Flux européens

USDAW et Wilson
Rapprochement des législations
La Cour clarifie la notion d’« établissement » en matière de licenciements collectifs

Léger
SANT
L’exclusion permanente du don de sang pour les hommes ayant eu des rapports sexuels avec des hommes peut être, eu égard à la situation prévalant dans l’État membre concerné, justifiée

van Leeuwen
Liberté d'établissement
Les États membres peuvent obliger les entreprises d’assurance vie à communiquer aux clients des informations autres que celles énumérées dans la directive

The German Federal Labour Court, the ‘Bundesarbeitsgericht’, has provided the ECJ with an opportunity to provide much needed clarity on the application of Rome I to continuing (employment) contracts, and on the Regulation (or as the case may be, the Rome convention)’s provisions on overriding mandatory law. The Bundesarbeitsgericht has issued a press release on the case, Giesela Rühl flagged the case in March, and Lisa Günther has more detailed input on the overall context. Claimant is a Greek, employed by the Greek State at the Greek primary school in Nuremberg (Germany). His salary was reduced in accordance with relevant Greek Saving Laws. Claimant asks for payment of the sums withheld. Is the German court bound to apply the Greek Saving Laws?

The case (which as yet to appear on the ECJ’s website) first of all seeks clarification on the temporal scope of Rome I. Article 28 Rome I provides that it applies to contracts concluded ‘as from 17 December 2009′ (this is the corrected format; initially Article 28 read ‘after’). When exactly a contract is ‘concluded’ needs to be determined in accordance with the lex causae as identified by the Regulation (an extension of Article 10(1), suggested by most if not all of relevant scholarship). There has hitherto been much less noise about the application of Article 28 to ‘continuing’ contracts': those concluded before the temporal scope of the Regulation, continuing after, however renewed, renegotiated, amended…: do these continue to be covered by the Rome convention ad infinitum, or is there a cut-off point at which these continuing contracts become newly concluded? Any suggestion along these latter lines presumably requires determination of a threshold. For instance, adaptation of price in line with inflation presumably is not sufficient to speak of a ‘new’ contract. But would contractually foreseen price renegotiation to take account of economic cycles, lead to such a new contract?

One’s intuitive assumption may be to prefer autonomous interpretation of the concept ‘concluded’ however in the current state of (lack of) harmonisation of contractual law, it is more likely that the Court will prefer an Article 10(1) type solution.

Next up is the application of Article 9’s provision on overriding mandatory provisions. This is the first time the ECJ will rule on that Article (Unamar was held under the Rome Convention). The Regulation quite deliberately limited the room for manoeuvre for the court seized to apply overriding mandatory law other than that of the forum: only such laws of the country where the obligations arising out of the contract ‘have to be performed’ can come into calling. That place is likely to be Germany in the case at issue (the Regulation does not define ‘place of performance’ under Article 9(3)).

No doubt the ECJ will cut some corners, per judicial economy, however the case nevertheless promises to be entertaining.

Geert.

La réforme du système judiciaire de l’UE

Van Hove
Rapprochement des législations
Un contrat d’assurance doit exposer de manière transparente, précise et intelligible le fonctionnement du mécanisme d’assurance, de manière à ce que le consommateur puisse en évaluer les conséquences économiques

Zuchtvieh-Export
Agriculture
La protection prévue en droit de l’Union pour les animaux pendant le transport ne s’arrête pas aux frontières extérieures de l’Union

LG Display et LG Display Taiwan / Commission
Concurrence
La Cour confirme l’amende de 210 millions d’euros infligée à LG Display pour sa participation à l’entente sur le marché des panneaux LCD

Aykul
Transport
Le titulaire d’un permis de conduire peut se voir refuser par un autre État membre le droit de conduire sur le territoire de cet État après y avoir commis une infraction routière de nature à entraîner son inaptitude à la conduite

Planet / Commission
Budget des Communautés
Le Tribunal de l’UE annule l’inscription d’une société grecque dans le système d’alerte précoce mis en place par la Commission pour protéger les intérêts financiers de l’Union

Tomana e.a. / Conseil et Commission
Relations extérieures
Le Tribunal confirme les mesures restrictives adoptées à l’encontre de M. Johannes Tomana, procureur général du Zimbabwe, et de 120 autres personnes et sociétés établies dans ce pays

In East Sussex County Council Case C-71/14, the question under consideration is the application of Directive 2003/4 ‘s reasonableness test. Article 5 of the Directive provides that in situ access to information to for example public registers has to be free of charge. Further, that charges for supplying any environmental information must be ‘reasonable’.

In particular, how ‘objective’ must a reasonable cost be, seen against the light of English statutory law which allows local authorities to specify access (and other) fees providing that the amount ‘shall not exceed an amount which the public authority is satisfied is a reasonable amount’. Application in that case is made by a property search group with a view to commercial conveyancing. Sharpston AG on 16 April 2015 opined that even for commercial applicants, authorities’ hands are quite tied. In particular,

• that Article 5(2) of Directive 2003/4 does not authorise a public authority to recover, through a charge for supplying information, all or part of the costs of establishing and maintaining a database in which it has organised the environmental information it holds and which it uses to answer requests for information of the type listed in a questionnaire such as that at issue in the main proceedings.
• that a charge which does not exceed a reasonable amount within the meaning of Article 5(2) of Directive 2003/4 is a charge which: (i) is set on the basis of objective factors that are known and capable of review by a third party; (ii) is calculated regardless of who is asking for the information and for what purpose; (iii) is set at a level that guarantees the objectives of the right of access to environmental information upon request and thus does not dissuade people from seeking access or restrict their right of access; and (iv) is no greater than an amount that is appropriate to the reason why Member States are allowed to make this charge (that is, that a member of the public has made a request for the supply of environmental information) and directly correlated to the act of supplying that information; that
• In particular, a charge of a ‘reasonable amount’ under Article 5(2) of Directive 2003/4 is to be based on the costs actually incurred in connection with the act of supplying environmental information in response to a specific request. That will include the costs of staff time spent on searching for and producing the information requested and the cost of producing it in the form requested (which may vary). However, it is not permissible for such a charge also to seek to recover overheads such as heating, lighting or internal services. And that
• Article 5(2) of Directive 2003/4 requires public authorities to ensure that their charges do not exceed a reasonable amount, judged by the yardstick of what a ‘reasonable amount’ means objectively under EU law. That does not, as such, preclude a rule of national law according to which a public authority must satisfy itself that a charge levied meets that standard, however, Member State to ensure that there is (first) administrative and (then) judicial review of whether a public authority’s decision on what constitutes a reasonable charge is in conformity with the autonomous EU law meaning of what is ‘reasonable’ under Article 5(2) of Directive 2003/4.

In other words: the current wording in the relevant English statute, in the view of the AG, does not infringe the Directive. (It does in my view at least however add a layer of complication: for the authority’s subjective finding of reasonableness subsequently has to be checked, in two tiers of appeal (administrative cq judicial), against the Directive’s objective standard).

Aarhus is considered throughout the appeal and hence Charles Banner’s book on the Aarhus Convention, just out with Hart, a timely publication I would think.

Geert.

La finale européenne du concours de la « European Law Moot Court » se tiendra le 17 avril à la Cour de justice de l'Union européenne à Luxembourg

Cachaldora Fernández
SOPO
La loi espagnole en matière de calcul des pensions d’invalidité permanente est conforme au droit de l’Union

Alimanovic
Selon l’avocat général Melchior Wathelet, les citoyens de l’Union qui se déplacent dans un État membre dont ils n’ont pas la nationalité pour y chercher un emploi peuvent être exclus du bénéfice de certaines prestations sociales

Alimanovic
Selon l’avocat général Melchior Wathelet, les citoyens de l’Union qui se déplacent dans un État membre dont ils n’ont pas la nationalité pour y chercher un emploi peuvent être exclus du bénéfice de certaines prestations sociales

K et A
Espace de liberté, sécurité et justice
Selon l’avocat général Kokott, un État membre peut, en principe, subordonner le regroupement familial d’époux ressortissants de pays tiers à la réussite, par le candidat au regroupement, d’un examen de connaissance de la langue et de la société de cet État

Lafonta
Rapprochement des législations
Pour prévenir tout délit d’initié, une information doit être divulguée au public même si son détenteur ne sait pas quelle influence précise elle aura sur le cours des instruments financiers

Deutsche Börse / Commission
Concurrence
Le Tribunal confirme la décision de la Commission qui interdit l’opération de concentration projetée entre Deutsche Börse et NYSE Euronext

Boston Scientific Medizintechnik
Rapprochement des législations
Lorsqu’un appareil médical présente un défaut potentiel, tous les produits du même modèle peuvent être qualifiés de défectueux