Agrégateur de flux

Avocat

Responsabilité contractuelle

Liquidation judiciaire

Contrat de travail - rupture

Entreprise en difficulté

On May 4th, 2021, the European Commission issued a Communication offering its Assessment on the application of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to accede to the 2007 Lugano Convention.

The Communication offers the Commission’s analysis on the application and explains why it considers that the EU should not give its consent to the accession of the United Kingdom to the Lugano Convention.

Nature of the Lugano Convention

The Communication explains that the Lugano Convention represents an essential feature of a common area of justice and is a flanking measure for the EU’s economic relations with the EFTA/EEA countries.  Thus, the Lugano Convention supports the EU’s relationship with third countries which have a particularly close regulatory integration with the EU, including by aligning with (parts of) the EU acquis. Though the Convention is, in principle, open to accession of “any other State” upon invitation from the Depositary upon unanimous agreement of the Contracting Parties, it is not the appropriate general framework for judicial cooperation with any given third country. The Convention is based on a high level of mutual trust among the Contracting Parties and represents an essential feature of a common area of justice commensurate to the high degree of economic interconnection based on the applicability of the four freedoms.

International framework for the EU’s civil justice cooperation with third countries

As a consequence, the European Commission argues that the appropriate framework for cooperation with third countries in the field of civil judicial cooperation is provided by the multilateral Hague Conventions, i.e. the 2005 Hague Choice of Court Convention and the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention.

Conclusion

The Commission concludes:

In view of the above, the Commission takes the view that the European Union should not give its consent to the accession of the United Kingdom to the 2007 Lugano Convention. For the European Union, the Lugano Convention is a flanking measure of the internal market and relates to the EU-EFTA/EEA context. In relation to all other third countries the consistent policy of the European Union is to promote cooperation within the framework of the multilateral Hague Conventions. The United Kingdom is a third country without a special link to the internal market. Therefore, there is no reason for the European Union to depart from its general approach in relation to the United Kingdom. Consequently, the Hague Conventions should provide the framework for future cooperation between the European Union and the United Kingdom in the field of civil judicial cooperation.

The Commission then advises:

Stakeholders concerned, and in particular practitioners engaged in cross-border contractual matters involving the European Union, should take this into account when making a choice of international jurisdiction.

Arthur Poon recently published an article with International and Comparative Law Quarterly titled: “Determining the Place of Performance under Article 7(1) of the Brussels I Recast.”

The abstract reads as follows:

“This article calls for a reassessment of the methodology in determining the place of contractual performance under Article 7(1) of the Brussels I Regulation Recast. The first part of the article deals with Article 7(1)(a). It argues that in light of the adoption of autonomous linking factors under Article 7(1)(b), more types of contracts presently not covered within the ambits of Article 7(1)(b) should centralise jurisdiction at the places of performance of their characteristic obligations. The second part of the article considers the way Article 7(1) operates when there are multiple places of performance under the contract. The test devised by the Court of Justice of the European Union in this regard is not only difficult to apply, but the application of the test also often does not guarantee a close connection between the claim and the court taking jurisdiction. This article argues that when a claim is made in respect of a contractual obligation to be performed in more than one Member State, Article 4 should be applied instead of Article 7(1).”

The new issue of the AJ Contrat (12/2020) offers a series of articles (in French) compiled by Gustavo Cerqueira (University of Nîmes, France), concerning the CISG on the occasion of its 40th anniversary. 

The dossier contains the following articles:

The challenge of uniform interpretation, by Claude Witz (Saarland University) 

The CISG’s articulation with the European Union Law, by Cyril Nourissat (University of Lyon 3)

Back on the parties’ silence about the GISG’s application, by Gustavo Cerqueira (University of Nîmes) and Nicolas Nord (University of Strasbourg)

The Vienna Convention and the action directe: back on dangerous liaisons, by Etienne Farnoux (University of Strasbourg)

The links between the foreclosure period and the deadline prescription period (about CISG’s Article 39), by Marc Mignot (University of Strasbourg)

The issue of interest rates on arrears, by Franco Ferrari (New York University)

For a reinterpretation of the concept of impediment to perform, by Ludovic Pailler (University of Lyon 3)

The full table of contents is available here.

EFFORTS (Towards more EFfective enFORcemenT of claimS in civil and commercial matters within the EU) is an EU-funded Project conducted by the University of Milan (coord.), the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law, the University of Heidelberg, the Free University of Brussels, the University of Zagreb, and the University of Vilnius.

The EFFORTS Project tackles, notably, the Brussels Ibis Regulation and the Regulations on the European Enforcement Order, the European Small Claims Procedure, the European Payment Order, and the European Account Preservation Order. By investigating the implementation of these Regulations in the national procedural law of, respectively, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, and Luxembourg, the Project aims at enhancing the enforcement of claims through more efficient procedures, case management, and cooperation in cross-border disputes.

The second EFFORTS Newsletter has just been released, giving access to up-to-date information about the Project, save-the-dates on forthcoming events, conferences and webinars, and news from the area of international and comparative civil procedural law.

Regular updates are also available via the Project’s LinkedIn and Facebook pages.

Project JUST-JCOO-AG-2019-881802
With financial support from the Civil Justice Programme of the European Union

The European Group of Private International Law (EGPIL-GEDIP) has published the minutes (in French) of its 2020 Meeting.

The topics discussed during the meeting included a proposal for a regulation concerning the applicable law to in rem rights, the codification of the general part of EU private international law and the accession of the European Union to the Hague Judgments Convention.

The EGPIL has also published separately a draft proposal for a regulation on the law applicable to rights in rem in tangible assets and Observations on the possible accession of the European Union to the Hague Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition of Foreign Judgments.