Agrégateur de flux

The Court of Justice delivered today its judgment in case C‑307/19 (Obala i lučice d.o.o. v NLB Leasing d.o.o.), which is about Brussels I bis, notaries and recovery of unpaid parking ticket on public roads. It applies Articles 1 and 7.1 whilst rejecting the application of Article 24.1. The judgment is currently available in all EU official languages (save Irish), albeit not in English. Here is the French version (to check whether an English translation has finally been made available, just click on the link below and change the language version):

“1) L’article 1er, paragraphe 1, du règlement (UE) no 1215/2012 […] doit être interprété en ce sens que relève de la notion de « matière civile et commerciale », au sens de cette disposition, une action en recouvrement d’une redevance portant sur un ticket journalier de stationnement sur une place de parking,  qui est délimitée et située sur la voie publique, diligentée par une société qui a été mandatée par une collectivité territoriale pour la gestion de telles places de parking.

2) L’article 24, point 1, du règlement no 1215/2012 doit être interprété en ce sens que ne relève pas de la notion de « baux d’immeubles », au sens de cette disposition, une action en recouvrement d’une redevance portant sur un ticket journalier de stationnement sur une place de parking délimitée, située sur la voie publique.

3) L’article 7, point 1, du règlement no 1215/2012 doit être interprété en ce sens, d’une part, que relève de la « matière contractuelle », au sens de cette disposition, une action en recouvrement d’une redevance qui est née d’un contrat ayant pour objet le stationnement sur l’une des places de parking délimitées, situées sur la voie publique, organisées et gérées par une société mandatée à cette fin et, d’autre part, que ce contrat constitue un contrat de fourniture de services, au sens de l’article 7, point 1, sous b), second tiret, de ce règlement ».

Source : https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=239289&pageIndex=0&doclang=fr&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=587569

Le président de la chambre de l’instruction ne détient pas le pouvoir de rendre une ordonnance de non-admission d’un appel formé contre une ordonnance de saisie pénale. 

en lire plus

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries et Ranbaxy (UK) / Commission
Concurrence
La Cour de justice rejette les pourvois de plusieurs fabricants de médicaments impliqués dans l’entente visant à retarder la commercialisation du générique de l’antidépresseur citalopram

Due to the uncertainties regarding the corona situation, the Scientific Council of EAPIL has decided to postpone the Aarhus EAPIL Conference to 2-4 June 2022.

Again, Aarhus University has offered to host the conference.

Participants who have previously chosen to transfer their registration/fee to the 2021 conference will be contacted directly by e-mail and offered to transfer their registration to 2022 or be reimbursed.

The program for the conference remains unchanged and many of the speakers have already confirmed their attendance once again.

EAPIL is confident that all the speakers will join the Aarhus Conference in 2022.

Registration for the 2022 EAPIL Aarhus Conference will be announced on both the Aarhus Conference and EAPIL website and is expected to open mid-April 2021.

Back in November 2020, we reported about the Opinion delivered by Advocate General Bobek in the case Obala i lucice, C-307/19, in which he revisited the case law built upon the judgment of the Court of Justice in Pula Parking, C-551/15. This Thursday, the Court rendered its judgment in the case in question.

Legal and factual context

In brief summary, a daily parking ticket is issued for a car left in an on-street parking. A Croatian parking management entity commences enforcement proceedings for recovery of the parking ticket debt with a notary. The notarial writ of execution issued against a Slovenian company is challenged by the latter and two Croatian courts consider themselves lacking jurisdiction to hear the case. The case is then transferred to the referring court in order for it to deal with the negative conflict of competence.

A more extensive presentation of the legal and factual context of the case can be consulted in the previous post.

Questions/issues addressed

In his Opinion, at the request of the Court, AG Bobek did not address all the questions referred for a preliminary ruling. Opinion is confined to Questions 1 to 3 and 5 to 7. Not all the Questions addressed in the judgment either, yet for a different reason.

On the one hand, the Court considered that the questions pertaining to the Service Regulation (Questions 1 and 3) were inadmissible (paragraph 51). The referring court is facing a negative conflict of competence and the request for a preliminary ruling does not specify why this court takes the view that the resolution of the case in the main proceedings depends on the interpretation of the Service Regulation. It is worth noticing that this Regulation has been interpreted by AG Bobek in his Opinion, at points 88 to 105.

On similar grounds, the Court considered inadmissible the questions on to compatibility with Article 56 TFEU of the presumption that a contract is concluded by the act of parking in a designated space (on-street parking) (Questions 4 and, partially, 9). The referring court failed to expose the reasons that prompted it to inquire about the compatibility of that presumption with EU law (paragraph 52).

On the other hand, as mentioned in the previous post, the facts underlying the case pending before the national courts predate the accession of Croatia to the EU. Therefore, the Court considered itself not competent to answer the question on the interpretation of the Rome I and Rome II Regulations (Questions 8 and, partially, 9), these Regulation being not applicable ratione temporis to the facts in question (paragraph 58).

Thus, the Court was left with the remaining issues, namely, whether an action for payment of a debt relating to the unpaid public parking ticket is a dispute relating to ‘civil and commercial matters’ within the meaning of the Brussels I bis Regulation (Question 2), whether the special ground of jurisdiction for rights in rem is applicable to that action (Question 6) and, if it is not the case, whether the grounds of jurisdiction for contract/tort may be relied on by the applicant (Questions 5 and 7).

Notion of ‘civil and commercial matters’

According to the Court’s answer, an action for payment of a daily parking ticket, issued for parking in a designated space, in an on-street parking, imposed by a parking management entity falls within the scope of the notion of ‘civil and commercial matters’ (paragraph 73). This answer is preceded by a fine-grained analysis, accompanied by multiple references to the case law (paragraphs 59 et seq.).

The analysis carried out by the Court should be of a particular interest as it cannot be excluded that much can be inferred from it as to the qualification of a ‘civil and commercial matter’. To that effect, it could potentially be read against the background of the Opinion presented by AG Bobek. In fact, at its points 39 to 54, he distinguished two approaches adopted by the Court in its case law in order to establish whether the Regulations on ‘civil and commercial matters’ are applicable in a specific case. He defined them as ‘subject matter’ and ‘legal relationship’ approaches, and it was the latter that he favoured in the case at hand. Such parallel reading could be also supplemented by the lecture of remarks on that very issue made by one of the commentators.

Special ground of jurisdiction for rights in rem

Reiterating the autonomous nature of qualification that needs to be exercised in relation to Article 24(1) of the Brussels I bis Regulation, regardless of the qualification that the legal relationship receives under national law (paragraph 79), the Court held, in essence, that an action for payment of a daily parking ticket, issued for parking in a designated space, in an on-street parking, cannot be considered as an action brought in proceedings which have as their object ‘tenancies of immovable property’ (paragraph 80).

Contract/tort

Addressing ultimately the contract/tort distinction, the Court held that the action in question falls within the scope of Article 7(1) of the Brussels I bis Regulation (paragraph 89).

Next, referring to the Opinion, it considered that the ‘parking contract in question in the main proceedings’ can be qualified as a ‘contract for the provision of services’ in the sense of Article 7(1)(b) of the Regulation (paragraph 97).

 

The judgment itself can be consulted here (so far in French), with the request for a preliminary ruling being available here.

 

 

Carvalho e.a. / Parlement et Conseil
Environnement et consommateurs
La Cour de justice confirme l’irrecevabilité du recours introduit par des familles originaires de l’Union européenne, du Kenya et des îles Fidji contre le « paquet climat » de l’Union de 2018

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries et Ranbaxy (UK) / Commission
Concurrence
La Cour de justice rejette les pourvois de plusieurs fabricants de médicaments impliqués dans l’entente visant à retarder la commercialisation du générique de l’antidépresseur citalopram

Deutsche Telekom / Commission
Concurrence
La Cour rejette les pourvois introduits par Slovak Telekom et Deutsche Telekom contre les arrêts du Tribunal relatifs aux pratiques anticoncurrentielles sur le marché slovaque des télécommunications

On 26 and 29 March 2021, the European Commission will host a webinar on the use of artificial intelligence technologies in the field of justice.

This will be the first in a series of events, which are a follow-up to the Communication of the Commission itself on the Digitalisation of Justice in the European Union of 2 December 2020 (reported here on this blog).

The topic of the first webinar is the Anonymisation and pseudonymisation of judicial decisions.

The webinar will bring together representatives of the academia, the private sector and the Member States with the aim to further discussions, in particular on publication of judicial decisions practices, including online publication, provision of judicial decisions as open data, approaches towards the protection of personal data, techniques for anonymisation and pseudonymisation of judicial decisions, existing projects and solutions at the national level and solutions available on the market…

Speakers include Eero Hyvönen (Aalto University and University of Helsinki), Monica Palmirani (University of Bologna), Edita Gruodytė (Vytautas Magnus University) and Louis Béziaud (University of Rennes).

The full program is available here. For the web streaming service see here (26 March) and here (29 March).

The Court of Justice delivered today its very interesting judgment in case C‑603/20 PPU (SS v MCP) on Article 10 Brussels II bis.

The question: “By its question, the referring court seeks to ascertain, in essence, whether Article 10 of Regulation No 2201/2003 must be interpreted as meaning that, if the finding is made that a child has acquired, at the time when the application relating to parental responsibility is brought, his or her habitual residence in a third State following abduction to that State, the courts of the Member State where the child was habitually resident immediately before his or her abduction, retain their jurisdiction indefinitely”.

The response: “Article 10 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 […] must be interpreted as meaning that it is not applicable to a situation where a finding is made that a child has, at the time when an application relating to parental responsibility is brought, acquired his or her habitual residence in a third State following abduction to that State. In that situation, the jurisdiction of the court seised will have to be determined in accordance with the applicable international conventions, or, in the absence of any such international convention, in accordance with Article 14 of that regulation”.

Source:

https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=239243&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=353488

The JURI Committee released today an Opinion on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on amending Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community institutions and bodies (Rapporteur: Jiří Pospíšil, PE661.912v02-00, 23 March 2021)

Source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/JURI-AD-661912_EN.pdf

On Access to Justice, the EU and the Aarhus Convention, see, for example, E. Guinchard and M.-P. Granger, Sisyphus in Luxembourg, in E. Guinchard and M-P Granger, “The New EU Judiciary”, Kluwer, December 2017. 375, spec. p. 377 in fine ff. (available at https://europeanciviljustice.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/sisyphus-in-luxembourg.pdf).

On 22 March 2021, the JURI Committee of the European Parliament (Adrián Vázquez Lázara, on behalf of) asked a question to the European Commission (Question for oral answer O-000022/2021) on the Accession of the UK to the Lugano II Convention:

“Cooperation between the EU and the UK on civil and commercial justice is fundamental for citizens, businesses and public administrations alike. The lack of provisions in this regard in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has given rise to legal uncertainty for all Member States.

The UK applied to accede to the Lugano Convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters on 8 April 2020. According to Article 72(3) of the Convention, the European Union must endeavour to give its consent at the latest within one year after the transmission by the Depositary to the Contracting Parties of the application made by the United Kingdom. This deadline will expire on 14 April 2021.

1. What is the Commission’s position on the possible accession of the United Kingdom to the Convention?

2. What requirements does the Commission consider that the UK should meet for its application to be accepted?

3. According to the Commission, to what extent would the Hague Conference allow for the same level of cooperation on jurisdiction and recognition and enforcement of judgements in civil and commercial matters?”

One eagerly waits for the response!

Source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/O-9-2021-000022_EN.html

Earlier this month, the Council on General Affairs and Policy of the HCCH met, from 1 to 5 March 2021. Work continues on several legislative projects whilst others seem only now legislative in name as no binding instrument properly speaking is foreseen anymore. Signature of the 2019 Judgments Convention is growing.

conclusions-decisions-cgap-hcch-march-2021Download

The conclusions and decisions are attached.

Source: https://www.hcch.net/en/news-archive/details/?varevent=794

Durée du travail

Contrat de travail - Exécution

Contrat de travail - Exécution

Statut collectif de travail