Tag: place of performance

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LOT. Place of performance under Article 7(1)a in case of multicarrier flights. The CJEU dismisses landing place of first leg of multileg flight as forum contractus.

The CJEU held yesterday in C-20/21 LOT Polish Airlines, on the place of performance (hence creation of jurisdiction in an application for flightdelay compensation) of a flight consisting of a confirmed single booking and performed in several legs by two separate air carriers. That the claim came within Article 7(1)’s gateway for contracts is a result of CJEU flightright. The Court also held in that case that both the place of departure of the first leg of the journey and the place of arrival of the last leg of the journey were forum contractus.

In the case at issue, jurisdiction is sought for the place of landing of the first leg of the journey. In CJEU Zurich Insurance, on multimodal transport, place of dispatch was added as forum contractus, with the CJEU refraining from holding explicitly whether other legs of the journey could count as such forum (Tanchev AG had opined they should not). In current case, the CJEU would seem to confirm my feeling that in Zurich Insurance it implicitly sided with a limitation of fora. Indeed it holds that the place of arrival of the first leg is not forum contractus under A7(1), however, there is a caveat: [24]:

the referring court does not indicate the elements of the contract which could justify, with a view to the efficacious conduct of proceedings, the existence of a sufficiently close link between the facts of the dispute in the main proceedings and its jurisdiction.

The CJEU’s dictum is formulated in more absolute terms:

The second indent of [A7(1) BIa] must be interpreted as meaning that, in respect of a flight consisting of a confirmed single booking for the entire journey and divided into two or more legs on which transport is performed by separate air carriers, where a claim for compensation, brought [under the flightdelay Regulation 261/2004] arises exclusively from a delay of the first leg of the journey caused by a late departure and is brought against the air carrier operating that first leg, the place of arrival for that first leg may not be classified as a ‘place of performance’ within the meaning of that provision

However given the caveat [24] it is not to be excluded that contractual terms could distinguish the finding of lack of forum contractus.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, 2.399 ff.

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Saey Home: The CJEU on choice of court and invoices, and place of performance of concession contracts.

C‑64/17 Saey Home, is yet another illustration of, mercifully for us conflicts lawyers, even fairly sophisticated businesses often fail properly to conclude commercial agreements. Here: what is said to be a semi-exclusive concession agreement, was concluded verbally only.

Saey Home & Garden is a company with its registered office in Kortrijk (Belgium), which specialises in the manufacture and sale, inter alia, of kitchen equipment and utensils bearing the trademark ‘Barbecook’. That company does not have a branch or establishment in Spain. Lusavouga has its registered office in Cacia, Aveiro (Portugal). Its premises are in Portugal. Its network covers Spain, inter alia, where it has no branch or establishment. Parties to the main proceedings concluded a commercial concession agreement concerning the exclusive promotion and distribution (with the exception of one client) in Spain.

First up, has choice of court in favour of the courts at Kortrijk (referred to by its French synonym Courtrai, but then without the ‘r’ in referral documents and by the CJEU) been validly made if this choice was only included in the general terms and conditions included in the invoices? Hoszig (where a jurisdiction clause is stipulated in the general conditions, such a clause is lawful where the text of the contract signed by both parties itself contains an express reference to general conditions which include a jurisdiction clause) and Leventis (the purpose of the requirements as to form imposed by Article 25(1) is to ensure that consensus between the parties is in fact established) are the most recent CJEU precedent referred to. Both of them build on standing CJEU principle: one must not be overly formalistic when assessing the existence of agreement, but one must be certain that such agreement exists. While it is up to the national court to assess this in fact, the Court does indicate it is unlikely to be the case when no written agreement has been made (neither initially nor subsequently confirming an earlier verbal agreement) and all one has are the invoices.

Choice of court being unlikely, next up is the application of Article 7(1) to determine which court has jurisdiction to hear an application for damages relating to the termination of a commercial concession agreement concluded between two companies, each established and operating in a different Member State, for the marketing of goods on the domestic market of a third Member State in which neither of those companies has a branch or establishment.

Referring to Corman-Collins, the Court classifies concession agreements as being service contracts, which per Article 7(1) second indent, leaves to be determined the ‘place in
a Member State where, under the contract, the services were provided or should have been provided;’. Note: the place in a Member State. Not different places. Per Wood Floor Solutions, when there are several places of performance of the obligation characteristic of a contract for the supply of services the ‘place of performance’ must be understood as the place with the closest linking factor, which, as a general rule, will be at the place of the main provision of services. This place of ‘main provision’ follows from the provisions of the contract and, in the absence of such provision, of the actual performance of that contract and, where it cannot be determined on that basis, the place where the agent is domiciled (still per Wood Floor Solutions). This specific determination is left to the referring court.

One imagines different national courts may have treated all of this as acte clair – except perhaps for the peculiarity of Spain being a Member State where neither of the parties has either domicile or branch.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 2, Heading 2.2.11.1.

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It does not get more The Hague than this. Footballing around jurisdiction, applicable law and corporate finance in ADO Den Haag v United Vansen (PRC)

Thank you Bob Wessels for alerting me to ADO Den Haag v United Vansen (of China). ADO Den Haag NV (the corporate vehicle of a Dutch Premier League club) domiciled at The Hague, sue United Vansen International Sports Co. Ltd, domiciled at Beijing, essentially for the latter to pay a deposit on the premium due for the shares it acquired in the club. Vansen did not appear.

First of all, were Vansen properly summoned in accordance with the Hague Service Abroad Convention (which both China and The Netherlands have ratified)? The court holds that it cannot yet decide that this has actually happened (relevant steps taken via the Dutch judicial authorities only recently having taken place) however it applies Article 15(3)’s provisions for extreme urgency: ‘Notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding paragraphs the judge may order, in case of urgency, any provisional or protective measures.‘

Next up: do the Dutch courts have jurisdiction? Given the defendant’s domicile outside of the EU and the non-applicability of any of Brussel I’s rules where domicile is irrelevant, the Court applied Dutch residual rules of private international law. These grant it jurisdiction essentially in respect of urgent proceedings of attachment.

Of more interest to this blog is the court’s consideration of applicable law, which the Court conducts with reference to Rome I. The share purchase agreement seemingly did not contain choice of law, either implicit or explicit: at 2.15, the court suffices with a mere observation of the absence of choice of law. None of the standard contracts of Article 4(1) Rome I applies [there is some discussion in scholarship whether share purchase is covered by Article 4(1)a’s ‘contract for the sale of goods’], hence the relevance of Article 4(2)’s ‘characteristic performance’ test. Here, the Court declared unequivocally that the characteristic performance is the transfer of the share premium. The habitual residence of the party required to carry out that performance is the relevant connecting factor. In casu therefore, Chinese law in principle is the applicable law.

This in fact is not as straightforward as it may sound. Other legal regimes may find perhaps entry in the shareholder registry following payment, to be the characteristic performance; or the initiation of negotiations to pay a share premium; etc.

However the Dutch court finally settles for Dutch law after all, employing Article 4(3)’s escape clause. It holds that all circumstances of the case indicate that Dutch law is more closely connected: at 2.15: the agreement originated in The Netherlands; the performance has to be carried in The Netherlands (transfer of the sums into a Dutch bank account), and the transfer of the premium will benefit a Dutch company. Although the judgment does not give much detail on the contract, its origins etc., it would seem that in finally opting for Dutch law, the court does make proper application of the rather strict conditions of Article 4(3).

A good illustration of Article 4’s waterfall /cascade.

Geert.

(Handbook of) European private international law, 2nd ed. 2016, Chapter 3, Heading 3.2.6.

 

 

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Place of performance of a contract: Court of Appeal in JEB v Binstock.

In JEB Recoveries v Binstock, [2016] EWCA Civ 1008, the Court of Appeal (on appeal from the High Court, 2015] EWHC 1063 (Ch)) exhaustively reviewed relevant EU precedent for the determination of the ‘place of performance’ of a contract under Article 5(1) (now 7(1)) of the Brussels I (Recast) Regulation. Kitchin LJ first of all refuses to deal with the alleged submission to jurisdiction by Mr Binstock. The argument was made that,  by making and pursuing an application for security for costs, Mr Binstock had submitted to the jurisdiction. The issue was however not raised before the High Court and therefore not sub judice at the Court of Appeal.

Mr Binstock (of casino fame) argued that the contracts at issue were not performed in England, for he himself was domiciled in Spain and the claimant in the case at issue (for most of the relevant contracts, jurisdiction was dismissed at hand) had arguably carried out his contractual arrangements largely from Paris.

Relevant CJEU precedent was C-19/09 Wood Floor Solutions the findings of which Lord Justice Kitchin helpfully summarised as follows:

  1. ‘…First, the place of performance must be understood as the place with the closest linking factor between the contract and the court having jurisdiction and, as a general rule, this will be at the place of the main provision of the services.
  2. Secondly, the place of the main provision of the services must be deduced, so far as possible, from the provisions of the contract itself.
  3. Thirdly, if the provisions of the contract do not enable the place of the main provision of the services to be determined, either because they provide for several places where services are to be provided or because they do not expressly provide for any specific place where services are to be provided, but services have already been provided, it is appropriate, in the alternative, to take account of the place where activities in performance of the contract have for the most part been carried out, provided that the provision of services in that place is not contrary to the parties’ intentions as appears from the contract.
  4. Fourthly, if the place of the main provision of the services cannot be determined on the basis of the terms of the contract or its performance, then it must be identified by another means which respects the objectives of predictability and proximity, and this will be the place where the party providing the services is domiciled.’

Based upon the place where the services have for the most part been carried out, the Court of Appeal held that JEB has no good arguable case that the place of the main provision of Mr Wilson’s services was England.

A neat application of Article 7(1) and an improved re-phrasing of the CJEU’s own rules.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, Chapter 2 Heading 2.2.11.1.,

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