Droit international général

Transnational Dispute Management (TDM) has kindly shared the following Call for Papers with us.

We are pleased to announce a forthcoming Transnational Dispute Management (TDM, ISSN 1875-4120, www.transnational-dispute-management.com) special issue on “International Arbitration and the Space Industry.”

This Special Issue will be edited by Alexandra van der Meulen, Kate Gough, Joshua Kelly, Annie Pan and Veronika Timofeeva (Freshfields LLP).

Space exploration was once the traditional domain of State actors, with the government space agencies of the United States and the USSR leading the way. Today, the landscape has shifted dramatically: private companies are now at the forefront, driving innovation in areas such as satellite launches, commercial space flight and space stations, among others. According to the World Economic Forum, the global space economy is projected to reach US$1.8 trillion by 2035, growing at an average annual rate of 9%.[1]

The influence of the space industry is becoming increasingly pervasive. Once associated mainly with satellite launches and services such as satellite radio, broadcast television and GPS, these technologies now represent only a fraction of the space industry’s reach. Satellite communications technologies have only grown in sophistication over the past decade, with thousand-strong satellite constellations now delivering a wide variety of commercial and societal services to businesses and consumers. These range from satellite broadband to climate monitoring, enabling accurate environmental data collection and analysis, to supply chain and transportation applications. Aside from its commercial applications, space has also become indispensable for defense purposes, with satellites and other space-based assets providing the backbone for surveillance, communication and strategic operations.

With the rapid growth of the space industry and heightened financial stakes, an increase in space-related disputes is inevitable. In the commercial arena, these disputes are likely to center on contractual issues, such as the supply of services by satellite operators to the telecoms and defense sectors, disputes concerning launch, refueling and maintenance service, and joint venture disputes between State-owned entities and private-sector operators.

Growing private-sector investment in space-related activities is also likely to fuel investor-State disputes. States’ interests in controlling various aspects of space-related technologies and resources (such as spectrum usage) for national security or public interest reasons will inevitably rub up against the purely commercial interests of private operators. Striking the right balance between these competing interests will be critical to sustaining confidence and investment in the sector.

International arbitration is well-positioned to address space-related disputes. In doing so, the international arbitration community will have to grapple with a range of novel legal and technical issues, such as:

• Territoriality in investor-State disputes involving space law
• Specialised rules for disputes related to outer space activities
• The need for specialised treaties protecting foreign investment in the space sector
• The notion of ownership in space
• The role of international and regional space agencies in shaping space-related arbitration
• Damages assessment, particularly for novel space projects
• Multi-contract and multi-party space disputes in complex space ventures
• Space-related disputes under domestic law
• State-to-State disputes concerning space activities
• Mitigation of third-party losses from satellite collisions and space debris
• Licensing and authorization disputes (national overlap, ISDS, etc.)
• Insurance and liability regimes
• National security overlap

We invite all those with an interest in the subject to contribute articles or notes on one of the above topics or any other relevant issue. Proposals for papers (150-200 words) should be submitted to the editors by May 31, 2026, publication is expected in final quarter of 2026.

Please address all questions and proposals to Annie Pan, at annie.pan@freshfields.com, and Veronika Timofeeva, at veronika.timofeeva@freshfields.com. Please CC info@transnational-dispute-management.com when submitting your materials.

Articles accepted for publication before this deadline will also go through TDM’s on-line advance publication process, allowing your work to reach its target audience as soon as the paper completes peer review and the editing process.

The minimum word count for articles is 5,000 words (excluding footnotes, endnotes, appendices, tables, summary etc.). Articles must include a short summary of the key points addressed and any conclusions drawn (150-200 words). The layout of the articles should conform to TDM’s submission guidelines, available at: www.transnational-dispute-management.com/contribute.asp (more information available upon request).

For citations, follow OSCOLA (4th Edition): www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/publications/oscola

This call for papers can also be found on the TDM website here:
https://www.transnational-dispute-management.com/news.asp?key=2101

[1] https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Space_2024.pdf

 

The Permanent Bureau (PB) is pleased to announce that registration is now open for participation in the 14th International Forum on the electronic Apostille Programme (e-APP Forum), which will take place on Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 May 2026 in Marrakesh, Morocco. To be held for the first time in Africa, this edition of the e-APP Forum will be organised by the HCCH’s Regional Office for Africa, with the support of the Ministry of Justice of Morocco. The Forum will be conducted in English, French, and Arabic, with simultaneous interpretation provided.

Since its launch in 2006, the e-APP has become an integral part of the operation of the Apostille Convention. The e-APP has two electronic components: an e-Apostille and an e-Register, which, over the past twenty years, have been instrumental in ensuring the practical, effective, and secure operation of the Apostille Convention amid constant technological development.

The e-APP Forum gathers experts and stakeholders from around the world. The Forum will provide a unique international platform for governments, organisations, and the private sector to learn more about the benefits of the e-APP, to promote its effective implementation, and to discuss the latest developments in relation to the e-APP worldwide.

Interested persons should register via this form no later than Friday 1 May 2026, 5.00 p.m. (CEST). Participation in the Forum is free of charge. However, participants are required to make their own travel and hotel arrangements and cover all related costs if participating in person. Please note that in-person seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and will be confirmed via e-mail by the PB.

For more information on the e-APP Forum, please visit the dedicated page on the HCCH website. A draft Agenda is available on the HCCH website and will be updated as panellists are confirmed.

For further information on the Apostille Convention and the e-APP, please visit the Apostille Section of the HCCH website.

If you do use the blog for research or database purposes, citation would be appreciated, to the blog as a whole and /or to specific blog posts. Many have suggested I should turn the blog into a paid for, subscription service however I have resisted doing so. Proper reference to how the blog is useful to its readers, will help keeping this so.

When I first flagged the claim by Belgian farmer Hugues Falys v Total, I concluded with

“Re the jurisdictional issues see likely Total use of an argument which I flagged here: viz an emerging corporate strategy to deflect A7(2) forum damni jurisdiction, the argument that a causal link between the damage and the alleged shortcoming of the defendant needs to be shown in the claim form itself for it to ground jurisdiction.”

My short paper for Lex&Forum flags this and other issues related to climate claims and private international law; in my post on Lluya v RWE I note the shortcomings in the German Court of Appeal’s Article 7 Rome II applicable law analysis (I had earlier expanded on Article 7 here); the earlier post on Hagues Falys contains some updated bibliographical references; and Stefania Bariatti et al have a considerable volume here dealing with ESG principles relevant to the claims, including chapters on jurisdiction and applicable law.

The first instance court at Tournai /Doornik issued its interlocutory judgment yesterday, holding solely on jurisdiction and applicable law and concluding with an Article 30 Brussels Ia stay. Guillaume Croisant has posted early overview here.

In essence, the Belgian court holds it has jurisdiction on the basis of Article 7(2) of the Brussels Ia Regulation: ‘locus damni’ jurisdiction, and that Belgian law applies to the case.

Note of course immediately that the judgment, if upheld on appeal, does not of course mean that Belgian or EU courts have jurisdiction as locus damni against all oil majors wherever incorporated: Article 7(2) only applies to defendants with domicile in  the EU.

Total had essentially argued what I had predicted, namely an emphasis on the diffuse nature of the damage in climate claims. Its objection to jurisdiction for the Belgian courts on the basis of A7(2) Brussels Ia relies on the foreseeability of damage and on a restrictive interpretation of CJEU Bier. It emphasises the CJEU’s reasons for its foundational approach to Article 7’s split between Handlungsort [place of the (in)action leading to the damage] and Erfolgort: [place where the damage occurs (or may occur)]. These foundational principles, it argues, are foreseeability and proximity (of the courts with jurisdiction, to the place of damage).

The court disagrees that these foundational principles are infringed in a finding of jurisdiction in Belgium [more specifically, the local legal district: A7(2) assigns territorial and not just national jurisdiction] as locus damni. It notes p.10: precisely following CJEU Bier, Total can hardly be surprised to find itself being sued in a place other than its place of domicile; and proximity is of course met where the alleged damaged occurred slap bang in the legal district seized.

However it is on this point that I feel the court may be a touch optimistic in its application of A7(2) locus damni jurisdiction: (footnotes omitted)

TE soutient que le Tribunal doit préalablement examiner l’existence du lien causal entre le fait générateur et le dommage allégué, en ce sens qu’à défaut de preuve de lien étroit suffisant entre les deux, la competence du tribunal de céans doit être déclinée.

S’il paraît justifié de procéder à un examen prealable au stade de la competence, celui-ci ne saurait se muer en un procès avant le procès et cette question doit naturellement être soumise a un examen « prima faciae », ce qui suppose d’apprécier uniquement si les prétentions du demandeur ne paraissent pas invraisemblables.

En l’espece, il ne paraît pas invraisemblable que les EME [court shorthand for ‘climate emergencies’, GAVC] dont se plaint Monsieur FALYS aient causé le dommage qu’il soutient avoir subi et que ces mêmes phénomènes soient en lien causal avec des émissions de gaz a effet de serre.

Translated this would read

[Total] contends that the Court must first examine whether there is a causal link between the event giving rise to the claim and the alleged damage, in that, in the absence of sufficient evidence of a close link between the two, this Court must decline jurisdiction.

Whilst it appears justified to carry out a preliminary examination at the stage of determining jurisdiction, this must not turn into a trial before the trial, and this question must naturally be subject to a ‘prima facie’ examination, which involves assessing only whether the claimant’s claims do not appear implausible.

In the present case, it does not appear implausible that the climate emergencies complained of by Mr FALYS caused the damage he claims to have suffered and that these same phenomena are causally linked to greenhouse gas emissions.

The judgment cites one (scholarly) source for this contention. The court is certainly correct that there must not be a mini trial. However the CJEU with its mozaik, distributive jurisdiction approach per Shevill, does emphasise the  actual existence and demonstration of damage within the jurisdiction and one could also point to CJEU Mittelbayerischer Verlag – mutatis mutandis – as one of the recent cases circumscribing A7(2) scope. I am not saying that claimant did not in fact meet with a higher evidentiary standard. Yet with its ready acceptance and superficial burden of proof, the court imo takes the favor laesis (goodwill for the victim) implication of CJEU Bier too far.

Having established jurisdiction, the court most succinctly opts for Belgian law as the applicable law as a result of Article 7 Rome II. It does not discuss the many angles to Rome II which could have (and I understand, had actually been) raised by Total (in earlier submissions). Instead it held that Total had conceded the applicable law point should the court accept jurisdiction. I am not privy to all parties’ submissions and I was not at the hearings, yet if Total had not so in fact conceded then of course this is a clear ground for appeal.

Eventually the court decides to stay its case on the basis of Article 30 Brussels Ia’s ‘related cases’ provision. The court found sufficient connection with a parallel French proceeding against Total in Paris. I could not find further detail on that case (with claim number, “role n°” 22/03403) hence I cannot say much about it, yet of course an A30 stay is very much to the discretion of the judge seized. The Belgian judges note p.17 that while claimants are different, the objective of both the French and the Belgian proceedings are the same:

to secure an order requiring TOTAL ENERGIES to reduce its GHG emissions and fossil fuel production, and to refrain from making any new investments in projects related to these, on a global scale.

Given that both cases ultimately seek to compel the company to reduce its GHG emissions and fossil fuel production on a global scale, the judges hold that there is a genuine risk of irreconcilable outcomes, and seeing as Paris is expected to rule in mid (European) spring,they stay the Belgian case. The court emphasises in parting that this is merely to secure sound administration of justice as per Brussels Ia’s lis pendens requirements, that it reaffirms its findings on jurisdiction, and that is is not merely bowing to the Paris courts.

The judgment will be appealed at any event. I wonder whether upon appeal the same approach will be taken re burden of proof (or a reference made to the CJEU; current court saw no need at all); and whether there will be more engagement with Article 7 Rome II, which will be most welcome. Of course by the time of an appeal, the lis pendens issue will have become moot, lest any spring Paris judgment will in turn be appealed.

Geert.

 

 

Two recent Grand Chamber judgments of the Court of Justice suggest that the “principle of recognition” in international family law has undergone a qualitative shift: It does more than set vague limits on the outcomes reached by the national laws of Member States. Instead, read together, Mirin and Cupriak-Trojan establish a broad principle of free […]

This post is posted on behalf of Kwamou FEUKEU Eva, Head of the Africa Centre of Expertise and Coordinator of Decolonial Comparative Law, Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht

The Africa Centre of Expertise and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law have announced a call for papers for the fourth edition of their Decolonial Comparative Law Workshop series, to be held on 5–6 May 2027 in Douala in collaboration with the Fondation Afric’Avenir. This edition focuses on the theme “Decolonial Comparative Law and the Informal/Formal Economy,” asking scholars to rethink the distinction between formal and informal economies from a decolonial and comparative perspective. The workshop places particular emphasis on recognising the informal economy as a site of legality in its own right, foregrounding legal pluralism and context-specific practices. Contributions are encouraged on a wide range of topics, including microlending, alternative forms of value creation, labour rights in informal work, and indigenous and customary economies. Selected papers will be discussed in an interdisciplinary setting, with engagement from peers, scholars from fields such as anthropology, history, and economics, and practitioners and artists.

The deadline for paper submissions is 1 September 2026. Further details, including the full call for papers (available in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Arabic), can be accessed here: https://www.mpipriv.de/2020710/decola-informal-formal-economy. An online information session for prospective applicants will be held on 18 March 2026 at 10:00 and 16:00 GMT, with registration available here: https://events.mpipriv.de/b?p=decola_and_the_informal_forma_leconomy_information_session. Following the workshop, an “Epupa School” (meaning “rainy season” in the Douala language) will take place from 10 to 12 May 2027 at the Fondation Afric’Avenir, offering scholars, students, and activists an opportunity to further engage with decolonial comparative approaches to the formal and informal economy.

On 12 March 2026, the Court of Justice rendered its judgment in Shipov (C-43/24), concerning the right of citizens of the Union to free movement and national rules on the amendment of gender data in civil-status registers. The Court held that Article 21 TFEU and Article 4(3) of Directive 2004/38, read in the light of […]

On 24 and 25 September 2026, the international conference ‘International Filiation Law in the EU’ will take place at the University of Bonn (Germany). The conference will analyse the EU Parenthood Proposal and the several academic and political reactions to this Proposal, and embed it in a human rights and EU law frame.

Confirmed speakers are Cristina González Beilfuss (Barcelona, Spain), Susanne Lilian Gössl (Bonn, Germany), Ulrike Kjestina Janzen (German Federal Ministry for Justice and Consumer Protection), Martina Melcher (Graz, Austria), Nicolas Nord (CIEC/ICCS), Ilaria Pretelli, (Lausanne, Switzerland), Velina Todorova (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), Alina Tryfonidou (Cyprus), and Patrick Wautelet (Liége, Belgium).

Everybody who is interested in cross-border questions of filiation, child protection and EU law is invited to come and contribute to the ongoing discussion!

More information and the programme will follow soon. If you have questions, please write to sekretariat.goessl@jura.uni-bonn.de.

The next Asian Private International Law Academy (APILA) meeting will be on Tuesday 24 March (not 17 March) when Professor Tu Guangjian will introduce his work in progress on “Legislative Jurisdiction, Adjudicatory Jurisdiction and Enforcement Jurisdiction: How Can They Be Reconciled in Private International Law and Beyond?”. Professor Tu looks forward to the insights and comments of attendees on how he might develop his ideas on the topic.

Here is link for the APILA meeting on 24 March:

Topic: APILA Monthly Online Meeting on Tuesday 24 March 2026

Time: Mar 24, 2026 07:00 PM Japan Standard Time

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89964430222?pwd=xiXxPfPw76j4oOwXCJTGC941teKWjM.1

Meeting ID: 899 6443 0222

Passcode: 670895

I have already reported on the judgment of the High Court of England and Wales in Border Timbers Ltd v Zimbabwe [2024] EWHC 2024 (Comm), which dismissed an application to set aside an order granting registration of an ICSID award. The High Court had reached a similar conclusion in Infrastructure Services Luxembourg SARL v Spain […]

On Tuesday, April 7, 2026, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (CEST). Chukwuma Okoli (University of Birmingham) will speak, in English, about the topic

“Choice of Law for Employment Contracts in Africa: Rethinking the EU Methodology in an African Context”

This presentation examines how African courts have approached choice of law in cross-border employment contracts, often drawing—explicitly or implicitly—on the dominant EU methodology reflected in the Rome I framework. It argues that while the EU model has influenced doctrinal development, its underlying assumptions do not always align with African values and labour realities. Drawing on primary sources from across African jurisdictions, including case law and legislation, the paper proposes a modified methodology that better reflects worker protection, and normative commitments embedded in African legal systems.

The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.

If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.

The author of this post is Lydia Lundstedt, who is an Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at Stockholm University and Linköping University. On 6 March 2026, the Court of Appeal (CoA) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) made the UPC’s first-ever reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), including questions on […]

The members of the European Association of Private International Law have access to a reserved area of this website, called MyEAPIL, where they can find information on other members. To ensure this tool is as useful as it can be, it is important that members update their personal details (academic or professional affiliation, e-mail address, […]

This week the Conclusions & Decisions (C&D) of the HCCH governing body, the Council on General Affairs and Policy (CGAP or Council), were published. Click the links below for the relevant language versions (English, French and Spanish).

Although a wide range of topics were discussed, I would like to focus on four items: parentage/surrogacy project, the cross-border recognition and enforcement of protection orders, the jurisdiction project and a Note on the Trusts Convention.

In my view, the C&D are significant for two reasons. First, the work related to a possible new instrument of a long-standing topic at the HCCH has been concluded (without a Convention) and secondly, a “new” topic has been inserted into the agenda of the HCCH. For more information, see below.

Parentage/surrogacy project

The parentage/surrogacy project has been a recurrent topic in the work of the HCCH. It has expanded more than a decade, starting in 2010 with some preliminary research, which resulted in the establishment of an Experts Group (EG) and subsequently, a Working Group (WG).

In preparation for this meeting, a document was drawn up by the Working Group (WG) on Parentage / Surrogacy entitled: Final Report on the Feasibility of a possible Convention on the Recognition of Judgments on Legal Parentage (Preliminary Document (Prel. Doc.) No. 1). This is a monumental work, which includes a text of a draft Convention (as of p. 13).

The specific proposal of the WG to the Council was the following:

“The WG acknowledged the importance of the HCCH Parentage / Surrogacy Project to develop an international instrument on legal parentage in cross-border situations. The WG agreed that such an instrument is desirable, as it could enhance legal certainty, predictability and continuity while protecting the rights of children and families, and all persons involved.”

It further acknowledged that policy differences remained and for some experts these were fundamental, and as a result, consensus could not be reached on a way forward (i.e. advancing to a Special Commission, which is the usual path when negotiating a HCCH Convention and which are meetings held prior to a Diplomatic Session).

With this Final Report, and as its name suggests, the work of the WG has concluded and this Preliminary Document is the last document drawn up by the WG on this topic.

Reflecting the disagreement existing at the WG level, the Council decided on this topic the following: “While recognising the progress made by the Working Group, CGAP decided not to advance to a Special Commission at this stage, with the understanding that this issue may be revisited at a later stage.”

Accordingly, this year marks the end of this project (if not the end of an era), with the exception of monitoring legal and practical developments on the subject that are to be presented at the 2028 meeting of the Council (C&D No. 5). Perhaps this topic may be revived in the future when and if the time is ripe.

Cross-border recognition and enforcement of protection orders

While the ashes of the Surrogacy/Parentage project were still warm, a “new” proposal for a Convention emerged and was tabled by the UK as: Prel. Doc. No 25 of January 2026 – Proposal from the United Kingdom to establish a Working Group on Recognition and Enforcement of Protection Orders – not publicly available.

The Council mandated the establishment of a WG on a potential future convention on cross-border recognition and enforcement of protection orders (see C&D No. 22).This is remarkable and underlines the importance of keeping women and children safe. By tabling this proposal, the UK makes clear that this is an absolute priority.

This initiative will build on previous work conducted by the Permanent Bureau from 2011-2018, during which an Experts Group was established (see C&D No. 23 and 24). At its 2018 meeting, the Council noted that “14. The Council decided to remove from the Agenda of the HCCH the topic of recognition and enforcement of foreign civil protection orders, with the understanding that this issue may be revisited at a later stage.” A statement that now is history.

This will be an important initiative to follow in the future.

Jurisdiction project

The decision on the future of the jurisdiction project has been delayed until the next meeting of the Council in 2027. At that meeting a decision will be made whether that project advances to a Special Commission “or decide on any other outcome of the Project” (C&D 9).

A Report of the Chair of the Working Group on matters related to jurisdiction in transnational civil or commercial litigation was presented as Prel. Doc. No 2A of December 2025. This Report includes a draft text of a future convention on parallel proceedings and related actions (from p. 13, with many [square brackets], signalling lack of consensus or agreement on the text).

Last year a public consultation was launched on the Draft Text of a possible new convention on parallel proceedings and related actions, the results of which still need to be analysed. The Council mandated that a document be submitted analysing such responses by the end of September 2026 and gave specific instructions on how it should be drafted (C&D No. 8). The responses will be published subject to the permission of the respondents.

We will keep you informed of any new developments.

A Note on the Trusts Convention

Finally, a Note on the Application and Interpretation of Article 2 of the Convention of 1 July 1985 on the Law Applicable to Trusts and on their Recognition and on the Institutions Analogous to Trusts was submitted as Prel. Doc. No 12B of January 2026 (for the actual Note see Annex V, p. 25). In particular, a fascinating explanation of the terms used in English (estate) and French (patrimoine) is included in pages 28-29. Equally interesting is Annex A to Note (for Section V) – Institutions Meeting the Criteria in Article 2 of the Trusts Convention. This Note was approved and will be published together with its Annexes (C&D 69).

 

In sum, this Council’s meeting decided on crucial matters related to treaty making on Private International Law at the HCCH. The next meeting of the Council in 2027 will also be of great importance as it will decide on the future of the jurisdiction project. With regard to specific projects, the cross-border recognition and enforcement of protection orders attests to the fact that a topic can indeed return to the agenda of the HCCH, and thus some experts may harbour the wish that the parentage/surrogacy project may rise one day like a phoenix from the ashes.

If you do use the blog for research or database purposes, citation would be appreciated, to the blog as a whole and /or to specific blog posts. Many have suggested I should turn the blog into a paid for, subscription service however I have resisted doing so. Proper reference to how the blog is useful to its readers, will help keeping this so.

Probably because I am reporting this case in the middle of a very busy few months, the title of this post as not as punchy as one might have expected. However at least the post does what it says on the tin.

Thank you Ludo Veuchelen en Urs Rybi for alerting me yesterday to Eckart von Malsen’s post on the judgment of the first instance court at Paris in Sherpa v Yves Rocher. Yves Rocher has been found to have fallen short in their duty to ensure respect for the freedom of association in their supply chain.

Un grand merci to the clerks at the tribunal who sent my copy of the judgment most most swiftly.

Eckart summarises the main background as

Out of 81 former employees, only nine who had not signed a 2019 settlement agreement retained standing, together with Turkish union Petrol‑Is and French NGOs Sherpa and Action Aid. The court found that these nine workers were dismissed because of their trade union membership, that Yves Rocher had enough information to identify a serious risk to freedom of association, and that proper inclusion of this risk in the vigilance plan would have prevented the harm up to 2019.​

Yves Rocher is the French mother corporation of the Turkish group subsidiaries. In that respect the case differs from eg Dyson, which involved supply chain due diligence at arm’s length.

Of interest to the blog, are the conflict of laws elements. Yves Rocher argue that the law which applies to the employees non-contractual claim, is Turkish law as a result of the Rome II Regulation, it being the lex loci damni: the law of the place where the damage took place.

In its view, the French Droit de Vigilance, France’s main supply chain due diligence statute, was not intended as a lois de police or ‘overriding mandatory law’ rule per A16 Rome II. And that even if it was so intended, that that  displacement has no effect on the conflict of laws elements.

Yves Rocher also argue that the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive 2024/1760, CS3D for short, has no bearing on the interpretation of the French devoir de vigilance, and that even if it does, the EU’s Omnibus  Directive (now published as Directive 2026/470) which was being debated at the time of the hearings, most in turn have an impact seeing as at intended to remove (as I discussed at the time) and in the end did so remove A29(1) (7)’s provisions on civil liability and lois de police.

The result of the application of Turkish law notably would impact the statute of limitation. Defendants argue,all claims have been served out off time.

The court refers to CJEU HUK -Coburg for its discussion of lois de police under Rome II (and on a side-note, Da Silva Martins) concluding [56] that the CJEU applies a strict interpretation to A16 Rome II, requiring both a sufficient nexus with the forum, and a law considered to protect an interest fundamental to society in the forum.

The court then reviews the many references in the travaux of the Droit de Vigilance, to international human rights, OECD and other soft-law in the area, and [63] to one of the conclusions of the French Government when it proposed the law, that it should be ‘loi impérative’, designed to protect the weaker in society. [75] it concludes that the duty of care introduced by the Act [Article L225-102-2] is a lois de police within the meaning of Rome II.

[76] it refers to the sentiment of the CS3D echoing the intention of the Droit de Vigilance and [77] to Omnibus’ deletion of A29(1) and (7) not having taken away Member States’ continued possibility to regard their own due diligence laws, whether or not taken in application of the CS3D, as being lois de police.

The remainder of the judgment then firstly holds the French 5 year statute of limitation has not been exceeded, and it extensively deals with the question whether Yves Rocher have fallen short of their duties of vigilance. It concludes it has.

The judgment confirms what many including myself have suggested: Omnibus has not increased predictability for corporations. It has decreased it. Those who believe the deletion of A29(1) and (7) has somehow improved legal certainty for corporations, simply err.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 4th ed 2025, Chapter 7.

 

Edinburg Law School and Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law organize a Private International Law Festival, to take place in Edinburgh 24-25 September 2026. Save the date!

And submit a proposal of up to 500 words, together with a short bio/s in the same word document, to law.events@ed.ac.uk by 10 April 2026 with the email subject clearly marked “Proposal PIL Festival_ Surname/s”. Selected speakers will be informed in May 2026.

More information about the event and the call for papers below.

 

The fourth issue of 2025 of the Rivista di diritto internazionale privato e processuale (RDIPP) is out. In addition to recent case law and other materials, it features two contributions. Christian Kohler, Loi de police ou ordre public? Interrogations critiques soulevees par l’arret C-86/23 Huk Coburg de la Cour de justice de l’Union europeenne (Overriding Mandatory Provisions […]

The EAPIL Working Group on Parallel Proceedings has issued a position paper to answer the public consultation of the Hague Conference on Private International Law on the HCCH Draft text of a future convention on parallel proceedings and related actions. The position paper was drafted by Gilles Cuniberti, Aleksandrs Fillers, Bettina Heiderhoff, Jeremy Heymann, Vesna Lazic, […]

This post presents an interview of Lilla Garayová, Professor of Children’s Rights at Pan-European University, on private international law issues arising from Slovakia’s 2025 constitutional reform, highlighting implications also for other EU Member States and in relation to the proposed EU Regulation on Parenthood. The interview was conducted by Marco Pasqua (PhD, Catholic University of […]

As report earlier on this blog, the third bi-annual conference of the European Association of Private International Law (EAPIL) will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 18 to 20 June 2026. Under the title “Shaping the Future of Private International Law in Europe – Putting Together the Pieces & Filling Gaps”, the conference will address structural developments, unresolved issues, and emerging challenges in European private international law.  The program is available on the conference’s website.

Early bird registration will close on 15 March 2026. You are welcome to register using this link.

EAPIL is looking forward to seeing you in Geneva!

Yesterday, the Regional Court of Munich (Landgericht München I) held a highly interesting oral hearing in a dispute brought by GEMA, a German collecting society representing composers, and Suno, a generative music AI company based in Cambridge, MA. The hearing was noteworthy, first, because it gave the public an opportunity to listen to numerous international hits, from Alphaville’s Forever Young to Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5 (and their alleged copies created by Suno) in a courtroom; and secondly, because the dispute raises some interesting questions of private international law.

After GEMA had already scored a famous victory against OpenAI in November 2025, when the same chamber of the Munich Court had held that the company had been violating the copyrights of several artists and composers by reproducing their song texts, the present proceedings differed not just in scope (focusing on the musical arrangement rather than texts) but also in its international dimension. For the first time, the claimant explicitly included the use of the protected works for training that had happened (according to both parties) exclusively in the US.

As far as those claims are concerned, the main obstacle to overcome for the claimant is the German court’s jurisdiction. As Germany has no (codified) law on international jurisdiction over non-EU defendants, international jurisdiction is established by extending the rules on local jurisdiction (venue) to international jurisdiction (so-called ‘double funtionality’; see Lutzi/Wilke, in Lutzi/Piovesani/Zgrabljic Rotar (eds), Jurisdiction over Non-EU Defendants (Hart 2024), 111 et seq). In the present case, this appears to provide an opportunity for the claimant to rely on a little-known norm of the German Verwertungsgesellschaftsgesetz (VGG; own translation and emphasis):

§ 131 Exclusive Jurisdiction

(1) For legal disputes concerning claims by a collecting society for infringement of a right of use or right of consent administered by it, the court of the district in which the infringing act was committed or in which the infringer has their general place of jurisdiction shall have exclusive jurisdiction. (…)

(2) If, pursuant to paragraph 1, sentence 1, different courts have jurisdiction for multiple legal disputes against the same infringer, the collecting society may bring all claims before any one of these courts.

While the provision is clearly aimed at allocating local jurisdiction within Germany, nothing in its wording seems to exclude an international understanding, similar to other norms on local jurisdiction. While this would create a clearly exorbitant forum actoris for German collecting societies in cases falling under paragraph 2, this might be justified by the peculiar nature of collecting societies, which are heavily regulated in German law and are required, for instance, to enter into licensing agreements under ‘appropriate’ conditions (§ 34 VGG). Indeed, the Munich court appeared rather amenable to the proposition of applying § 131 VGG internationally.

In the present case, this would raise further interesting questions.

For once, does paragraph 1, according to which the courts of the place of infringing and the courts of the defendant’s seat are competent, lead to ‘different courts’ being competent in the sense of paragraph 2? Traditionally, the provision was supposed to solve the problem of traveling showmen performing committing similar infringements in numerous places. As far as the training of AI is concerned, there might only be a single place of infringement, though. Then again, paragraph 2 only requires multiple competent courts for proceedings ‘against the same infringer’, which should allow other infringements, such as the streaming of allegedly copyright-violating output in Germany to be taken into account.

Assuming that the court would not consider this sufficient to trigger the forum actoris of paragraph 2, it would need to answer another question, namely if paragraph 1 as a rule of exclusive jurisdiction would also prevent the claimant from (subsidiarily) relying on § 23 of the Civil Procedure Code (ZPO), which creates jurisdiction at the location of the defendant’s property. In other contexts, authors have argued that provisions of exclusive local jurisdiction should not be understood as provisions of exclusive international jurisdiction so as not to render the recognition and enforcement of decisions from other fora impossible.

If the Munich court accepted its international jurisdiction on either of those bases, the applicable law would, of course, still be US copyright law (including its relatively far-reaching exceptions for ‘fair use’, which the defendants argue should apply here) pursuant to Article 8 Rome II. Thus, if the decision – which has been scheduled for 12 June – includes a positive decision on international jurisdiction regarding the US-based training, it might not yet include a decision on the substance in this regard, but could instead include an order for expert evidence on foreign law (§ 293 ZPO).

The claimants would understandably still consider this as a win, though, as it would provide a basis for future claims by German collecting societies against AI companies. In this sense, it would fit neatly into what Linda Kuschel and Darius Rostam have described, in reaction to the previous decision against OpenAI, as ‘the current popular narrative of a tightly regulating EU that protects rightsholders and a US that favors AI-friendly market solutions.’ While the Munich judges said rather little about their own preferred interpretation of the law at yesterday’s hearing, especially with regard to international jurisdiction, they also made no effort to dispel this narrative.