Agrégateur de flux

The Oberlandesgericht of Düsseldorf has recently lodged a request for a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of Article 97(1) of Regulation No 207/2009 on the Community trade mark (Case C-617/15, Hummel Holding). Specifically, the request concerns the meaning of the term “establishment” as used in the Regulation.

According to Article 97(1), proceedings in respect of the actions and claims referred to in Article 96 — ie infringement actions, actions for declaration of non-infringement etc. — “shall be brought in the courts of the Member State in which the defendant is domiciled or, if he is not domiciled in any of the Member States, in which he has an establishment”.

The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. The applicant, a Danish company, sues a German company before a German court, alleging that the latter has infringed its Community trade mark. The defendant complains that German courts lack jurisdiction, relying on the circumstance that the German company is a subsidiary of a Dutch company, which is itself a subsidiary of an American holding company.

In connection with the foregoing, the Oberlandesgericht asks the ECJ to clarify “(u)nder which circumstances is a legally distinct second-tier subsidiary, with its seat in an EU Member State, of an undertaking that itself has no seat in the European Union to be considered as an ‘establishment’ of that undertaking within the meaning of Article 97(1)” of the Regulation.

La Cour de justice de l’Union européenne confirme, dans un arrêt du 23 décembre 2015, l’exigibilité de la TVA sur les billets d’avion non utilisés et non remboursables de la compagnie aérienne Air France-KLM. 

En carrousel matière:  Non Matières OASIS:  Néant

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This post has been written by Ilaria Aquironi.

On 15 April 2016 the Law Faculty of the University of Santiago del Compostela will host an international conference on Security Rights and the European Insolvency Regulation: from Conflicts of Laws towards Harmonization. The event is part of the Security Rights and the European Insolvency Regulation Project.

Speakers include Paul Beaumont (Univ. of Aberdeen), Francisco Garcimartín Alferez (Univ. Autonoma of Madrid), Juana Pulgar Esquerra (Univ. Complutense of Madrid) and Anna Veneziano (Unidroit).

With a view to promote scientific debate on the topic, a call for papers has been issued. The organizers will consider papers addressing, in particular: (a) Security Rights, Set-Off, Transactional Avoidance and Conflict-of-Laws Issues; (b) Security Rights and Insolvency Law in National Legislation, in particular taking into account the New Approach to Business Failure and Insolvency as proposed by the 2014 European Commission Recommendation; (c) Harmonization Trends at an international level.

Submissions should be sent by 11 March 2016 either to Marta Carballo Fidalgo (marta.carballo@usc.es) or to Laura Carballo Piñeiro (laura.carballo@usc.es).

Further information about the project is available here. The call for papers can be downloaded here.

Pourvoi c/ juridiction de proximité de Longjumeau, 1e et 4e classe, 24 novembre 2015

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Paris, pôle 5, chambre 9, 11 décembre 2014

Cour d'appel d'Aix en Provence, 13e chambre, 8 janvier 2016

Conseil de Prud'hommes de Troyes, 13 janvier 2016

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Besançon, chambre sociale, 3 juin 2014

Pourvoi c/ Cour d'assises de Mayotte, 1er décembre 2015

Commission / Chypre
Libre circulation des personnes
La législation chypriote sur les droits à la retraite, qui désavantage les travailleurs migrants par rapport à ceux qui ne se déplacent pas de Chypre, est contraire au droit de l’Union

On 15 April 2016 the Law Faculty of the University of Santiago del Compostela hosts an international conference on Security Rights and the European Insolvency Regulation: from Conflicts of Laws towards Harmonization. The event is part of the Security Rights and the European Insolvency Regulation Project.

Speakers include Paul Beaumont (Univ. of Aberdeen), Francisco Garcimartín Alferez (Univ. Autonoma of Madrid), Juana Pulgar Esquerra (Univ. Complutense of Madrid) and Anna Veneziano (Unidroit).

With a view to promote scientific debate on the topic, a call for papers has been issued. The organizers will consider papers addressing, in particular: (a) Security Rights, Set-Off, Transactional Avoidance and Conflict-of-Laws Issues; (2) Security Rights and Insolvency Law in National Legislation, in particular taking into account the New Approach to Business Failure and Insolvency as proposed by the 2014 European Commission Recommendation; (3) Harmonization Trends at an international level.

Submissions should be sent by 11 March 2016 either to Marta Carballo Fidalgo (marta.carballo@usc.es) or to Laura Carballo Piñeiro (laura.carballo@usc.es).

Further information about the project is available here. The call for papers can be downloaded here.

Dans ses conclusions rendues le 23 décembre 2015, l’avocat général de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE), Juliane Kokott, juge licite la nouvelle législation européenne visant à rapprocher les dispositions législatives, réglementaires et administratives des États membres concernant les produits du tabac.

En carrousel matière:  Oui Matières OASIS:  Santé publique

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DHL Express (Italy) et DHL Global Forwarding (Italy)
Concurrence
En matière de concurrence, les programmes de clémence de l’Union et des États membres coexistent de façon autonome

Il 15 gennaio 2016 la Serbia ha depositato il proprio strumento di adesione alla Convenzione dell’Aja del 19 ottobre 1996 sulla competenza, la legge applicabile, l’efficacia delle decisioni e la cooperazione in materia di responsabilità genitoriale e di misure di protezione dei minori.

La Convenzione, che è in vigore per altri 42 Stati, fra cui l’Italia (dal 1° gennaio 2016: si veda questo post), entrerà in vigore per la Serbia il 1° novembre 2016, conformemente a quanto previsto all’art. 61, par. 2, lett. b), della Convenzione stessa.

Questo lungo lasso di tempo si spiega alla luce dell’art. 58, par. 3, della Convenzione, il quale stabilisce che per gli Stati a cui è data la possibilità di aderire alla Convenzione (tutti gli Stati che non erano membri della Conferenza dell’Aja all’epoca dell’adozione del testo), l’adesione è efficace solo nei riguardi di quegli Stati contraenti che non abbiano obiettato all’adesione nei sei mesi successivi alla notifica della stessa.

Toshiba / Commission
Concurrence
Le Tribunal confirme les amendes de 131 millions d’euros infligées à Toshiba et Mitsubishi Electric pour leur participation à l’entente sur le marché des appareillages de commutation à isolation gazeuse

Clotilde Camus, La distinction du droit public et du droit privé et le conflit de lois, L.G.D.J., 2015, ISBN: 9782275047676, pp. 396, Euro 45.

[Dal sito dell’editore] – Cette étude a pour objet d’analyser les implications des mutations de la distinction du droit public et du droit privé pour le droit international privé, et plus particulièrement pour le conflit de lois. En effet, dans la mesure où l’on enseigne traditionnellement que la méthode du conflit de lois prend pour point de départ la summa divisio, ses transformations influencent nécessairement le conflit de lois.  Plus précisément, cette recherche est fondée sur le constat de la résistance de la distinction du droit public et du droit privé, en dépit des remises en cause récurrentes dont elle fait l’objet. Quand bien même son tracé et son rôle évoluent sans cesse, elle ne nous semble pas avoir perdu sa raison d’être, tant que subsiste la res publica. Il nous a dès lors paru pertinent de transposer à la summa divisio la formule de Maurice Hauriou relative à l’existence de la juridiction administrative : «c’est peine perdue de la discuter ; au contraire, il faut en accepter la donnée et en observer le jeu».  L’observation du jeu de la distinction du droit public et du droit privé nous a conduit à analyser ses mutations à partir de trois paradigmes – libéral, post-étatique et constitutionnel -, chacun éclairant sous un jour particulier l’opposition du droit public et du droit privé. Il a alors fallu étudier au sein de chacun de ces trois paradigmes l’influence de ces évolutions sur le conflit de lois.

L’indice completo è consultabile al seguente indirizzo. Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili sul sito dell’editore.

Prive sa décision de justification la cour d’appel qui, après avoir constaté que l’achat d’une mineure avait pour finalité de la contraindre à commettre des vols, relaxe le prévenu du chef du délit de traite des êtres humains.

En carrousel matière:  Oui Matières OASIS:  Traite des êtres humains

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In Ecobank Transnational v Tanoh, the Court of Appeal refused an anti-enforcement injunction because of the applicant’s delay in filing it. Nigel Brook reviews the judgment’s findings on the issue of the anti-enforcement injunction here. The issue in this appeal is whether the High Court was wrong to refuse to grant Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (“Ecobank”), an injunction restraining Mr Thierry Tanoh (“Mr Tanoh”) from enforcing two judgments which he had obtained in Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. In substance the case concerned the relationship between arbitration, proceedings in the court in ordinary, and submission: it is to the latter that I turn my attention in this posting.

The Brussels regime does not apply – at stake is the application of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, which reads in relevant section

“33 For the purposes of determining whether a judgment given by a court of an overseas country should be recognised or enforced in England and Wales or Northern Ireland, the person against whom the judgment was given shall not be regarded as having submitted to the jurisdiction of the court by reason only of the fact that he appeared (conditionally or otherwise) in the proceedings for all or any one or more of the following purposes, namely

(a) to contest the jurisdiction of the court;

(b) to ask the court to dismiss or stay the proceedings on the ground that the dispute in question should be submitted to arbitration or to the determination of the courts of another country.”

Whilst the section states that a person shall not be regarded as having submitted by reason only of the facts there mentioned it is silent as to what additional facts are sufficient to establish submission. The Court of appeal confirms the feeling expressed in earlier case-law that Section 33 needs to be applied in parallel with Article 18 of the Brussels Convention, now Article 26 of the Brussels I Recast (and before that, Article 24 in the Brussels I Regulation). That is because Section 33 is largely derived from Article 18 of the Brussels Convention.

In the High Court judgment Burnton LJ said that it would be unfortunate if the principles applied by the courts of England and Wales on whether a litigant had submitted to the jurisdiction of a foreign court in non-EU cases were different from the principles applied by the Court of Justice, and therefore those courts, in cases under the Brussels and Lugano Conventions and now the Judgments Regulation.

In current appeal, Clarke LJ held (at 66) ‘I would go further. The decision of the court in Harada in relation to section 33 was heavily influenced by the decision of the European Court in relation to Article 18 of the Brussels Convention. But, now that section 33 has been interpreted in the way that it has, it cannot be right that it should bear a different meaning in cases outwith the European context.‘

Submission was not found to exist.

Do be aware of the limits to the relevant findings: Section 33 was largely borrowed, it appears, from the Brussels Convention. Many parts of English private international law, statutory or not, are no so borrowed. In those areas, the courts of England happily continue to follow their own course.

Geert.

 

In un decreto del 26 agosto 2015, il Giudice Tavolare del Tribunale di Trieste ha annoverato l’ingiunzione di pagamento europea di cui al regolamento n. 1896/2006, dichiarata esecutiva in conformità all’art. 18 del regolamento stesso, tra le possibili fonti del diritto all’ipoteca giudiziale ex art. 2820 del codice civile, ammettendo che sulla base di essa possa essere autorizzata l’iscrizione del relativo diritto nei registri del conservatore immobiliare.

Una tale conclusione verrebbe a discendere, nell’opinione del giudice disponente, dai principi posti alla base dello stesso regolamento n. 1896/2006, il quale – pur configurando, in termini espressi, il procedimento da esso istituito come un meccanismo supplementare e facoltativo rispetto a quelli previsti dalla legislazione nazionale per il recupero di crediti non contestati – mira, tuttavia, a garantire l’effettività della tutela del credito così realizzata.

Tale effettività, in particolare, andrebbe preservata, anche per via interpretativa, riconoscendo ai creditori che decidano di avvalersene la possibilità di rivendicare, sulla base dell’ingiunzione, i diritti e le facoltà che spetterebbero loro in base a un analogo titolo nazionale.

Una conclusione opposta, che negasse l’attitudine dell’ingiunzione europea a fungere da base per l’iscrizione di un’ipoteca giudiziale nei confronti del debitore ingiunto, si porrebbe del resto in contrasto, ad avviso del giudice triestino, con le indicazioni date dalla Corte di Giustizia nel caso Szyrocka, poiché finirebbe col dissuadere il creditore dall’avvalersi del procedimento europeo, diminuendone l’appetibilità rispetto al più favorevole procedimento nazionale esperibile in situazioni analoghe (segnatamente, il procedimento di ingiunzione di cui agli articoli 633 e seguenti del codice di procedura civile).

In definitiva, stando al provvedimento, è la necessità di assicurare l’effettivo esercizio dei diritti conferiti dal diritto dell’Unione che impone di riconoscere all’ingiunzione europea di pagamento non opposta – al pari del decreto ingiuntivo non opposto (cfr. l’art. 647 del codice di procedura civile e l’art. 2817 e seguenti del codice civile) – l’efficacia di titolo per l’iscrizione dell’ipoteca giudiziale.

Ana Fernández Pérez, Funciones de las cláusulas de excepción en el proceso de localización de la norma en conflicto, in Revista española de derecho internacional (REDI), 2015, pp. 83-109.

[Abstract] – An important aspect of flexibility is that, without abandoning the localization process, it counteracts the rigidity of the connections of the rule of conflict that may appoint, in certain circumstances, a legal system with weak links to the assumption and producing adverse situations. In national and international codification of private international law some texts have turned to so-called “exception clause” from which the judge has an institutionalized power to determine the applicable law, as long as the situation  provides unequivocally a very loose connection with another law designated by the rule of conflict laws. The exception clauses designed for specific situations have been proved to be useful and, therefore, have been welcomed as an important correction instrument and as the best mechanism for specialization due to the degree of heterogeneity. Its use helps to consolidate the necessary certainty and predictability of the rules of conflict and therefore the satisfaction of the proximity principle. Naturally, this loca-tion must be understood in a material sense character. The exception clause will deploy its usefulness if it acts as a technical localization inside the confrontational mechanism that seeks the right answer, given the physical objectives that seeks solution of the case.