On 18 June 2018, Professor Dr. Christian Kohler, former General Director at the CJEU and honorary professor for private international law, European civil procedural law and comparative law at the University of Saarbrücken, celebrated his 75th birthday. On this occasion, numerous colleagues and friends both from the CJEU and European academia contributed to a liber amicorum in his honour: Burkhard Hess, Erik Jayme and Heinz-Peter Mansel (eds.), Europa als Rechts- und Lebensraum, Liber amicorum für Christian Kohler, Gieseking Verlag (Bielefeld) 2018; XII and 596 pp.; ISBN: 978-3-7694-1199-7. The volume contains 44 articles (mostly) on private international law in English, French and German (moreover, it features a touching French poem by Catherine Kessedjian). The full table of contents and further information are available at the publisher’s website here.
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.
La Commission européenne a engagé une procédure d’infraction à l’encontre de la Pologne en lui adressant, ce 2 juillet, une lettre de mise en demeure concernant une loi sur sa Cour suprême.
Saisi de la question de la conformité à la Constitution du « délit de solidarité » prévu par les articles L. 622-1 et L. 622-4 du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile, le Conseil constitutionnel estime que l’aide apportée à la circulation de l’étranger en situation irrégulière, motivée par un but humanitaire, ne doit pas être sanctionnée pénalement au nom du principe de fraternité.
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
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