Brussels, 04/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - When the same dispute is brought before the courts of different member states, the jurisdiction of the first court before which the case is taken is established if it has not declined jurisdiction of its own motion and none of the parties has contested it. Once the responsible court has been established, any court to which the case is then taken must immediately decline the case and leave it for the first court to decide.
This was the answer given by the European Court of Justice in case C1-13, in which a French appeals court (Cour de Cassation) asked about a case between Cartier (jewellery and perfumes) and its insurance company, Axa, and transport company Ziegler France and its subcontractors. On 16 September 2008, after a robbery in the United Kingdom in 2007 when Cartier cosmetics were stolen from a Ziegler sub-contractor's van, Ziegler applied to a court in the UK in order to determine the liability incurred and to calculate the damage sustained by Cartier as a result of the theft. One week later, Cartier and Axa took Ziegler and its subcontractors to a French court, seeking a declaration that Ziegler and its subcontractors were jointly and severally liable. Ziegler takes the view that the case was taken to the French court after a case on the same issue had been taken to an English court, so the French court must decline jurisdiction in favour of the English court because the jurisdiction of the latter has not been contested by the parties and is therefore established for the purposes of EU law. Cartier and Axa take the view that, in order for the jurisdiction of the English court to be established, it is necessary that that court has implicitly or expressly recognised its jurisdiction by a judgment which has become final. The French appeals court asked the Court of Justice as to circumstances in which it may be considered that the jurisdiction of the court to which the first case is taken is established.
The European Court of Justice “considers that it is clear from EU law that the jurisdiction of the court first seised is established (subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the court second seised), if that court has not declined jurisdiction of its own motion and none of the parties has contested its jurisdiction prior or up to the time of the defence on the substance. In the present case, the Court points out that the English court has not declined jurisdiction of its own motion and that Cartier entered an appearance before it without contesting its jurisdiction. Furthermore, a requirement that the court first seised has implicitly or expressly recognised its jurisdiction by a judgment which has become final would deprive of all their effectiveness the rules laid down by EU law intended to resolve situations of lis pendens and would increase the risk of parallel proceedings, which EU law specifically seeks to avoid. Finally, the Court of Justice states that, in the present case, its interpretation is unlikely to give rise to a negative conflict of jurisdiction (in which case the parties would be obliged to bring fresh proceedings if the court first seised were to decline jurisdiction), since the jurisdiction of the English court can no longer be contested”. (FG)