Flux européens

Time to tackle the judgments left over from the exam queue. I reviewed Bobek AG’s Opinion in C-27/17 flyLAL here. The CJEU held early July.

Pro memoria: the AG’s suggested for locus damni not place of financial loss, rather the place within the markets affected by the competition law infringement where the claimant alleges loss of sales: damage located in a Mozaik fashion in other words; for locus delicti commissi with full jurisdiction, the AG distinguishes between Article 101 TFEU (place of the conclusion of the agreement) and 102 TFEU (place where the predatory prices were offered and applied); finally with respect to (now) Article 7(5), the activities of a branch: offering the fixed prices or otherwise having been instrumental in concluding contracts for services at those prices suffices for that branch to have participated in the tort.

The Court itself,

• for locus damni reminds us of the findings in Marinari (which tempered the implications of Bier), implying that one needs to decide whether loss of income of the kind alleged by flyLAL may be regarded as ‘initial damage’, or whether it constitutes solely consequential financial damage which cannot, in itself, lead to a forum under Article 7(2). The Court, like the AG, opts for Mozaik, referring inter alia to its judgment in Concurrences: each place where the loss of income consisting in loss of sales occurred, that is to say, the place of the market which is affected by that conduct and on which the victim claims to have suffered those losses, opens up partial jurisdiction. As I noted in my review of the Opinion, this interpretation aids the tortfeasor: locus damni leading to shattered jurisdiction facilitates anti-competitive behaviour.
• for locus delicti commissi, under Article 101 TFEU (cartels), with reference to CDC, the CJEU opts for courts for the place in which the agreement was definitively concluded: this truly is extraordinary for it allows for forum shopping by the cartel participants. For Article 102 TFEU (abuse of dominant position)
  • Prima facie at 52 there is one consolation for those suffering anti-competitive behaviour: the Court holds that the event giving rise to the damage in the case of abuse of a dominant position is not based on an agreement, but rather on the implementation of that abuse, that is to say, the acts performed by the dominant undertaking to put the abuse into practice, in particular by offering and applying predatory pricing in the market concerned. That would seem to suggest full jurisdiction for each of those places where the pricing is offered and applied. However in that para 52 the Court does not verbatim links this to jurisdiction: this it does do in
  • Para 53: ‘If it were to be established that the events giving rise to the main proceedings were part of a common strategy intended to oust flyLAL from the market of flights to and from Vilnius Airport and that those events all contributed to giving rise to the damage alleged, it would be for the referring court to identify the event of most importance in implementing such a strategy out of the chain of events at issue in the main proceedings.‘ Courts holding on jurisdiction must not delve too deep into the substance of the case but still have to employ, without looking too deeply at the merits of the case, the lex causae for the anti-competitive behaviour (per Rome II) to identify that event of most importance. In para 54 too the Court emphasises the need to limit the amount of potential jurisdictions (reference here is also made to Universal Music). I cannot be sure: does the combination of paras 52 and 53 suggest that the Court does not accept jurisdiction for all places where the pricing is offered and applied?
• Finally with respect to Article 7(5), the CJEU at 64 holds that the national courts must in particular review whether the activities carried out by the branch included actual acts of offering and applying the predatory pricing alleged and whether such participation in the alleged abuse of a dominant position was sufficiently significant to be regarded as a close link with the dispute in the main proceedings. Separate accounts are not required to conduct that exercise (at 65).

Essentially therefore the Court firmly pulls the Brussels I Recast’s ‘predictability’ card. This is in the interest of companies behaving anti-competitively. I do not read in this judgment a definitive answer however for as I suggested, the combination of paras 52 ff is simply not clear.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law), 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.11.2

 

 

 

 

Given that discovery plays an important factor in forum shopping, Hogan J’s very critical comments on the extensive possibilities in Ireland are quite relevant. Arthur Cox have good analysis of [2018] IECA 230 Tobin v MOD here  and I am in general happy to refer.  Those of you interested in comparative litigation really should take a moment to read the Judge’s comments in full. Yet again, it seems to me, a topic for serious PhD (in comparative civil procedure) analysis.

Geert.

Those of us who are familiar with the issue of multilingualism and international courts, will  enjoy the discussion of contractual terms in Wahl AG’s Opinion in C-595/17 Apple v eBizcuss. Not only does the issue entre around the precise implications of the wording of a choice of court provision. The Opinion (not yet available in English) also highlights the difficulty of translating the original English of the contractual term, into the languages at the Court.

Current litigation is a continuation of the earlier spats between Apple and eBizcuss, which led to the Cour de Cassation’s 2015 reversed stance on the validity of unilateral choice of court – which I discussed at the time.

The 2002 Apple Authorized Reseller Agreement (in fact the 2005 version which applied after continuation of the contract) included a governing law and choice of court clause reading

„This Agreement and the corresponding relationship between the parties shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Ireland and the parties shall submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of the Republic of Ireland. Apple reserves the right to institute proceedings against Reseller in the courts having jurisdiction in the place where Reseller has its seat or in any jurisdiction where a harm to Apple is occurring.” (emphasis added)

Footnote 3 displays the translation difficulty which I refer to above: parties disagree as to the translation of the contractual clause in French: applicant suggest this should read  „et la relation correspondante”, defendant proposes „et les relations en découlant”. The AG suggest to include both for the purposes of his analysis „Le présent contrat et la relation correspondante (traduction de la requérante)/et les relations en découlant (traduction de la défenderesse) entre les parties seront régis par et interprétés conformément au droit de l’Irlande et les parties se soumettent à la compétence des tribunaux de l’Irlande. Apple se réserve le droit d’engager des poursuites à l’encontre du revendeur devant les tribunaux dans le ressort duquel est situé le siège du revendeur ou dans tout pays dans lequel Apple subit un préjudice.” In Dutch: „De door partijen gesloten onderhavige overeenkomst en de bijbehorende betrekking (vertaling van verzoekster)/de hieruit voortvloeiende betrekkingen (vertaling van verweerster) tussen partijen zullen worden beheerst door en worden uitgelegd volgens het Ierse recht, en partijen verlenen bevoegdheid aan de Ierse rechter. Apple behoudt zich het recht voor om vorderingen jegens de wederverkoper aanhangig te maken bij het gerecht in het rechtsgebied waar de wederverkoper is gevestigd of in een land waar Apple schade heeft geleden.”

This translation issue however highlights precisely the core of the discussion: ‘the corresponding relationship’ suggest a narrow reading: the relationship corresponding to the contractual arrangements. Infringement of competition law does not correspond, in my view. ‘La relation correspondante’ displays this sentiment. ‘(L)es relations en découlant’ suggests a wider reading.

In 2012 eBizcuss started suing Apple for alleged anti-competitive behaviour, arguing Apple systematically favours its own, vertically integrated distribution network.

The Cour de Cassation had rebuked the Court of Appeal’s finding of lack of jurisdiction. In its 2015 decision to quash, (the same which qualified the Court’s stance on unilateral jurisdiction clauses) it cited C-352/13 CDC, in which the CJEU held that choice of court clauses are not generally applicable to liability in tort (the clause would have to refer verbatim to tortious liability): the specific para under consideration is para 69 of that judgment in CDC:

‘the referring court must, in particular, regard a clause which abstractly refers to all disputes arising from contractual relationships as not extending to a dispute relating to the tortious liability that one party allegedly incurred as a result of its participation in an unlawful cartel’.

At issue in Apple /eBizcuss is essentially what kind of language one needs for choice of court to include infringement of competition law (for Dutch readers, I have an earlier overview in Jacques Steenbergen’s liber amicorum here).

Wahl AG emphasises (at 56) that it would not be in the spirit of Article 25 Brussels I Recast (which he analyses in extenso in the previous paras) to require parties to include the exact nature of the suits covered by the choice of court agreement. He is right of course – except those suits in my view do need to be contractual unless non-contractual liability has been clearly included: that in my view is the clear instruction of the CJEU in CDC.

The AG then continues the discussion (which will be redundant should the CJEU not follow his lead) as to whether the clause covers both follow-on (a suit for tort once a competition authority has found illegal behaviour) as well as stand-alone (private enforcement: a party claiming infringement of competition law in the absence of an authority’s finding of same) suits. He suggests there should be no distinction: on that I believe he is right.

Geert.

 

 

Thank you Chloe Oakshett for flagging [2018] CSOH 45 BN Rendering Limited v Everwarm Ltd, in which the Commercial Court in Edinburgh considered its jurisdiction to enforce an adjudicator’s award. Bone of contention was choice of court (ditto law) in the underlying contracts in favour of the courts at England (and English law). Both parties are domiciled in Scotland. Relevant works had to be carried out in Scotland. The Brussels I Recast Regulation does not formally apply between them: Scots-English conflicts are not ‘international’ within the meaning of that Regulation.

However Lord Bannatyne (at 16) points out that even for intra-UK conflicts, the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgements Act 1982 (per instruction in section 20(5) a) must be interpreted taking into account the Brussels regime and its application by the CJEU. It is in this context that Case 24/76 Colzani resurfaces: ‘real consent’ needs to be established without excess formality.

At 28 Lord Banatyne lists claimant’s arguments:  the party’s contract was not signed by both parties; nevertheless the defender’s subcontract terms and conditions form part of the contract; the subcontract order refers expressly to the defender’s subcontract terms and conditions which includes the jurisdiction exclusion clause and lastly, that express reference meets the test for real consent to the jurisdiction clause.

Put in summary: At 49: Is an express reference in the defender’s subcontract order (sent to the pursuer) to the defender’s subcontract terms and conditions, which contain the jurisdiction clause (which document is unsigned by the pursuer) sufficient to satisfy the test that it is clearly and precisely demonstrated that the parties agreed to the clause conferring jurisdiction on the English courts? Or put another way, in order to satisfy the said test is it not only necessary for there to be an express reference to the defender’s subcontract terms and conditions but for the subcontract order to have been signed by the pursuer to demonstrate that the parties agreed to the clause conferring jurisdiction on the English courts?

The judge considers the answer to the above questions to be question 1, yes and question 2, no – and I believe he is right.

Geert.

 

I reviewed Tanchev AG’s Opinion in C-88/17 Zurich Insurance v Metso here. The CJEU held last week. Like its AG, it upholds the place of dispatch of the goods as being a place of performance under Article 7(1)b, second indent Brussels I Recast. At 21-22: ‘When goods are carried, it is at the place of dispatch that the carrier has to perform a significant part of the agreed services, namely to receive the goods, to load them adequately and, generally, to protect them so that they are not damaged. The incorrect performance of the contractual obligations related to the place of dispatch of goods, such as, inter alia, the obligation to load goods adequately, may lead to incorrect performance of the contractual obligations at the place of destination of the carriage.’

The AG pondered, and rejected, the many intermediate places where the transport was carried out, as places of performance. The Court itself does not entertain this suggestion but clearly sides with the AG in not wanting to expand the list of possible fora to extensively.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.11.1

 

There are in fact many differences between Environment Protection Authority v Grafil Pty Ltd; Environment Protection Authority v MacKenzie [2018] NSWLEC 99 and the CJEU’s Palin Granit; and the regulatory context in NSW is quite different from the EU’s. My title therefore is a crowd pleaser rather than legally sound. Yet some of the issues are similar, hence justifying inclusion in the comparative environmental law /waste law binder (and a good teaser for the W-E).

Samantha Daly and Clare Collett have excellent as well as extensive analysis here and I am happy mainly to refer.

Defendants received materials from recycling depots operated by skip bin companies in Sydney. These materials were recovered fines which had been processed and recycled from building and demolition waste, for which there was no market for re-sale at the time (due to the high volumes of such material produced by the recycling industry). This material was trucked to the Premises by transporters from the recyclers and placed in mounds or stockpiles on the Premises.

Was there a stockpile of ‘waste’? Palin Granit considers similar issues in para 36 in particular.

Geert.

 

Chrysostomides, K. & Co. e.a. / Conseil e.a.
Droit institutionnel
Le Tribunal rejette les demandes d’indemnité de plusieurs particuliers et sociétés concernant la restructuration du secteur bancaire chypriote

Banque postale / BCE
Politique économique
Le Tribunal de l’UE annule les décisions de la BCE refusant à six établissements de crédit français d’exclure du calcul du ratio de levier certaines expositions liées à des livrets d’épargne français

Curto / Parlement
Statut des fonctionnaires
Le Tribunal de l’UE condamne le Parlement européen et la BEI à verser chacun 10 000 euros de dommages-intérêts à des agents victimes de harcèlement moral

[2018] SGHCR 8 Ermgassen v Sixcap Financials to my knowledge is the first recognition and enforcement by any court under the 2005 Choice of Court Convention. Together with the 28 EU Member States (and the EU itself), Singapore, with Mexico, are the 30 States for which the Convention has entered into force.

In his decision for the High Court, Colin Seow AR recognises a High Court ex parte summary judgment, taking the process to the Hague motions: whether the issue is civil and commercial; whether choice of court was concluded in favour of the courts having issued the judgment; and pointing to the UK’s membership of the Convention and to counsel for the plaintiff having been heard at the London High Court hearing: this makes the judgment one on the merits, not just a judgment in absentia (of the defendant: a Singapore-domiciled company). Of note is Seow AR’s flexible approach to the requirement to produce certified copies of the judgment (at 23 ff).

Geert.

 

The Goldman Sachs Group / Commission
Concurrence
Le Tribunal de l’UE confirme les amendes de plus de 300 millions d’euros infligées par la Commission aux principaux producteurs européens et asiatiques de câbles électriques à (très) haute tension pour leur participation à une entente mondiale

Tjebbes e.a.
Citoyenneté européenne
L’avocat général Mengozzi propose à la Cour de juger que la perte automatique de la nationalité néerlandaise, qui entraîne la perte de la citoyenneté de l’Union, pour les mineurs résidant en dehors de l’Union européenne est incompatible avec le droit de l’Union

Banger
Citoyenneté européenne
Lorsqu’un citoyen de l’Union retourne dans son État membre d’origine, ce dernier est tenu de favoriser l’entrée et le séjour du partenaire non-UE avec lequel ce citoyen a une relation durable

Autriche / Commission
Aide d'État
Le Tribunal de l’UE confirme la décision par laquelle la Commission a approuvé les aides du Royaume-Uni en faveur de la centrale nucléaire de Hinkley Point C

Advocate-General Bot opined on 4 July 2018 in the case of C-308/17 Leo Kuhn, domiciled at Vienna, who had purchased through an Austrian bank, Greek sovereign bonds. Pursuant to a forced exchanged /haircut carried out by Greece in March 2012, the bonds were replaced with new bonds with a lower nominal value. Mr Kuhn sued to have the initial borrowing terms enforced.

The Advocate-General is of course aware of the similarities with Fahnenbrock – in which he himself had also opined but was not followed by the Court. He first of all points out the similarities between the service Regulation and the Brussels I Recast (both e.g. limiting their scope of application to ‘civil and commercial’ matters), however also flags the specific recitals (in particular: recital 12) suggesting that in the context of the services Regulation the analysis needs to be done swiftly hence only cases which prima facie fall outside the scope of application (including where they manifestly (see the dictum of Fahnenbrock and para 50 of the AG’s Opinion in Kuhn) are not covered by that Regulation.

Coming next to the consideration of the application of ‘civil and commercial’, the facts of this case reflect very much the hybrid nature of much of sovereign debt litigation. In my view yes, the haircut took place within the wider institutional nature of Greece’s debt negotiations with the EU. Yet the ‘collective action clause’ (CAC) which was not part of the original terms and conditions (there was no CAC in the original lex causae, Greek law, but there is one in the newly applicable lex causae, English law: at 63 of the Opinion), was negotiated with the institutional holders of the bond and crammed down the minority holders like Mr Kuhn (at 66). The AG suggest that this does not impact on the qualification of the changes being ‘immediate and direct’, this being the formula employed by the Court in Fahnenbrock.

I am not so sure of the latter but it will be up to the CJEU to decide.

The Advocate General note bene subsequently ‘completes the analysis’ in case the CJEU disagrees with this view, and finds that if the issue is civil and commercial, it can be litigated under Article 7(1)’s rule on special jurisdiction for contractual obligations (the AG at para 88 ff distinguishes the case from C-375/13 Kolassa (in which the CJEU saw no contractual bond between the issuer of the bonds and the acquirer on the secondary market), the obligation at issue, he suggests, having to be performed in Greece. As for the latter element, the Advocate General does refer for the determination of the place of performance to the initially applicable law: Greek law, leaving the later lex causae, English law, undiscussed.

Whether the Court will follow the AG remains of course to be seen.

Geert.

 

I was at the Belgian Parliament yesterday for a hearing on the BIBC, following publication of the Government’s draft bill. For those of you who read Dutch, my notes are attached. We were limited to two pages of comments – the note is succinct.

An important change vis-a-vis the initial version (on which I commented here) is that the Court will now be subject to Belgian private international law (including primacy of EU instruments) for choice of law, rather than being able to pick the most appropriate law (arbitration panel style). That brings the court firmly within Brussels I. Also note my view and references on the Court being able to refer to the CJEU for preliminary review.

Geert.

 

Jehovan todistajat
PDON
Une communauté religieuse, telle que celle des témoins de Jéhovah, est responsable, conjointement avec ses membres prédicateurs, du traitement des données à caractère personnel collectées dans le cadre d’une activité de prédication de porte-à-porte

In C-1/17 Petronas Lubricants, the CJEU held end of June, entirely justifiably, that assigned counterclaims may be brought by the employer in the forum chosen by the employee under (now) Article 20 ff Brussels I Recast to bring his claim. In the case at issue, the employer had only obtained the claim by assignment, after the employee had initiated proceedings.

The Court pointed to the rationale underlying Article 22(1), which mirrors all other counterclaim anchor provisions in the Regulation: the sound administration of justice. That the counterclaim is merely assigned, is irrelevant: at 28:  ‘…provided that the choice by the employee of the court having jurisdiction to examine his application is respected, the objective of favouring that employee is achieved and there is no reason to limit the possibility of examining that claim together with a counter-claim within the meaning of Article 20(2)’ (Brussels I, GAVC).

Evidently the counterclaim does have to meet the criteria recently re-emphasised in Kostanjevec.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.8.3.

Is it compatible with Article 38(1) Brussels I (and the equivalent provisions in the Brussels I Recast) to apply a time limit which is laid down in the law of the State in which enforcement is sought, and on the basis of which an instrument may no longer be enforced after the expiry of a particular period, also to a functionally comparable instrument issued in another Member State and recognised and declared enforceable in the State in which enforcement is sought?

A preservation order had been obtained in Italy. It had been recognised in Germany. However applicant then failed to have it enforced within a time-limit prescribed by the lex fori executionis.

On 20 June Szpunar AG in C‑379/17 Società Immobiliare Al Bosco opined (Opinion not yet available in English) that the lex fori executionis’ time limits must not obstruct enforcement. Moreover, he suggests that his view is not impacted by the changes to exequatur in the Brussels I Recast, and that his Opinion, based on the effet utile of the Brussels regime, has appeal even outside the case at issue (in which Italian law has a similar proviso).

A small but significant step in the harmonisation process of European civil procedure.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.16

 

In [2018] EWHC 1670 (Comm) BNP Paribas v TRM, the High Court essentially had to hold on its jurisdiction in the face of competing choice of court clauses in an ISDA MAster Agreement (the courts of England; and lex contractus English law) and the attached Financing Agreement (the courts of Turin).

Knowles J dissected the agreements in relation to the claims made by the parties (again highlighting the relevance of formulation of claims): at 27: where, as here, there is more than one contract and the contracts contain jurisdiction clauses in favour of the courts of different countries, the court is faced with a question of construction or interpretation. And at 54: ‘The parties agreed jurisdiction in favour of the English Court under the Master Agreement. The fact that TRM further committed itself in the Financing Agreement to comply with its commitments under the Master Agreement does not mean that commitments under the Master Agreement and swap transaction are any the less subject to the jurisdiction agreed under the Master Agreement, or any the less able to be adjudicated upon and enforced by proceedings in England.’

Application to reject jurisdiction of the English Courts dismissed.

Geert.