Bosworth (Arcadia Petroleum), and Pillar Securitisation v Hildur Arnadottir. Two AGs on protected categories (consumers, employees) in the Lugano Convention- therefore also Brussels I Recast.

Update 14 May 2021 the Court of Appeal has today confirmed  the lack of subordination [Alta Trading UK Ltd v Bosworth [2021] EWCA Civ 687], with the Master of the Rolls commenting [82]

It seems that the defendants have spared no expense in seeking to challenge the jurisdiction of the English court over them. There have now been no fewer than 6 substantive hearings at different levels from the Commercial Court to the CJEU, and many interlocutory ones. The claim form was issued as long ago as 13 February 2015, now 6¼ years ago, but the defendants have yet even to file a defence to the claimants’ claims for some US$339 million. This, I regret to say, is an indictment of a system that has, in this case, allowed relatively straightforward jurisdictional arguments to expand into an unrestrained litigation extravaganza. Courts at all levels need to keep a close eye on proportionality.

Update 19 October 2020 today the High Court held in [2020] EWHC 2757 (Comm) Arcadia /Bosworth that defendants had a more than negligible ability to influence the Arcadia companies and that therefore there is no relation of employment.

Update 11 April 2019. The CJEU held today in Bosworth: no contract for employment. the AG’s Opinion and Gross J’s analysis confirmed.

Update 06 02 2018 I have inserted in the analysis below of Arcadia, a reference to De Bloos, in the context of the forumshopping considerations (I have also tidied up punctuation in that section).

Twice last week did the Lugano Convention’s protected categories title feature at the Court of Justice. On Tuesday, Szpunar AG opined in C-694/17 Pillar Securitisation v Hildur Arnadottir (consumer protection), and on Thursday Saugmansgaard ØE opined in C-603/17 Bosworth (Arcadia Petroleum) (employment contracts).

The issues that are being interpreted are materially very similar as in Brussels I Recast hence both evidently have an impact on the Brussels I Recast Regulation, too.

At stake in Pillar Securitisation (no English version of the Opinion at the time of writing) is the meaning of ‘outside his trade or profession’ in the consumer title. Advocate General Szpunar takes the case as a trigger to fine-tune the exact relationship between private international law such as was the case, he suggests, in Kainz and also in Vapenik.

I wrote in my review of Vapenik at the time: ‘I disagree though with the Court’s reference to substantive European consumer law, in particular the Directive on unfair terms in consumer contracts. Not because it is particularly harmful in the case at issue. Rather because I do not think conflict of laws should be too polluted with substantive law considerations. (See also my approval of Kainz).’

Ms Arnadottir’s case relates to the Kaupting reorganisation. Her personal loan exceeded one million € and therefore is not covered by Directive 2008/48 on credit agreements for consumers (maximum threshold there is 75K). Does that exclude her contract being covered by Lugano’s consumer Title?

The Directive’s core notion is ‘transaction’, as opposed to Lugano’s ‘contract’ (at 30 ff). And the Advocate-General of course has no option but to note the support given by the Court to consistent interpretation, in Vapenik. Yet at 42 ff he suggests a narrow reading of Vapenik, for a variety of reasons, including

• the presence, here, of Lugano States (not just EU Member States);
• the need for consistent interpretation between Lugano and Brussels (which does not support giving too much weight to EU secondary law outside the private international law sphere);
• and, most importantly, Kainz: a judgment, unlike Vapenik, which directly concerns Brussels I (and therefore also the link with Lugano). One of the implications which as I noted a the time I like a lot, is precisely  its respect for the design and purpose of private international law rules as opposed to other rules of secondary law; and within PIL, the distinction between jurisdiction and applicable law.

At 52 ff Advocate General Szpunar rejects further arguments invoked by parties to suggest the consumer title of the jurisdictional rules should be aligned with secondary EU consumer law. His line of reasoning is solid, however: autonomous interpretation of EU private international law prevents automatic alignment between consumer law and PIL.

Should the CJEU follow its first Advocate General, which along Kainz I suggest it should, no doubt distinguishing will be suggested given the presence of Lugano parties in Pillar Securitisation – yet the emphasis on autonomous interpretation suggest a wider calling.

 

C‑603/17 Bosworth v Arcadia then was sent up to Luxembourg by the UK’s Supreme Court [UKSC 2016/0181, upon appeal from [2016] EWCA Civ 818]. It concerns the employment Title of Lugano 2007. (Which only the other week featured at the High Court in Cunico v Daskalakis).

As helpfully summarised by Philip Croall, Samantha Trevan and Abigail Lovell, the issue is whether the English courts have jurisdiction over claims for conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty, dishonest assistance and knowing receipt brought against former employees of certain of the claimant companies now domiciled in Switzerland. In the main proceedings, the referring court must therefore determine whether the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction to rule on those claims or whether it is the courts of Switzerland, as courts of the domicile of the former directors implicated, that must hear all or part of the claims.

Gross J at the Court of Appeal had applied Holterman and Brogsitter, particularly in fact the Opinion of Jääskinen AG in Brogsitter – albeit with caution, for the AG’s Opinion was not adopted ‘wholesale’ by the CJEU (at 58, Court of Appeal). The mere fact that there is a contract of employment between parties is not sufficient to justify the application of the employment section of (here) the Lugano Convention. Gross J at 67: “do the conspiracy claims relate to the Appellants’ individual contracts of employment? Is there a material nexus between the conduct complained of and those contracts? Can the legal basis of these claims reasonably be regarded as a breach of those contracts so that it is indispensable to consider them in order to resolve the matter in dispute?”. Gross J had answered that whilst not every conspiracy would fall outside the relevant section, and those articles could not be circumvented simply by pleading a claim in conspiracy, in the circumstances of this case, however precisely the test was formulated, the answer was clearly “no”. Key to the alleged fraud lay in his view not in the appellants’ contracts of employment, but in their de facto roles as CEO and CFO of the Arcadia Group.

The facts behind the case are particularly complex, as are the various wrongdoings which the directors are accused of and there is little merit in my rehashing the extensive summary by the AG (the SC’s hearings leading to the referral lasted over a day and a half).

Saugmansgaard ØE essentially confirms Gross J’s analysis.

Company directors who carry out their duties in full autonomy are not bound to the company for which they perform those duties by an ‘individual contract of employment’ within the meaning of the employment section – there is no subordination (at 46). Note that like Szpunar SG, Saugmansgaard ØE too emphasises autonomous interpretation and no automatic colouring of one field of EU law by another: ‘the interpretation which the Court of Justice gives to a concept in one field of EU law cannot automatically be applied in a different field’ (at 49).

In the alternative (should the CJEU accept a relationship of employment), he opines that a claim made between parties to such a ‘contract’ and legally based in tort does fall within the scope of that section where the dispute arose in connection with the employment relationship. Secondly, he argues that an ‘employer’ within the meaning of the provisions of that section is not necessarily solely the person with whom the employee formally concluded a contract of employment (at 109). What the AG has in mind are group relations, where ‘an organic and economic link’ between two companies exists, one of whom sues even if the contract of employment is not directly with that company.

It is in this, subsidiary section, at 66 ff, that the AG revisits for the sake of completeness, the difference between ‘contract’ and ‘tort’ in EU pil. This is a section which among others will delight (and occupy) one of my PhD students, Michiel Poesen, who is writing his PhD on same. Michiel is chewing on the Opinion as we speak and no doubt will soon have relevant analysis of his own.

At 82 ff the AG points to the difficulties of the Brogsitter and other lines of cases. ‘(T)he case-law of the Court is ambiguous, to say the least, in so far as concerns the way in which Article 5(1) and Article 5(3) of the Brussels I Regulation and the Lugano II Convention are to be applied in cases where there are concurrent liabilities. It would be useful for the Court to clarify its position in this regard.’

At 83: it is preferable to adopt the logic resulting from [Kalfelis] and to classify a claim as ‘contractual’ or ‘tortious’ with regard to the substantive legal basis relied on by the applicant. At the very least, the Court in the AG’s view should hold on to a strict reading of the judgment in Brogsitter’: at 79: ‘the Court meant to classify as ‘contractual’ claims of liability in tort the merits of which depend on the content of the contractual duties binding the parties to the dispute.’ This in the view of the AG should be so even if (at 84) this authorises a degree of forum shopping, enabling the applicant to choose jurisdiction, with an eye to the appropriate rules. The AG points out that forum shopping particularly for special jurisdictional rules, is not at all absent from either Regulation or Convention.

Forum shopping considerations in (now) Article 7(1) have been an issue since the seminal case of De Bloos, C-14/76: at 13: ‘for the purposes of determining the place of performance within the meaning of Article 5, quoted above, the obligation to be taken into account is that which corresponds to the contractual right on which the plaintiff’s action is based.’ Among others Brogsitter may be seen as an attempt by the Court to manage the forum shopping considerations arising from De Bloos. It would be good for the Court to clarify whether De Bloos is still good authority, given the many textual changes and case-law considerations of (now) Article 7(1).

Finally, there is of course an applicable law dimension to the dispute although this does not feature in the reference. The relationships between companies and their directors are governed not by employment law, but by company law (at 52). For an EU judge, the Rome I and Rome II Regulations kicks in. Rome I contains, in Article 8, provisions relating to ‘individual employment contracts’, however it also provides, in Article 1(2)(f), that ‘questions governed by the law of companies’ concerning, inter alia, the ‘internal organisation’ of companies are excluded from its scope (at 55). Rome II likewise has a company law exemption. That puts into perspective the need (or not; readers know that I am weary of this) to apply Rome I and Brussels /Lugano consistently.

One had better sit down for a while when reviewing these Opinions.

Geert.

Handbook of) European Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.8.2, Heading 2.2.11.2, Heading 2.2.11.2.9.