Tag: Reflexieve toepassing

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Ness Global Services: A33-34 BIa’s forum non conveniens-light applied to the Scarlet Pimpernel of BIa: non-exclusive choice of court.

Ness Global Services Ltd v Perform Content Services Ltd [2020] EWHC 3394 (Comm)  engages Articles 33-34 of the Brussels Ia Regulation, its so-called forum non conveniens light regime. I reported on it before of course, most recently re Municipio de Mariana in which the judge arguably failed to engage with BIa properly (making A33-34 a carbon copy of abuse and /or forum non arguments in my view is noli sequi).

Perform and Ness are UK-registered companies with offices in London.  Perform are defendants in the UK action. Ness Global Services and its parent Ness Technologies Inc are defendants in parallel proceedings in New Jersey. Both sets of proceedings are based on the same facts and matters. These are said to constitute the basis for termination by both sides of a written agreement.

Ness argue application of A33-34 must be dismissed for there is non-exclusive choice of court in favour of England which, it argues, makes the A33-34 threshold very high. (The clause reads ‘”Governing Law and Jurisdiction. The Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales and the parties hereby irrevocably submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales as regards any claim, dispute or matter arising under or in connection with this Agreement.”)

Houseman J introduces BIa’s scheme clearly and concisely, using the excellent Adrian Briggs’ suggestion of there being a hidden hierarchy in the Regulation – which in my Handbook I have also adopted (clearly with reference to prof Briggs) as the ‘jurisdictional matrix’. Houseman J at 39 notes that non-exclusive jurisdiction is hardly discussed in the Regulation. and concludes on that issue ‘If the internal hierarchy is “hidden” then is fair to say that the concept of non-exclusive prorogated jurisdiction is enigmatic and elusive. It is The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Regulation.’ Later non-EJA is used as shorthand for non-exclusive jurisdiction agreement.

At 62 after consideration of the reflexive application of exclusive jurisdictional rules, including choice of court, the text of A33-34, and recital 24, the judge considers that the recital

focusses upon connections with the ‘first seised’ Non-Member State, rather than the ‘second seised’ Member State which is applying Article 33 or Article 34. This is conspicuous notwithstanding the fact that the jurisdictional gateway language presupposes some connection between either the defendant (domicile) or the circumstances of the case (special jurisdiction) and the ‘second seised’ forum. Further, there is no obvious room in this wording for accommodating or giving effect to a Non-EJA in favour of the courts of the latter forum, and no warrant for affording it the significance that it would receive under English private international law principles, as noted below. In contrast, the second paragraph of the recital appears to contemplate the conferral of exclusive prorogated jurisdiction (albeit reflexively) in favour of the ‘first seised’ Non-Member State, as noted above.

At 80, Houseman J emphasises that in his view the internal hierarchy of the Regulation (the matrix) has no direct role to play in interpreting or applying the gateway language in A33-34. Those articles are themselves part of such hierarchy and are themselves a derogation from the basic rule of domiciliary jurisdiction. He then refers in some support to UCP v Nectrus (reference could also have been made to Citicorp) to hold at 95 that

where Article 25 operates to confer prorogated jurisdiction upon the courts of the ‘second seised’ Member State, whether exclusive or non-exclusive, Articles 33 and 34 are not applicable. In such a case it cannot be said that the court’s jurisdiction is “based upon” Article 4.

A suggestion at 96 that in such case A33-34 can apply reflexively is justifiably rejected.

At 109 application of A33-34 had they been engaged is declined obiter as being not in the interest of proper administration of justice. At 107 mere reference, neither approving nor disapproving was made ia to Municipio de Mariana which effectively places the Articles on a forum non footing.  At 112 it is held obiter

Without engaging in a full granular balancing exercise, given that this is a hypothetical inquiry in the present case, I am not persuaded that it is or would have been necessary for the proper administration of justice to stay these proceedings in favour of the NJ Proceedings. The parties bargained for or at any rate accepted the risk of jurisdictional fragmentation and multiplicity of proceedings by agreeing clause 20(f). That risk has manifested, largely through the tactical choice made by Perform to commence proceedings pre-emptively in New Jersey. The continuation of these proceedings, notwithstanding the existence of the NJ Proceedings, is a foreseeable consequence of the parties’ free bargain and a risk that Perform courted by suing first elsewhere.

An interesting addition to the scant A33-34 case-law, in an area this time of purely commercial litigation.

Geert.

European Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, 2.539 ff.

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Negative jurisdiction conflicts covered by enforcement title of Brussels I – The ECJ in Gothaer

The ECJ has issued its ruling in C-456/11 Gothaer, the AG’s Opinion in which I reported earlier. The Court first of all confirmed that the term ‘judgment’ within the meaning of Article 32 of Regulation No 44/2001 covers a judgment by which a court of a Member State declines jurisdiction on the ground of an agreement on jurisdiction, even though that judgment is classified as a ‘procedural judgment’ by the law of the Member State addressed.

Moreover, the ECJ held that the court in the Member State in which enforcement is sought, is bound by the finding of the first court – made in the grounds of a judgment, which has since become final, declaring the action inadmissible – regarding the validity of that clause. To justify its finding, it refers in principle to the very definition of recognition as highlighted in the Report Jenard: recognition must ‘have the result of conferring on judgments the authority and effectiveness accorded to them in the State in which they were given’. Accordingly, a foreign judgment which has been recognised under Article 33 of Regulation No 44/2001 must in principle have the same effects in the State in which recognition is sought as it does in the State of origin. It further emphasizes the same arguments as flagged by the AG in coming to its finding.

On the peculiarity that in the case at issue, the choice of court clause points way from the EU, which raises the question what effect can be given to such clauses under the Jurisdiction Regulation, the court concedes that Article 23 does not apply, however, like the AG, it refers to the Lugano Convention, which contains a proviso very much like Article 23 JR. That to me is a bit of an awkward finding: whether the choice of court clause points to a Lugano State or not ought to be irrelevant. It would, through the recognition process, make choice of court in favour of Lugano States in some way less ‘not covered’ by the JR than those pointing to non-Lugano States (and by flagging Lugano, the Court leaves open the question of jurisdiction clauses in favour of non-Lugano States). A further argument made by the court in my view is more convincing, namely the ‘but for’ argument:

To allow a court of the Member State in which recognition is sought to disregard, as devoid of effect, the jurisdiction clause which a court of the Member State of origin has held to be valid would run counter to that prohibition of a review as to the merits, particularly in circumstances where the latter might well have ruled, but for that clause, that it had jurisdiction. (at 38)

Indeed typically the action in the court of origin is taken by the recalcitrant party (i.e. the one acting in spite of a choice of court clause), trying to convince the court of origin that it has jurisdiction on the basis of another Article in the JR, Whence indeed but for the clause, that court would most likely have exercised jurisdiction. A finding of validity of the clause therefore is likely to have been seriously considered. Allowing a court in another Member State to nevertheless exercise jurisdiction and refusing recognition and enforcement,  would make the JR nugatory.  This is in my view no different where as a result (such as here) no court in the EU will be able to hear the case.

Geert.

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