Agrégateur de flux

Regulation (EU) n. 655/2014 establishing a European Account Preservation Order (EAPO) procedure to facilitate cross-border debt recovery in civil and commercial matters is applicable as of today, 18 January 2017. The relevant section of the European e-Justice Portal has been updated: the application forms can be completed online.

È applicabile da oggi, 18 gennaio 2017, il regolamento (UE) n. 655/2014 che istituisce una procedura per l’ordinanza europea di sequestro conservativo (OESC) su conti bancari al fine di facilitare il recupero transfrontaliero dei crediti in materia civile e commerciale. La sezione del Portale europeo della giustizia elettronica relativa al regolamento è stata aggiornata: i relativi moduli possono essere completati online.

Banque - Instrument de paiement - Utilisation frauduleuse
par un tiers

Toshiba / Commission
Concurrence
La Cour confirme l’amende de 82 millions d’euros infligée solidairement à Toshiba et à Panasonic/MTPD pour leur participation à l’entente des tubes pour téléviseurs

In her long-awaited speech on what Brexit actually means for the future application of the acquis communautaire in the United Kingdom, British Prime Minister Theresa May, on 17 January, 2017, stressed that the objective of legal certainty is crucial. She further elaborated:

“We will provide certainty wherever we can. We are about to enter a negotiation. That means there will be give and take. There will have to be compromises. It will require imagination on both sides. And not everybody will be able to know everything at every stage. But I recognise how important it is to provide business, the public sector, and everybody with as much certainty as possible as we move through the process. So where we can offer that certainty, we will do so. […] And it is why, as we repeal the European Communities Act, we will convert the ‘acquis’ – the body of existing EU law – into British law. This will give the country maximum certainty as we leave the EU. The same rules and laws will apply on the day after Brexit as they did before. And it will be for the British Parliament to decide on any changes to that law after full scrutiny and proper Parliamentary debate.”

At the same time, May promised that “we will take back control of our laws and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain.”

(The full text of the speech is available here.)

This unilateral approach seems to imply that the EU Regulations on Private International Law shall apply as part of the anglicized “acquis” even after the Brexit becomes effective. This would be rather easy to achieve for the Rome I Regulation. In addition, a British version of Rome II could replace the Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1995, except for defamation cases and other exemptions from Rome II’s scope. At the end of the day, nothing would change very much for choice of law in British courts, apart from the fact that the Court of Justice of the European Union could no longer rule on British requests for a preliminary reference. Transplanting Brussels Ibis and other EU procedural instruments into autonomous British law would be more difficult, however. Of course, the UK is free to unilaterally extend the liberal Brussels regime on recognition and enforcement to judgments passed by continental courts even after Brexit. It is hard to imagine, though, that the remaining EU Member States would voluntarily reciprocate this favour by treating the UK as a de facto Member State of the Brussels Ibis Regulation. Merely applying the same procedural rules in substance would not suffice for remaining in the Brussels Ibis camp if the UK, at the same time, rejects the jurisdiction of the CJEU (which it will certainly do, according to May). Thus, the only viable solution to preserve the procedural acquis seems to consist in the UK either becoming a Member State of the Lugano Convention of 2007 or in concluding a special parallel agreement similar to that already existing between Denmark and the EU (minus the possibility of a preliminary reference, of course). Since only the latter option would allow British courts to apply the innovations brought by the Brussels I recast compared with the former Brussels and the current Lugano regime, it should clearly be the preferred strategy from the UK point of view – but it cannot be achieved unilaterally by the British legislature.

Travail réglementation, rémunération - salaire

Le titulaire d’une marque de l’Union européenne peut, pendant cinq ans, agir contre un concurrent qui fait usage d’un signe identique entraînant un risque de confusion sans avoir à démontrer l’usage sérieux de sa marque.

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Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Fort de France, chambre civile, arrêt d 19 avril 2016

The issue under consideration in Citysprint was whether claimant, Ms Dewhurst, a cycle courier, was an employee of Citysprint or rather, as defendant would have it, a self-employed contractor. I am not a labour lawyer but I do have an interest in the ‘gig economy’, peer to peer etc. [Note Google defines (or conjures up a definition of) the gig economy as a labour market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs].

I also have an interest in language and the law. After an employment tribunal in Uber blasted the company’s use of byzantine language, in Citysprint, too, (in particular at 64 ff) the tribunal looks beyond the fog of legalese to qualify the contract for what it really is. A great development.

Geert.

 

 

Une ordonnance du 22 décembre 2016 modernise le cadre juridique de la gestion des droits d’auteurs et des droits voisins et l’adapte au marché de la musique en ligne. Elle transpose, avec un peu de retard, la directive européenne 2014/26/UE du 26 février 2014.

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L’ingérence dans le droit au respect des biens que constitue l’obligation d’acquitter les cotisations d’organisations interprofessionnelles reconnues résultant d’accords étendus, selon une procédure organisée par des dispositions du code rural et de la pêche maritime satisfait au principe de légalité tel qu’il procède de l’article 1er du Protocole n° 1 à la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme, et la justification de l’intérêt général poursuivi s’applique y compris lorsqu’il s’agit du droit qu’ont les États de mettre en vigueur les lois qu’ils jugent nécessaires pour assurer le paiement des impôts ou d’autres contributions.

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DOOR PHILIPPE NYS. “Wie willen we de volgende keer uitnodigen? Angela Merkel misschien, via een eredoctoraat van de KU Leuven?” Het was een lachende opmerking, net na de Ekonomikalezing van Guy Ver…

Source: Oog in oog met Angela Merkel, leider van de vrije wereld

Protection des consommateurs - Bail d'habitation

indemnisation des victimes d'infraction

Officiers publics ou ministériels - Notaire - émoluments

Non lieu à renvoi

Non lieu à renvoi

Hooley [Hooley v The Victoria Jute Company Ltd and others [2016] CSOH 14] has been sitting in my in-box for a few months. It concerns the liquidation (particularly: selling of companies’ assets by liquidators under Scots law) of companies incorporated in Scotland but with COMI (centre of main interests) outside the EU. In particular, India.

Given the presence of COMI outside the EU, the Insolvency Regulation does not apply. Indeed the Court of Session (Lord Tyre) does not refer to it at all.Findings would have been very different were the Regulation to apply: place of incorporation has to give way to COMI, where these two do not coincide, in which circumstance the place of incorporation at best may open secondary proceedings.

At issue was among others (and for the first time in a Scots court, I understand) the consideration of ‘modified universalism’: ie what is the practical impact of there being a company incorporated in Scotland, given Scots courts and administrators jurisdiction over the insolvencies, when the companies’ business is mainly carried out abroad and when proceedings are also pending abroad.

Per Rubin v Eurofinance, Universalism” means the “administration of multinational insolvencies by a leading court applying a single bankruptcy law.”  The principle of modified universalism was stated by Lord Sumption in Singularis Holdings Ltd v Pricewaterhouse Coopers [2015] AC 1675 (PC) at para 15 as being that “the court has a common law power to assist foreign winding up proceedings so far as it properly can” (see also Lord Collins at paragraph 33 and Lord Clarke of Stone‑cum‑Ebony at paragraph 112).

Essentially Lord Tyre had to decide whether the Scottish administrators’ powers were only exercisable to the extent that their exercise was recognised as legally valid by the law of the relevant non-UK jurisdiction. He held (at 36) that the proceedings taking place in India were ancillary to the administration proceedings in Scotland. The powers of a validly appointed administrator to a Scottish company were therefore not limited by the Indian winding up.

As often of course this judgment is but one side of the coin. Indian courts are at liberty to disregard the Scots findings. Any purchasers of Hooley assets therefore will have a compromised title. One assumes this has an impact on price.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 5, Heading 5.1, Heading 5.5.

Reinhard Bork, Principles of Cross-Border Insolvency Law, Intersentia, 2017, ISBN 9781780684307, 290 pp., EUR 94.

The thesis of this book is that cross-border insolvency rules of all kinds (e.g. European Insolvency Regulation, UNCITRAL Model Law, ALI Principles for the NAFTA States, national laws such as Chapter 15 US Bankruptcy Code or Sch. 1 Cross-Border Insolvency Regulation 2006) are founded on, and can be traced back to, basic values and that they aim to pursue and enforce such standards. Furthermore, several principles can be identified, distinguished and sorted into three groups: conflict of laws principles (e.g. unity, universality, equality, mutual trust, cooperation and communication, subsidiarity, proportionality), procedural principles (e.g. efficiency, transparency, predictability, procedural justice, priority) and substantive principles (e.g. equal treatment of creditors, optimal realisation of the debtor’s assets, debtor protection, protection of trust (for secured creditors or contractual partners), social protection (for employees or tenants)). Using the principle-oriented approach, the book will have a significant impact for both deciding cases and shaping cross-border insolvency law. It offers both legislators and courts new substantive and methodological support in making decisions, for example where the treatment of secured creditors, support for foreign insolvency practitioners or even harmonisation of cross-border insolvency laws is at stake.

 

Timab Industries et CFPR / Commission
Concurrence
La Cour confirme l’amende de près de 60 millions d’euros infligée au groupe Roullier dans le cadre de l’entente sur les phosphates