Dynamics towards Convergence? (Springer, 2017), edited by Professor Yuko Nishitani, has just been published. It includes one general report and 30 national reports on the treatment of foreign law in diverse jurisdictions. Additionally, the book includes a report by the Hague Conference on Private International Law on the state and progress of its envisaged project on the treatment of foreign law. The general report and most of the individual reports were prepared for the 2014 Conference of the International Academy of Comparative Law held in Vienna.

The abstract reads as follows:

This work presents a thorough investigation of existing rules and features of the treatment of foreign law in various jurisdictions. Private international law (conflict of laws) and civil procedure rules concerning the application and ascertainment of foreign law differ significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Combining general and individual national reports, this volume demonstrates when and how foreign law is applied, ascertained, interpreted and reviewed by appeal courts. Traditionally, conflicts lawyers have been faced with two contrasting approaches. Civil law jurisdictions characterize foreign law as “law” and provide for the ex officio application and ascertainment of foreign law by judges. Common law jurisdictions consider foreign law as “fact” and require that parties plead and prove foreign law. A closer look at various reports, however, reveals more differentiated features with their own nuances among civil law jurisdictions, and the difference of the treatment of foreign law from other facts in common law jurisdictions. This challenges the appropriacy of the conventional “law-fact” dichotomy. This book further examines the need for facilitating access to foreign law. After carefully analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of existing instruments, this book explores alternative methods for enhancing access to foreign law and considers practical ways of obtaining information on foreign law. It remains to be seen whether and the extent to which legal systems around the world will integrate and converge in their treatment of foreign law.

Highly recommendable!

Further information, including a table of contents, is available here.

Another one from the exam queue. I reported earlier on Szpunar AG’s Opinion in C-54/16 Vinyls Italia – readers may want to refer to that post before reading on. The case concerns the extent to which a bona fide creditor may insulate payments made to it by the insolvent debtor, to the detriment of the collectivity of the creditors, using choice of law for its contract with the debtor away from the lex concursus. The Court held on 8 June, much along the lines of its AG and earlier precedent especially Nike with respect to anti-avoidance actions. The judgment therefore is not of great novelty for this part of the insolvency Regulation. It is on the other hand of crucial importance for the interpretation of ‘international’ in European private international law.

Firstly, whether the court hearing the insolvency proceedings can or must raise the Article 13 (now 16) even if the party profiting from the insulation of its payments from the insolvency, has failed expressly to do so in its submissions: this, the CJEU held, is a matter of procedure, not harmonised in the Insolvency Regulation and lex fori therefore, subject to the usual condition that effet utile is guaranteed and that EU law is equally applied as national law.

The Court had already held in Nike that the defendant in an anti-avoidance (Pauliana) action has to prove both the facts from which the conclusion can be drawn that the act is unchallengeable and the absence of any evidence that would militate against that conclusion (at 25). The Court in Vinyls Italia qualifies that statement: the party bearing the burden of proof must show that, where the lex causae makes it possible to challenge an act regarded as being detrimental, the conditions to be met in order for that challenge to be upheld, which differ from those of the lex fori concursus, have not actually been fulfilled. However defendant does not have to show that the lex causae does not provide, in general or in the abstract, any means to challenge the act in question: such means of challenging the act almost always exist, at least in the abstract, and such strict interpretation would therefore deprive Article 13 (now 16) of its effectiveness (at 38). Of course how wide exactly the net of voidness needs to be cast, is not entirely clear from the judgment.

The final question then deals with the possibility of relying on (now) Article 16 in the situation provided for in Article 3(3) of the Rome I Regulation, that is to say, where all the elements relevant to the situation in question between the parties to a contract are located in a country other than the country whose law is chosen by those parties. Now, the Rome I Regulation does not ratione temporis apply to the facts at issue and on the similar provisions of the Rome Convention, the referring court is not entitled to ask questions. The CJEU therefore decides to simply reply to the question of thins being a purely domestic contract, by reference to Article 16 of the insolvency Regulation only. It nevertheless however uses both Regulation and Convention a contrario: both existed at the time of adoption of the Insolvency Regulation. The latter does not include an Article 3(3) type provision. That it does not, must, the Court held, mean that the Insolvency Regulation so no need at all ao limit the use of lex contractus for insulation reasons, even in the case of purely domestic contracts.

There is however one limit: Fraus (omnia corrumpit) aka abuse of (EU) law. Here, the Court refers to its findings last summer in C‑423/15 Kratzer. EU law cannot be relied on for abusive or fraudulent ends. A finding of abuse requires a combination of objective and subjective elements. First, with regard to the objective element, that finding requires that it must be apparent from a combination of objective circumstances that, despite formal observance of the conditions laid down by Community rules, the purpose of those rules has not been achieved. Second, such a finding requires a subjective element, namely that it must be apparent from a number of objective factors that the essential aim of the transactions concerned is to obtain an undue advantage.

Here, Article 16 may be disregarded only in a situation where it would appear objectively that the objective pursued by that application, in this context, of ensuring the legitimate expectation of the parties in the applicability of specific legislation, has not been achieved (a tough condition of the lex contractus is wisely chosen), and that the contract was made subject to the law of a specific Member State artificially, that is to say, with the primary aim, not of actually making that contract subject to the legislation of the chosen Member State, but of relying on the law of that Member State in order to exempt the contract, or the acts which took place in the performance of the contract, from the application of the lex fori concursus. In this respect, (at 55) choice of law of a Member State other than the Member State in which parties are established does not create any presumption regarding an intention to circumvent the rules on insolvency for abusive or fraudulent ends.

The findings on fraus amount to strong support for a wide interpretation of the concept ‘international’ in EU private international law. A development to be applauded. They also make it very difficult within the context of Article 13 (now 16) successfully to mount a challenge of payments detrimental to the collectivity. This aspect of the case is what i.a. Gilles Lindemans objects to in the judgment. However the CJEU logic I suppose lies in what the it sees firmly as the object and purpose of Article 16: it protects the legitimate expectations of the party who has benefited from an act detrimental to all the creditors. In some way it prevents contractual sclerosis for parties suspected of being close to payment issues. Securitisation is facilitated if the lex causae is fixed, independent of the lex concursus. Not just fraus (a very improbable route now) but probably more importantly the burden of proof per C-310/14 Nike, protects the collectivity.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 5, Heading 5.7.1. Chapter 3, Heading 3.2.8.1.

Un arrêt de l’assemblée du contentieux du Conseil d’État juge le principe même de la fixation de tarifs réglementés de vente du gaz contraire au droit de l’Union européenne.

en lire plus

Tribunal d'instance de Paris 13e, 13 juillet 2017

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Nancy, chambre sociale, 25 janvier 2017