Tag: cmr

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Oakfield Foods: Writ of control granted in enforcement of EU order of payment; otherwise enforcement stayed pending challenge to jurisdiction in Poland.

In Oakfield Foods v Zaklad Przemyslu Miesnego Biernacki SP Z O O [2020] EWHC 250 (QB), Kimbell DJ granted a writ of control for £149,100.43 (monies to be paid into court) on the basis of the European orders for payment and their enforcement (EOPs) Regulation 1896/2006. The order for payment was issued in June 2018 by the Regional Court in Poznan.

In the simmering dispute on jurisdiction, it is Oakfield’s position that the court in Poland did not have jurisdiction because, under the terms of the sales agreement between it and Biernacki, there was choice of court for the courts of England and Wales. The position Biernacki in their application for the EPO is that the meat that was sold from Biernacki to Oakfield, was delivered in each case on Incoterms CIF/CIP under cover of CMR notes, and delivery took place in Poland.

Article 20 EOP provides for a system of review of the order. Oakfield argue that the time-limit included in it has not even begun running for service was not properly done. Oakfield have also launched proceedings in Poland challenging the EOP. Those proceedings were issued on 1 July 2019.

Kimbell DJ after discussing the service issues (incl the relation between the EOP and the Service Regulation) granted a writ of control (shielding therefore Biernacki from the risk of non-payment), stayed further enforcement until the litigation in Poland will be resolved, and also, at 98, ordered that Oakfield notify Biernacki’s English solicitors every four to six weeks of progress in the application challenging the EOP so as to avoid the claim being warehoused.

The substantial debate on jurisdiction in Poland clearly will involve the usual discussions on GTCs as well as Incoterms and choice of court.

Geert.

 

 

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CMR and the Brussels regime. The UKSC applies Nipponkoa in BAT /Essers.

Confession time: when teaching the general conflicts course I tend to simply say about Article 71 of the Brussels I Regulation (unchanged in the Recast): ‘it’s complicated’. I have also briefly flagged the Article in my posting on Nickel and Goeldner. I suppose I should not be quite so shy in addressing the relationship even in an introductory conflicts class for, essentially, it is not that complicated at least form a hierarchical point of view. Article 71 mirrors Article 351 TFEU which states that any rights or obligations arising prior to the TFEU shall not be affected by it unless the agreements are not compatible with the TFEU. At stake therefore is a review by the courts whether international agreements between the Member States prior to the creation of the EU, are compatible with the TFEU.

In [2015] UKSC 65  BAT Denmark v Kazemier and BAT Switserland v Essers, the United Kingdom Supreme Court had to carry out this exercise vis-a-vis the 1956 CMR Convention –   the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road. As Steven Baker notes, Lord Mance kicks off his judgment with the rather delightfully accurate ‘Cigarettes attract smokers, smugglers and thieves’. Tobacco manufactuters are also of course active litigators hence providing us with repeated opportunity to review case-law on a wide variety of contractual and other matters.

In the two appeals, one container load was allegedly hi-jacked in Belgium en route between Switzerland and The Netherlands in September 2011, while another allegedly lost 756 of its original 1386 cartons while parked overnight contrary to express instructions near Copenhagen en route between Hungary and Vallensbaek, Denmark.

The consignors (two of BAT’s corporate vehicles) are claiming against English main contractors who undertook responsibility for the carriage and against sub-contractors in whose hands the cigarettes were when the alleged losses occurred. The carriage was subject to the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road 1956 (“CMR”), given the force of law in the United Kingdom by the Carriage of Goods by Road Act 1965.

English law and English jurisdiction are said to offer the advantage that such duty and/or taxes are recoverable in a CMR claim against carriers, which is not the case in some other jurisdictions (at 4).

Citing (and reading in a particular way) CJEU precedent, in particular  Nipponkoa Insurance Co (Europe) Ltd v Inter-Zuid Transport BV (DTC Surhuisterveen BV intervening), C-452/12, the Supreme Court held (at 57) that CMR represents a balanced jurisdictional régime adopted across a wide-range of some 55 states, only half of which are Union member states. It did not regard its tailored balance as impinging on any of the principles of Union law which the CJEU would have it check against.

CMR applies therefore and under relevant English application, neither of the defendants can be sued in England.

Geert.

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