Agrégateur de flux

Qualifying ‘consumers’ on social media and in the case of assignment. Bobek AG in Schrems v Facebook.

GAVC - lun, 11/20/2017 - 10:12

Bobek AG must have picked up his knack for colourful language at Teddy Hall. His Opinion last week in C-498/16 Schrems v Facebook is a delight and one does best service to it by simply inviting one reads it. Now, that must not absolve me of my duty to report succinctly on its contents – the Court itself I imagine will be equally short shrift with claimant’s arugments.

When I asked my students in the August exam to comment on the case, I simply gave them the preliminary questions and asked them how the CJEU should answer them:

1 Is Article 15 of Regulation 44/2001 to be interpreted as meaning that a ‘consumer’ within the meaning of that provision loses that status, if, after the comparatively long use of a private Facebook account, he publishes books in connection with the enforcement of his claims, on occasion also delivers lectures for remuneration, operates websites, collects donations for the enforcement of his claims and has assigned to him the claims of numerous consumers on the assurance that he will remit to them any proceeds awarded, after the deduction of legal costs?

2. Is Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 to be interpreted as meaning that a consumer in a Member State can also invoke at the same time as his own claims arising from a consumer supply at the claimant’s place of jurisdiction the claims of others consumers on the same subject who are domiciled

a. In the same Member State, b. In another Member State: or c. In a non-Member State,

if the claims assigned to him arise from consumer supplies involving the same defendant in the same legal context and if the assignment is not part of a professional or trade activity of the applicant, but rather serves to ensure the joint enforcement of claims?

 

The long and the short of the case is whether the concept of ‘consumer’ under the protected categories of Brussels I (and Recast) is a dynamic or a static one; and what kind of impact assignment has on jurisdiction for protected categories.

On the first issue, I expected my students to point to the CJEU’s precedent of applying the Regulation with a view to predictability and legal certainty; specifically for consumers, to Gruber and the burden of proof in cases of dual use; and to the Court’s judgment in Emrek. Other than the last issue, the AG points to all. Predictability points to a static approach: I would suggest the AG is right. Bobek AG does leave the door ajar for a dynamic interpretation: at 39: in exptional cases, a ‘dynamic’ approach to consumer status should not be entirely excluded. This could be potentially relevant in the event that a contract does not specify its aim, or it is open to different uses, and it lasts a long period of time, or is even indeterminate. It is conceivable that in such cases, the purpose for which a certain contractual service is used might change — not just partially, but even completely. Social media contracts may lead to such circumstances, one imagines, however there would be many ifs and buts to such analysis: including, I would suggest, the terms of the contract wich the service provider initially drew up.

On the issue of assignment the AG’s approach is entirely logical and not surprising: evidently Herr Schrems cannot have claims assigned to him and then exercise those claims using any other jurisdictional prerogatives then present in the original claim. While these may allow him to sue in the forum actoris of the original consumer, there is no valid argument whatsoever to suggest he could join them to his own domicile. The arguments made de lege ferenda (need for forum shopping in collective consumer redress) are justifiably rejected.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.8.2.

 

Droit au procès équitable et incitation au délit

Par une décision du 2 novembre 2017, la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme juge irrecevable la requête alléguant une incitation au délit dans le cadre d’une opération d’achats tests de stupéfiants menée par des agents de police infiltrés.

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Catégories: Flux français

Deference to Foreign Sovereign Submissions

Conflictoflaws - ven, 11/17/2017 - 19:34

As previously reported here, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision in 2016 reversing a $147.8 million price-fixing judgment against two Chinese manufacturers of Vitamin C. The plaintiffs alleged that the Chinese manufacturers engaged in price fixing and supply manipulation in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. In its first ever appearance as an amicus before a U.S. court, the Chinese government filed a formal statement asserting that Chinese law required the Chinese manufacturers to set prices and reduce the quantities of Vitamin C sold abroad. Relying on this statement, the Second Circuit held that because the Chinese manufacturers could not comply with both Chinese law and the U.S. antitrust laws, principles of international comity compelled dismissal of the case.

This case raises a host of interesting questions. First, did the Second Circuit reach the right result? Second, is this a comity case or a foreign sovereign compulsion case? Third, what level of deference is due to a foreign sovereign that appears in private litigation to explain their country’s laws? Fourth, should U.S. judges defer to such an explanation?

In June 2017, the United States Supreme Court called for the views of the United States.  This past Tuesday, the Solicitor General (SG) filed this brief in response to the Court’s order.

In this submission, the SG explains that the Court should grant review of the Second Circuit’s decision in order to review the court of appeals’ holding that the Chinese government’s submission conclusively established the content of Chinese law.  According to the SG, “a foreign government’s characterization of its own law is entitled to substantial weight, but it is not conclusive.”  The SG argues that the case warrants the Court’s review because “[t]he degree of deference that a court owes to a foreign government’s characterization of its own law is an important and recurring question, and foreign sovereigns considering making their views known to federal courts should understand the standards that will be applied to their submissions.”

Should the Court grant review, the question of what standard should be applied to foreign sovereign submissions will be key.  This is a question I have explored here.

It will be interesting to see whether the Court accepts the SG’s request to review the Second Circuit’s decision.

Delta Lloyd v Witsen (in re Kontiki): On the relevance of tidiness in GTCS.

GAVC - ven, 11/17/2017 - 10:10

Thank you Stefanie Roosen for flagging the issue in what after a bit of searching I take it to be Delta Lloyd v Witsen. At issue is not immediately a conflict of laws concern however the case does highlight a discussion often occurring with respect to choice of court and choice of law: when do mere references to general terms and conditions (GTCS) become binding upon parties, all the more so when these refer to industry standards. Here: HISWA standards, the ‘Nederlandsche Vereeniging voor Handel en Industrie op het Gebied van Scheepsbouw en Watersport’ est.1932.  The Netherlands are a seafaring nation: HISWA is big.

During repairs to the yacht Kontiki, the rear cable of the shipyard’s portal crane broke, the Kontiki fell and she suffered severe damage. The shipyard had in the course of negotiation, agreement and confirmation referred to no less than three different HISWA sets. The Rechtbank Noord-Holland held that as a result, none was validly incorporated into the contract (neither incidentally was a mere sign quayside, limiting liability).

As I have reported on this blog before (e.g. here), there is no magic wand when it comes to GTCS: all that is required is due diligence. Neat filing and dito reference. Electronically or otherwise: it is elementary for all things legal.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.9.3.1.

Jurisdiction, Conflict of Laws and Data Protection in Cyberspace

Conflictoflaws - jeu, 11/16/2017 - 21:35

(Report on the Conference held in Luxembourg on 12 October 2017, by Martina Mantovani, Research Fellow MPI Luxembourg)

On 12 October 2017, the Brussels Privacy Hub (BPH) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Department of European and Comparative Procedural Law of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg held a joint conference entitled “Jurisdiction, Conflicts of Law and Data Protection in Cyberspace”. The conference, which was attended by nearly 100 people, included presentations by academics from around the world, as well as from Advocate General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The entire conference was filmed and is available for viewing on the YouTube Channel of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg (first and second parts)

Participants were first welcomed by Prof. Dr. Burkhard Hess, Director of the MPI, and Prof. Dr. Christopher Kuner, Co-Director of the BPH. Both highlighted the importance of considering each of the discussed topics from both a European and a global perspective.

The first panel was entitled “Data Protection and Fundamental Rights Law: the example of cross-border exchanges of biomedical data – the case of the human genome”. The speaker was Dr. Fruzsina Molnár-Gábor of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, who discussed the regulatory challenges arising in connection to the processing and transfer of biomedical data, including data exchanges between research hubs within the EU and to third-countries (namely the US). The need for innovative regulatory solutions, originating from a bottom-up approach, was discussed against the backdrop of the impending entry into force of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), whose Article 40 encourages the adoption of Codes of Conduct intended to contribute to the proper application of the Regulation in specific sectors. According to Dr. Molnár-Gábor, however, in order to establish an optimal normative framework for biomedical research, the regulatory approach should be combined with appropriate privacy-enhancing technologies and privacy-by-design solutions (such as the emerging federated clouds, the European Open Science Cloud, and data analysis frameworks bringing analysis to the data). This approach should also be paired with the development of adequate incentives prompting non-EU established companies to express binding and enforceable commitments to abide by EU-approved Codes of Conduct. Her presentation demonstrated the basic problem of data protection and data transfer: The creation of appropriate and applicable legal frameworks often lags behind the necessarily more rapid pace of data exchange seen in successful scientific research.

The second panel was entitled “Territorial Scope of Law on the Internet”. According to Prof. Dr. Dan Svantesson of Bond University in Australia, the focus on territoriality, which characterises contemporary approaches to the solution of conflicts of laws, is the result of an inherent “territorial bias” in legal reasoning. A strict application of territoriality would however be destructive when dealing with cyberspace. Here, the identification of the scope of remedial jurisdiction should follow a more nuanced approach. Prof. Svantesson specifically focused on Article 3 of the new GDPR, which he deemed “too unsophisticated” for its intended purposes as a result of its “all-or-nothing approach” In other words, either a data controller is subject to the Regulation in its entirety, or it is totally excluded from its scope of application. As an alternative, he proposed a layered approach to its interpretation, grounded in proportionality. The GDPR, he contended, should be broken down into different sets of provisions according to the objectives pursued, and each of these sets should be assigned a different extraterritorial reach. Against this backdrop, the spatial scope of the application of provisions pertaining to the “abuse prevention layer” may, and should, be different from that of the provisions pertaining to the “rights layer” or “the administrative layer”.

A response was made by Prof. Dr. Gerald Spindler of University of Göttingen, who conversely advocated the existence of an ongoing trend toward a “reterritorialization” of the Cyberspace, favoured by technological advance (geo-blocking, Internet filtering). This segmentation of the Internet is, in Prof. Spindler’s opinion, the result of a business strategy that economic operators adopt to minimise legal risks.  As specifically concerns private international law rules, however, a tendency emerges towards the abandonment of “strict territoriality” in favour of a more nuanced approach based on the so-called market principle or “targeting”, which is deemed better adapted to the more permeable borders that segment cyberspace.

The third panel was entitled “Contractual Issues in Online Social Media”. The speaker was Prof. Dr. Alex Mills of University College London. A thorough analysis of Facebook’s and Twitter’s general terms and conditions brought to light private international law issues stemming from “vertical contractual relationships” between the social media platform and final users. Professor Mills highlighted, in particular, the difficult position of social media users within the current normative framework. In light of the ECJ case-law on dual purpose contracts, in fact, a characterisation of social media users as “consumers” under the Brussels I bis and the Rome I Regulations may be difficult to support. Against this backdrop, social media users are left at the mercy of choice of court and choice of law clauses unilaterally drafted by social media providers. In spite of their (generally) weaker position vis-à-vis social media giants, European social media users will in fact be required to sue their (Ireland-based) contractual counterpart in Californian courts, which will then usually apply Californian substantive law. In addition to generating a lift-off of these transactions from EU mandatory regulation, these contractual clauses also result in an uneven level of protection of European social media users. In fact, Germany-based social media users seem to enjoy a higher level of protection than those established in other EU countries. Since the contract they conclude with the social media provider usually encompass a choice of law clause in favour of German substantive law, they may in fact benefit from the European standard of protection even before Californian courts.

Prof. Dr. Heike Schweitzer of Freie Universität Berlin, highlighted a fundamental difference between E-Commerce and social media platforms. While the former have an evident self-interest in setting up a consumer-friendly regulatory regime (e.g., by introducing cost-efficient ADR mechanisms and consumer-oriented contractual rights) so as to enhance consumer trust and attract new customers, the latter have no such incentive. In fact, competition among social media platforms is essentially based on the quality and features of the service provided rather than on the regulatory standard governing potential disputes. This entails two main consequences. On the one hand, from the standpoint of substantive contract law, “traditional” contractual rights have to adapt to accommodate the need for flexibility, which is inherent to the new “pay-with-data” transactions and vital to survival in this harshly competitive environment. On the other hand, from the standpoint of procedural law, it must be noted that within a system which has no incentive in redirecting disputes to consumer-friendly ADR mechanisms (Instagram being the only exception), private international law rules, as applied in state courts, still retain a fundamental importance.

The final roundtable dealt with “Future Challenges of Private International Law in Cyberspace”. Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe discussed the delicate balance between privacy and security in the light of the judgment of the Court of Justice in the case C-203/15, Tele2 Sverige, as well as the specifications brought to the protective legal regime applicable to consumers by case C-191/15, Verein für Konsumenteninformation v Amazon EU Sarl. Prof. Kevin D. Benish of New York University School of Law illustrated the US approach to extraterritoriality in the protection of privacy, having particular regard to the recent Microsoft case (the U.S. Supreme Court recently granted certiorari). Prof. Dr. Gloria Gonzalez Fuster of Vrije Universiteit Brussels pointed to a paradox of EU data protection legislation, which, on the one hand, regards the (geographic) localisation of data as irrelevant for the purpose of the applicability of the GDPR and, on the other hand, establishes a constitutive link with EU territory in regulating data transfers to third countries. Finally, Dr. Cristina Mariottini, Co-Rapporteur at the ILA Committee on the Protection of Privacy in Private International and Procedural Law, provided an overview of the European Court of Human Rights’ recent case-law on the interpretation of Article 8 ECHR. Specific attention was given to the conditions of legitimacy of data storage and use in the context of criminal justice and intelligence surveillance, namely with respect to the collection of biological samples in computerised national databases (case Aycaguer v. France), the use as evidence in judicial proceedings of video surveillance footage (Vukota-Bojic v. Switzerland) and the telecommunication service providers’ obligation to store communications data (case Breyer v. Germany and case C?alovic? v. Montenegro, concerning specifically the police’s right to access the stored data).

Overall, the conference demonstrated the growing importance of private international and procedural law for the resolution of cross-border disputes related to data protection. The more regulators permit private enforcement as a complement to the supervisory activities of national and supranational data protection authorities, the more issues of private international law become compelling. As of today, conflict of laws and jurisdictional issues related to data protection have not been sufficiently explored, as the discussion on private law issues related to the EU General Data Protection Regulation demonstrates. With this in mind, both Brussels Privacy Hub and MPI have agreed to regularly organize conferences on current developments in this expanding area of law.

Campbell v Campbell: A recent guide to worldwide freezing injunctions.

GAVC - jeu, 11/16/2017 - 13:01

Worldwide freezing injunctions are one of the civil procedure reasons for forum shopping to the English courts. [2017] EWHC 2747 (Ch) Campbell v Campbell is an excellent illustration  of the current state of the law, with Sarah Worthington QC expertly summarising and applying precedent. The application is for a freezing injunction over assets located outside England and Wales, partly in aid of domestic proceedings (partnership dissolution proceedings) and partly in aid of foreign proceedings (proceedings in Jersey re claims for 50% interest in shareholdings).

One for the comparative binder.

Geert.

Le droit au séjour dérivé d’un ressortissant d’un État tiers

Un ressortissant d’un État tiers, membre de la famille d’un citoyen de l’Union, peut bénéficier d’un droit de séjour, sur le fondement de l’article 21, paragraphe 1, du TFUE, dans l’État membre dans lequel ce citoyen a séjourné avant d’en acquérir la nationalité en sus de sa nationalité d’origine. Et, ajoute la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne, les conditions d’octroi de ce droit de séjour ne doivent pas être plus strictes que celles prévues par la directive sur le droit de libre circulation des citoyens de l’Union.

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Catégories: Flux français

Article 421-2-1 du code pénal

Cour de cassation française - mer, 11/15/2017 - 11:51

Chambre de l'instruction de la cour d'appel de Paris, 7e chambre de l'instruction, 25 avril 2017

Catégories: Flux français

Close, but no sigar. The CJEU on libel, internet and centre of interests in Bolagsupplysningen.

GAVC - mer, 11/15/2017 - 07:07

The Court held some weeks ago in C-194/16 Bolagsupplysningen OÜ on the application of the Shevill rule, as supplemented by e-Date advertising, to infringements of a company’s personality rights over the internet. I held back reporting on the case for exam reasons – yep, some of the places I teach at already have exams.

Judgment was issued in Grand Chamber. There can be no clearer indication of the relevance the Court attaches to the question. The CJEU introduces in my view further complication in the Article 7(2) rule (jurisdiction for torts) by requiring the court seized carry out analysis of ‘main economic activity’ with those same courts being told not to get carried away however in that analysis. The judgment does not I believe offer a solid conclusion for the issues of removal and rectification.

An Estonian company operating in Sweden was blacklisted for its allegedly questionable business practices on the website of a Swedish employers’ federation. The website attracted a number of hostile comments from its readers. The Estonian company brought an action before the Estonian courts against the Swedish federation. It complained that the published information has negatively affected its honour, reputation and good name. It asked the Estonian courts to order that the Swedish federation rectify the information and remove the comments from its website. It also requested damages for harm allegedly suffered as a result of the information and comments having been published online.

Can the Estonian courts assert jurisdiction to hear this action on the basis of the claimant’s ‘centre of interests’, a special ground of jurisdiction that the Court previously applied to natural persons, but so far not legal persons? If they can, then second, how should the centre of interests of a legal person be determined? Third, if the jurisdiction of the Estonian courts were to be limited to situations in which the damage occurred in Estonia, the referring court wonders whether it can order the Swedish federation to rectify and remove the information at issue.

I reviewed Bobek AG’s Opinion here – let me recap core issues: Bobek AG suggested there are two novelties in the questions referred: a legal person (not a natural one) is primarily asking for rectification and removal of information made accessible on the internet (and only secondarily for damages for the alleged harm to its reputation). This factual setting, the AG suggests, leads to the question of how far the seemingly quite generous rules on international jurisdiction previously established in Shevill with regard to libel by printed media, and then further extended in eDate to the harm caused to the reputation of a natural person by information published on the internet, may be in need of an update.

At the real root of course of the generous rules on jurisdiction for tort, lies the Court’s judgment in Bier. Bobek AG joined Szpunar AG in severely questioning the wisdom of the Bier rule (both locus delicti commissi and locus damni lead to jurisdiction) in the age of internet publications. Not unexpectedly, the Court of Justice further refined Bier, but did not overrule it.

It held first of all that legal persons like natural persons can claim for damages in their centre of interests (at 38): the split in Bier was introduced for reasons of judicial suitability (‘sound administration of justice’), not personal interest of the plaintiff hence the qualification of that plaintiff has no bearing on the rule.

Following e-Date, the national court therefore needs to determine a centre of interests for a legal person just as it would for a natural person. At 41: for legal persons, this centre of interests ‘must reflect the place where its commercial reputation is most firmly established and must, therefore, be determined by reference to the place where it carries out the main part of its economic activities. While the centre of interests of a legal person may coincide with the place of its registered office when it carries out all or the main part of its activities in the Member State in which that office is situated and the reputation that it enjoys there is consequently greater than in any other Member State, the location of that office is, not, however, in itself, a conclusive criterion for the purposes of such an analysis.’ As one knows from the definition of ‘domicile’ under the Brussels I Regulation, leading to positive jurisdictional conflicts (it is perfectly possible for more than one Member State considering itself the domicile of a corporation), it is far from self-evident to determine where a company’s ‘main’ economic activities are located.

At 43 the Grand Chamber reminds the national courts that their role in the application of the Brussels I Recast is limited to the jurisdictional stage: they must not go into the merits (yet), hence if it is ‘not clear from the evidence that the court must consider at the stage when it assesses whether it has jurisdiction that the economic activity of the relevant legal person is carried out mainly in a certain Member State’, the Court must conclude that the Article 7(2) locus damni for the full damage is not available to that claimant.

 

The Court then distinguishes actions for rectification of false information and removal of comments: there is no jurisdiction before the courts of each Member State in which the information published on the internet is or was accessible. The Court follows Bobek AG’s Opinion on this point (although the AG also employed it to support his view on withdrawal of Bier altogether) at 48: ‘in the light of the ubiquitous nature of the information and content placed online on a website and the fact that the scope of their distribution is, in principle, universal …an application for the rectification of the former and the removal of the latter is a single and indivisible application and can, consequently, only be made before a court with jurisdiction to rule on the entirety of an application for compensation for damage [the Court refers to Shevill and e-Date] and not before a court that does not have jurisdiction to do so.’

On this latter point, the judgment is bound to create a need for further clarification: Shevill and e-Date confirm full jurisdiction for the courts of the domicile of the defendant and of the locus delicti commissi. These do not necessarily coincide but do raise the same difficulty of claims for rectification and removal by nature being single and indivisible. With more than one court having such full jurisdiction I do not see a solution in the Court’s approach.

Geert.

(Handbook of) European Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.11.2.

 

Opinion of Advocate General Bobek on Articles 15 and 16 Regulation No 44/2001 (Schrems, Case C-498/16)

Conflictoflaws - mar, 11/14/2017 - 17:34

By Stephan Walter, Research Fellow at the Research Center for Transnational Commercial Dispute Resolution (TCDR), EBS Law School, Wiesbaden, Germany.

Today, Advocate General Bobek delivered his opinion in Schrems (Case C-498/16) on the interpretation of Articles 15 and 16 of Regulation No 44/2001.

The Austrian Supreme Court referred two preliminary questions to the CJEU:

(1) Is Article 15 of [Regulation No 44/2001] to be interpreted as meaning that a “consumer” within the meaning of that provision loses that status, if, after the comparatively long use of a private Facebook account, he publishes books in connection with the enforcement of his claims, on occasion also delivers lectures for remuneration, operates websites, collects donations for the enforcement of his claims and has assigned to him the claims of numerous consumers on the assurance that he will remit to them any proceeds awarded, after the deduction of legal costs?

(2) Is Article 16 of [Regulation No 44/2001] to be interpreted as meaning that a consumer in a Member State can also invoke at the same time as his own claims arising from a consumer supply at the claimant’s place of jurisdiction the claims of others consumers on the same subject who are domiciled

(a) in the same Member State,

(b) in another Member State,

or

(c) in a non-member State,

if the claims assigned to him arise from consumer supplies involving the same defendant in the same legal context and if the assignment is not part of a professional or trade activity of the applicant, but rather serves to ensure the joint enforcement of claims?

With regard to the first preliminary question, AG Bobek found that

42. (…) the central element upon which consumer status for the purpose of Articles 15 and 16 of Regulation No 44/2001 is to be assessed is the nature and aim of contract to which the claim(s) relate. In complex cases where the nature and aim of a contract is mixed, namely, that it is both private and professional, there must be an assessment of whether the professional ‘content’ can be considered as marginal. If that is indeed the case, consumer status may still be retained. Moreover, it ought not be excluded that in certain exceptional situations, due to the indeterminate content and the potentially long duration of the contract, the status of one of the parties may shift over time.

62. (…) the carrying out of activities such as publishing, lecturing, operating websites, or fundraising for the enforcement of claims does not entail the loss of consumer status for claims concerning one’s own Facebook account used for private purposes.

However, AG Bobek answered the second question in the negative. He argued that

118. (…) on the basis of Article 16(1) of Regulation No 44/2001 a consumer cannot invoke, at the same time as his own claims, claims on the same subject assigned by other consumers domiciled in other places of the same Member State, in other Member States or in non-member States.

The very interesting opinion can be downloaded here.

Chinese courts made decision taking into account of the Hague Choice of Court Convention

Conflictoflaws - mar, 11/14/2017 - 14:48

China has signed the Hague Choice of Court Convention on 12 September 2017, but has not yet ratified this Convention. The Hague Choice of Court Convention has not entered into force in China. However, Shanghai High Court has already relied on the Hague Choice of Court Convention to make decision.

In Cathay United Bank v Gao, Shanghai High Court, (2016) Hu Min Xia Zhong No 99, the appellant, a Taiwan commercial bank, and the respondent, a Chinese citizen resident in Shanghai, entered into a Guarantee contract. It included a clause choosing Taiwan court as the competent court to hear disputes arising out of the contract. This clause did not specify whether it was exclusive or not. Chinese law does not provide how to decide exclusivity of a choice of court agreement. Facing the legal gap, Shanghai High Court took into account Article 3 of the Hague Choice of Court Convention 2005 and decided that choice of court agreements should be exclusive unless the parties stated otherwise. The Shanghai High Court thus declined jurisdiction in favour of Taiwan Court.

This decision was made on 20 April 2017, even before China signed the Hague Choice of Court Convention. Since the Hague Choice of Court Convention has not entered into force in China, it should not be directly applied by Chinese courts in judicial practice. The question is whether Chinese courts could ‘take into account’ of international conventions not being effective in China to make decision. Although Article 9 of the Chinese Supreme Court’s Judicial Interpretation of Chinese Conflict of Laws Act allows the Chinese courts to apply international conventions, which have not entered into effect in China, to decide the parties’ rights and obligations, such an application is subject to party autonomy. In other words, parties should have chosen the international convention to govern their rights and obligations. Article 9 does not apply to international judicial cooperation conventions that do not deal with individuals’ substantive rights and are not subject to party autonomy. Perhaps, a more relevant provision is Article 142(3) of the PRC General Principle of Civil Law, which provides that international customs or practice may be applied to matters for which neither the law of the PRC nor any international treaty concluded or acceded to by China has any provisions. Arguably, the Hague Choice of Court Convention represents common practice adopted internationally and forms a source to fill the gap in the current Chinese law.

 

121/2017 : 14 novembre 2017 - Arrêt de la Cour de justice dans l'affaire C-165/16

Communiqués de presse CVRIA - mar, 11/14/2017 - 10:13
Lounes
Citoyenneté européenne
Un ressortissant d’un État non UE, membre de la famille d’un citoyen de l’Union, peut bénéficier d’un droit de séjour dans l’État membre dans lequel ce citoyen a séjourné avant d’en acquérir la nationalité en sus de sa nationalité d’origine

Catégories: Flux européens

120/2017 : 14 novembre 2017 - Arrêt de la Cour de justice dans l'affaire C-671/15

Communiqués de presse CVRIA - mar, 11/14/2017 - 10:11
APVE e.a.
Concurrence
Une concertation sur les prix et les quantités entre plusieurs organisations de producteurs agricoles et associations de telles organisations peut constituer une entente au sens du droit de la concurrence

Catégories: Flux européens

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