Agrégateur de flux

An impressive Italian monograph of more than 400 pages on jurisdiction in internet cases (‘Il foro dell’obbligazione nata in internet’) has just been published.

The author has kindly provided the following summary:

The book addresses the topic of civil jurisdiction over disputes arising on the Internet, observing it from different perspectives. In the first chapter the Author delves into the United States case law on the so-called “Internet torts”, reaching the conclusion that solutions based on the targeting test could be usefully employed to draft an international convention with the aim of establishing rules in the current confusing scenario. In the second and third chapters the doctrine of forum non conveniens and the phenomenon of libel tourism are explored in-depth. The fourth chapter examines the main decisions issued by the CJEU concerning jurisdiction over contractual and extracontractual liability (including cases such as eDate, Bolagsupplysningen, Pammer, etc.), while the fifth chapter is focused solely on Italian procedural rules and case law. In the last two chapters, starting from the assumed need to ensure the effectiveness of judicial remedies, the problems of the extraterritorial scope of online content removal orders as well as important EU Regulations (mostly the Digital Services Act and the GDPR) are examined, with finally a part on the “Schrems saga” and the EU-US agreements on the transfer of personal data (including the EU-US Data Privacy Framework).

 

A new issue of ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht is now available and includes contributions on EU private law, comparative law and legal history, legal unification, private international law, and individual European private law regimes. The full table of content can be accessed here: https://rsw.beck.de/zeitschriften/zeup.

The following contributions might be of particular interest for the readers of this blog:

• Globaler Klimaschutz und Internationales Privatrecht
  Meik Thöne on climate change and private international law: The consequences of climate change are perceptible worldwide and increasingly reflected in serious cases of damage. If the question is raised whether and how these cases should be compensated, the answer requires the determination of the applicable law but also to consider the relevance of permissions under public law and to determine the limits of private law solutions in order to thereby balance the affected individual rights and public welfare concerns.
• On the Run from the Danish Social Authorities – An Analysis of the Danish Regulations causing a Cross-Border Flight Phenomenon to Evade Social Services’ Interference in Family Life
  Anne Mørk and Hanne Hartoft on the situation in Denmark causing parents to cross borders to evade social services: Some pregnant women are fleeing Denmark to avoid their children being placed in foster care immediately after birth and possibly adopted without their consent. This raises the question of whether Danish legislation is too extreme and at odds with basic human rights principles. In this article, the Danish legislation is analysed in light of the case law from the European Court of Human Rights. The conclusion is that the errors and shortcomings in the processing of cases give reason to be concerned.
• Gründungstheorie qua Niederlassungsfreiheit – eine sehr versteckte Kollisionsnorm? Urteil des EuGH vom 25. April 2024
  Maria-Teresa Kratzer comments on the decision by the ECJ in Edil Work 2, addressing the law applicable to companies.
• Konkludente bzw. fiktive Rechtswahl – Zu den Anforderungen nach Art. 22 II Alt. 2 EuErbVO bzw. Art. 83 IV EuErbVO
  Thomas Sagstetter discusses a decision of the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe on the choice of law in succession matters.

 

The Centre for Private International Law and Transnational Governance of the University of Aberdeen is pleased to announce that it is now accepting submissions for the 3rd Postgraduate Law Conference of the Centre for Private International Law which will take place online on 6 June 2025.  

 Conference Theme: New Dimensions in Private International Law

Original research that addresses the following themes is welcome:

• Commercial Activities and Private International Law

Moderators: Prof Justin Borg Barthet and Prof Burcu Yüksel Ripley

Exploring novel private international law challenges in international commerce and business transactions, including (but not limited to) e-commerce, fintech, and global supply chain governance

• Family life and Private International Law

Moderators: Prof Katarina Trimmings and Mr Le Xuan Tung

Addressing the private international law dimension of family disputes, including (but not limited to) international child custody, adoption, marriage, and succession issues.

• Private International Law in the Digital Age

Moderators: Dr Patricia Zivkovic and Dr Michiel Poesen
Examining the private international law issues that result from advances in digital technology including (but not limited to) AI and digital platforms.

• Maritime Law and Private International Law

Moderator: Ms Luci Carey
Investigating the private international law dimension of maritime governance. 

• Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility

Moderators: Dr Nevena Jevremovic and Dr Francesca Farrington
Evaluating the role of private international law in advancing sustainable development, corporate accountability across borders, and sustainable consumption and production.

 

Eligibility requirement

 The Centre welcomes submissions by current postgraduate law students (LLM, PhD) and recent LLM or PhD graduates who have not yet undertaken postdoctoral studies.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be no longer than 500 words. Applicants should identify the panel they wish to apply to. There is no requirement to submit a paper, and we welcome scholars at the early stages of their research.

The deadline for submissions is 20 March 2025.

For more information and submission guidelines, please see the Centre’s website or contact Mr Le Xuan Tung lexuantung.22@abdn.ac.uk.

The French Journal du Droit International, also known as Clunet after the name of its founder, celebrates its 150th birthday. On this occasion, a celebratory volume will soon be published. It contains 16 articles which each comments on one of the groundbreaking articles published in the Journal in the past decades. In accordance with the […]

The Centre for Private International Law and Transnational Governance of the University of Aberdeen will host, on 6 June 2025, the third Postgraduate Law Conference of the Centre, under the title New Dimensions in Private International Law. The event is an opportunity for early career scholars working in the private international law to come together […]

The CJEU held earlier this morning in C‑393/23 Athenian Brewery SA, Heineken NV v Macedonian Thrace Brewery SA (no language versions available at the time of posting than Dutch and French).

My post on Kokott AG’s Opinion is here. The AG all in all supported a ready acceptance of forum connexitatis in competition law cases – in the case at issue a follow-on damages claim, filed in the mother corporation’s domicile, jointly against the daughter against whom a national competition authority had found a competition law infringement.

The Court is somewhat more cautious.

[26] The finding in CDC that A8(1)’s requirement of ‘same situation of law and fact’ is presumed to be met when various corporations have been held by a Decision of the European Commission to have violated competition law and are now pursued in the A4 court of one of them, also applies [27] when a mother and daughter corporation are pursued on the assumption they are part of one and the same economic unity. Once that unity established, it leads to joint and several liability in EU competition law [29].

[30-31] The risk of irreconcilable judgments  increases in the event of bifurcation of claims against the mother corporation and related undertakings when it is not the EC but rather a national competition authority which has found an infringement seeing [32] as the Damages Directive 2014/104 only instructs national authorities to take a finding of infringement by another Member State as prima facie, not binding evidence of such infringement on their own territory.

[39] ff the economic unit theory in competition law can and ought to be extended to follow-on damages claims so as to preserve the effet utile of EU competition law.

[41] ff focusing then on Brussels Ia, the national court’s jurisdictional assessment in the context of A8(1) is not one of intense engagement with the facts let alone the merits of the claim. [43] The claims by the defendant must be given proper attention however the court seized can presume that the information furnished by the claimant as to the alleged tort, is correct.

[45] all in all, the room for manoeuvre for the court seized in the context of an A8(1) claim aimed at joint and several liability, is limited to assessing whether decisive influence by the mother corporation on the related corporation, is excluded. Hence [46] the defendant corporations must be given the opportunity, at the jurisdictional level, to show only that

either the mother corporation neither directly nor indirectly holds all or almost all of the capital of the related undertaking, or

that it did not hold decisive influence despite holding all or almost all of the capital.

In summary therefore while the court seized in a claim for joint and several liability will not be able to hold a mini trial on the alleged tort, it must engage with the corporations’ arguments on capital control and /or decisive influence.  That is not a large window for extensive delay and argumentation yet neither is it the kind of swift A8(1) check which in my view the AG had in mind in her opinion.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 4th ed. 2024, 2.516.

 

Slagelse Almennyttige Boligselskab Afdeling Schackenborgvænge
Principes du droit communautaire
Avocate générale Ćapeta : la législation danoise en matière de logement public dans les zones en transformation constitue une discrimination directe fondée sur un critère ethnique

Alchaster II
Mandats d’arrêt émis au titre de l’ACC avec le Royaume-Uni : selon l’avocat général Spielmann, les modifications apportées aux règles relatives à la libération conditionnelle ne relèvent pas, en principe, de la notion de « peine plus forte » au sens de la charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne

Lexitor
Environnement et consommateurs
Contrats de crédit à la consommation : en cas de non-respect de l’obligation d’information, une banque peut être privée de son droit aux intérêts

A webinar of the International Law Association (ILA) Committee on Conflict of Laws Issues in International Arbitration will take place on 18 February 2025. The webinar will be held in two sessions with identical content, to accommodate participants around the world. Here are the zoom links: Session 1 (8 AM London, 9 AM Berlin, 4 PM […]

With the trend of globalization, legal exchange and cooperation, even competition and conflict between nations have become the norm. The demand for legal services in cross-border investment, international trade, and transnational dispute resolution is also sharply on the rise. As the world’s second-largest economy, China’s legal system is playing an increasingly significant role in cross-border legal services. However, the international legal community generally does not have much understanding of China’s foreign-related legal system and practice. There is a need for a platform that can, systematically and timely, provide information for the Chinese foreign-related legal development including updating China’s foreign-related legal policy, explaining the making and amending of relevant Chinese laws and reporting Chinese foreign-related cases etc.

For this purpose, we, Everwin Law Firm, the first legal firm in China appointed by the Ministry of Justice as “one with special focus on foreign-related economic and trade legal affairs”, take the responsibility to launch this English Bulletin titled “Chinese International Lawyers”, which is hopefully to be further developed as a legal journal in the future.

We are committed to the mission of “Telling China’s Foreign-related Legal Story, Sharing China’s Foreign-related Legal Wisdom and Promoting Global Legal Exchange.” By providing accurate and timely updates, high-quality analytical reviews, in-depth case studies and forward-looking insights, we aim at offering the international legal community a panorama on the distinctive feature and practical achievements of China’s foreign-related legal affairs.

We sincerely invite researchers and practitioners working in the field of foreign-related laws, from China and abroad, to submit their work to us and your contribution is highly appreciated.

We look forward to working together with you!

I. Main Contents to Be Covered

Generally, this Bulletin will cover the contents as listed below with the possible addition of other relevant interesting materials:

1.Analytical Readings of China’s Foreign-Related Legal Policies;

2. Introduction and Comments on China’s Latest Foreign-Related Legislations, Regulations and Their Amendments;

3. Reports on Typical Chinese Foreign-related Cases and Professional Practices;

4. Chinese Perspectives on Topical International Legal Issues;

5. Presentations on Legal Cooperation between China and Other Countries including Those along the Line of “Belt and Road Initiative”.

II. Submission Guidelines

As mentioned, we welcome submissions from scholars and practitioners working in the field of foreign-related laws including researchers from universities, think tanks and research institutes and judges, lawyers, notaries and government officers etc.

Submissions can be made in English or Chinese but must be written in clear, precise and professional language. Chinese submissions will be translated into English by us with due recognition of the author’s and translator’s copyright.

The word limit for each submission shall be within 15,000 words in English (including footnotes) and 25,000 words in Chinese (including footnotes) and shall comply with the general standard format. For English submissions, please refer to the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA); for Chinese submissions, please refer to the general standard published by the China Law Society.

Please submit your manuscript via email to CIL@everwinlawyer.cn with a cover letter containing a brief biography and contact details of the author.

Editorial Board
Chinese International Lawyers Bulletin

Albausy (Case C-187/23 issued on January 25, 2025) evolves around the question of competence to submit a request for preliminary ruling under the Succession Regulation (Regulation 650/2012 on matters of succession and the creation of a European Certificate of Succession).

Although the CJEU finds that the request in that case is inadmissible, the decision is noteworthy because it confirms the system of the Succession Regulation. Within the regulation, the competence to submit questions for preliminary ruling is reserved for national courts that act as judicial bodies and are seized with a claim over which they have jurisdiction based on Succession Regulation’s rules on jurisdiction.

The opinion of Advocate General Campos Sánchez-Bordona is available here.

Essence

Under the Succession Regulation, national courts resolve disputes by issuing a decision; the decisions circulate in the EU following the regulation’s Chapter IV rules on enforcement. Meanwhile, a broader number of national authorities apply the regulation and may have the competence to issue issue a European Certificate of Succession (see primarily Recitals 20 and 70). A European Certificate of Succession circulates in the EU based on the regulation’s Chapter VI. It has primarily an evidential authority as one of an authentic act.

In Albausy, the CJEU confirms that if a national court’s task in a specific case is confined to issuing a European Certificate of Succession, this court (within this task) has no competence to submit questions for preliminary ruling to the CJEU. This is so even if the court has doubts relating to the regulation’s interpretation, and this is so despite the fact that a court is, in principle, part of a Member State’s judicial system in the sense of art. 267 TFEU.

Facts

The facts of this case are as follows. A French national, last domiciled in Germany, died in 2021. The surviving spouse applied for a European Certificate of Succession. The deceased’s son and grandchildren challenged the validity of the will. They questioned the testamentary capacity of the deceased and the authenticity of their signature. The referring German court (Amtsgericht Lörrach) found these challenges unfounded.

However, given the challenges raised, the court had doubts about the way proceed. It has submitted four questions to CJEU. The questions have remained unanswered, because the CJEU considered the request inadmissible. Still, several points regarding the Court’s considerations are noteworthy.

‘Challenge’

In the motivation part of the ruling, the CJEU addresses the concept of ‘challenge’ under art. 67(1) of the Succession Regulation. The CJEU defines it broadly. It can be a challenge raised during the procedure for issuing a European Certificate of Succession. It can also be a challenge raised in other proceedings. The concept includes even challenges that ‘appear to be unfounded or unsubstantiated’, as was the case in the view of the referring court. The court warned in particular against frivolous challenges that might impede legal certainty in the application of the regulation.

According to the CJEU, any challenge to the requirements for issuing a European Certificate of Succession raised during the procedure for issuing it precludes the issuance of that certificate. In the event of such a challenge, the authority must not decide on their substance. Instead, the authority should refuse to issue the certificate

Meanwhile, the CJEU reminds that the concept of ‘challenge’ within the meaning of art. 67(1) of the Succession Regulation does not cover those that have already been rejected by a final decision given by a judicial authority in (other) court proceedings. If and when a decision to reject a challenge becomes final (in proceedings other than the issuing of a European Certificate of Succession), this challenge does not preclude the issuing of a European Certificate of Succession.

Redress

The CJEU elaborates on one option available in the situation where the issuing of the certificate is refused because of a challenge. One can use the redress procedure provided for in Article 72 of the Succession Regulation. It allows to dispute the refusal of the issuing authority before a judicial authority in the Member State of the issuing authority. Within the redress procedure, the judicial authority handling the redress procedure may examine the merits of the challenges that prevented the certificate from being issued. If the challenge is rejected through this redress procedure, and the decision becomes final, it no longer precludes the issuance of the European Certificate of Succession.

The ruling and earlier case law

In Albausy, the CJEU follows the line of its earlier case law. This is namely not the first time the CJEU has dealt with cognate questions, as reported inter alia here. The Court has already clarified that although various authorities in Member States apply the Succession Regulation, not any authority may submit a question for a preliminary ruling regarding the interpretation of the regulation. For instance, a notary public may in most cases not submit questions for preliminary ruling. Notaries are not part of the judicial system in most Member States within the meaning of the art. 267 TFEU (possible complications or deviations admitted by the Succession Regulation being addressed in Recital 20 of the Succession Regulation).

The Court’s reasoning in Albausy confirms that this bar also covers requests for preliminary rulings from national courts that act only as ‘authority,’ not as judicial body in the regulation’s application. Thus, a double test is to be performed: the test of the Succession Regulation’s system and definitions (authority or judicial body, without forgetting the Recitals 20 and 70, still somewhat puzzling in this context) and the test of art. 267 TFEU.

On 11 February 2025, the European Commission adopted its 2025 work programme, titled Moving forward together: A Bolder, Simpler, Faster Union. Consistent with the political priorities set out last year for the period 2024-2029, the programme contemplates measures aimed, inter alia, at strengthening economic competitiveness, responding to geopolitical instability, addressing migration and climate change and safeguarding European […]

This post was written by Lukas Petschning, University of Vienna.

Conflict of laws is one of the most complex and disputed subject areas in international arbitration. An abundance of academic works has examined the issue and proposed widely diverging solutions. Yet, these studies frequently focus on isolated issues and lack overall consistency. Equally, they are often overly theoretical, lacking practical guidance useful to the average arbitrator or judge.

Forging a path toward more legal certainty, the International Law Association has established a new Committee on Conflict-of-Laws Issues in International Arbitration. It is chaired by Dr Nikolaus Pitkowitz and Ms Wendy Lin, with Professor Matthias Lehmann and Dr Mariel Dimsey acting as co-rapporteurs.

The Committee plans to exercise its mandate in three phases from 2025 to 2030. Initially, a general methodology for the resolution of conflict-of-laws issues faced by arbitrators and supervisory courts will be developed. In the second phase, the Committee will transform this methodology into draft principles, which shall provide a harmonious approach to all or most conflict-of-laws issues which may arise in the context of international arbitration. The principles will be sufficiently precise to enable their citation as soft law by arbitral tribunals or courts on specific subject matters. In a third phase, the Committee will explore the advisability of developing hard law rules, e.g. in the form of treaties, model laws, or amendments to existing institutional rules.

The Committee is excited to announce its first webinar, introducing its mandate, the envisaged timeline of the Committee’s work, and the principal issues likely to be discussed. All interested individuals are expressly encouraged to participate via the following Zoom links; prior registration is not necessary.

The webinar will be held in two sessions on 18 February 2025, to enable participation from most time zones:

Session 1 (Asia, Oceania, EMEA): 8am (London) / 4pm (Hong Kong) / 7pm (Sydney)
Session 2 (Americas, EMEA): 8am (US Pacific) / 11am (US Eastern) / 4pm (London)

The Committee can be reached via email at ILA-CLC-Committee@pitkowitz.com.

More information on the Committee’s work can be found here.

On 20 February 2025, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan will host a seminar in English titled International Successions between EU Member States and Turkey. The main speaker will be Biset Sena Güneş (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg), while Gregor Christandl (University of Graz) will intervene as […]

Engagement solennel de trois membres de la Commission européenne

Readers of the EAPIL Blog may recall that in late 2023 the High Court of England and Wales applied the forum non conveniens doctrine and refused to hear the dispute in Limbu v Dyson Technology Ltd [2023] EWHC 2592 (KB), thus giving the defendants what I called a ‘Brexit Dividend’. I set out the facts […]

After the first successful conferences in Aarhus (2022) and Wroclaw (2024), the European Association of Private International Law is set to hold its next conference in Geneva, on 18, 19 and 20 June 2026. The title chosen for the conference is Shaping the Future of Private International Law in Europe. Further details on both the […]

Servis-Terminal LLC v Drelle [2025] EWCA Civ 62 is an interesting case highlighting the difference between recognition and enforcement, and the circumstances in which one may not need formal recognition of a foreign court’s finding, in order effectively to enforce that finding. 

Can a bankruptcy petition be presented when payment ordered by foreign Court has not been made yet foreign judgment has not been sought to be enforced? The first instance judge had held [Drelle v Servis-Terminal LLC [2024] EWHC 521 (Ch)] that the fact that the Judgment had not been the subject of recognition proceedings in this jurisdiction did not prevent it from being the basis of a bankruptcy petition. 

Newey LJ [40], reversing, confirms that “(p)lainly, a foreign judgment can be determinative on a point even in the absence of recognition or registration.” Referring to Dicey Rule 45, the Court of Appeal recalls that as a general principle a foreign judgment “has no direct operation in England” and [39] “[a] judgment creditor seeking to enforce a foreign judgment in England at common law cannot do so by direct execution of the judgment” but “must bring an action on the foreign judgment”. Lord Justice Newey then uses a sword and shield analogy: [41]

The principle that a foreign judgment “has no direct operation in England” reflects the common law’s aversion to enforcing a foreign exercise of sovereign power. As Professor Briggs has explained, “if a foreign adjudication and judgment is understood as being an act of state sovereignty, … it is regarded as completely effective within the territory of the sovereign, and as completely unenforceable outside it”: see paragraph 21 above. That logic suggests that any use of an unrecognised and unregistered judgment as a “sword”, including presentation of a bankruptcy petition founded on it, is objectionable.

The ‘revenue rule’ (famously and extensively entertained in SKAT) [42]

has a similar root. Professor Briggs referred to it as “a particular manifestation of a more fundamental rule, that an assertion or exercise of the sovereign right of a foreign state will not be enforced by an English court”: see paragraph 21 above. In Solo Partners, Lord Lloyd-Jones thought that the “revenue rule” was to be explained on the basis that “enforcement of a claim for taxes is but an extension of the sovereign power which imposed the taxes, and … an assertion of sovereign authority by one state within the territory of another, as distinct from a patrimonial claim by a foreign sovereign, is (treaty or convention apart) contrary to all concepts of independent sovereignties”: see paragraph 20 above.

Further authorities re discussed however Newey LJ’s mind is firm on the ‘shield and sword’ issue: [55] an unrecognised foreign judgment, which …involves an exercise of sovereign power [similar to a foreign tax not giving rise to a debt that can be the foundation of a bankruptcy petition] cannot form the basis of such petition. Of note! Geert. https://x.com/GAVClaw/status/1886740770033438751

The Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) has rendered an important decision to solve conflicts between several forum selection agreements. Facts An Austrian company had sub-contracted a German company to perform construction works in Germany. The main agreement contained a clause giving jurisdiction for any dispute to a German court. However, in two additional agreements, jurisdiction was […]