The CJEU in Grand Chamber held 10 days back in C‑633/22 Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, AE v EE, Société Éditrice du Monde SA. No English version was yet available at the time of writing.
The Court in essence confirms Spzunar AG’s Opinion which I reviewed here.
Its findings echo the language and sentiment of Article 16 of the EU’s anti-SLAPP Directive 2024/1069 (that Article addressing non-recognition of third country judgments).
The Grand Chamber emphasises mutual trust and the consequential very narrow room for refusal of recognition on ordre public grounds, even in the context of the application of the Charter’s Article 11 freedom of expression grounds: refusal must be exceptional, case-based, and not based on an entirely new balancing act.
However the court of enforcement must refuse to recognise if the Article 11 rights are fundamentally impacted. In exercising that assessment, it must i.a. take account of the distinction between the reputation of a legal cq natural person (the former lacking the ‘moral’ element of impacting on the ‘dignity’ of the person: [58]), the financial capacity of the defendant (accused to have libeled) [68], and the stiffing impact caused by a disproportionate difference between the actual damage suffered, and the libel award [62 ff].
Geert.
EU Private International Law, 4th ed, 2024, 2.619 ff.
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