Abstract
The Brussels I Recast Regulation and the Rome I Regulation accept the challenge of serving the interests of both legal certainty and flexibility. Their system works with objective type-specific connecting factors and a healthy relationship between default rules and exceptions to it. Both Regulations give a great deal of freedom to the parties to make their own case. However, there is quite a bit of divergence, too: The Brussels I Recast Regulation sets out predictable, hard and fast-rules as it must think of procedural economy and the protection of the defendant. It must also consider how to live up to the mutual trust principle in the EU Area of Justice. Rome I, by contrast, thinks of how to realise a conflict of laws rationale and how to answer the need of justice for the merit of an individual case. It cannot only set out a priori appropriate rules but needs to give a certain discretion to the courts.
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Notes
- 1.
Pontier and Burg 2004, pp. 83–84 (providing for an overview of CJEU case law).
- 2.
Vischer 2015, p. 10.
- 3.
Neuhaus 1963, p. 795.
- 4.
Cf., however, Pocar, p. 344, who correctly observes that concurrent fora impede predictability. However, he seems to misconceive that this is not contradicted by Recital 11 of the Brussels I Regulation (now Recital 15), which explains that rules of jurisdiction should be ‘highly predictable’. This Recital argues in favour of a predictable application and interpretation of all rules including the alternative grounds of jurisdiction.
- 5.
Provided, certainly, that the parties are informed enough to make a conscious decision.
- 6.
Case C-125/92 Mulox IBC [1993] ECR I-4075 [11].
- 7.
Case C-281/02 Owusu v Jackson [2005] ECR I-1383; see also Case C-440/97 GIE Groupe Concorde and Others [1999] ECR I-6307 [23], and Case C-256/00 Besix [2002] ECR I-1699 [24].
- 8.
Paragraph 39.
- 9.
Paragraph 40; see also C-26/91, Handte & Co. GmbH v Traitements Mécano-chimiques [1992] ECR I-3967.
- 10.
Paragraph 41.
- 11.
Paragraph 43.
- 12.
C-168/02, Kronhofer v Maier et al. [2004] ECR I-6009 [19-20].
- 13.
Case C-375/13 Harald Kolassa v Barclays Bank plc [2015] ECLI:EU:C:2015:37 [61-63].
- 14.
C-12/15 Universal Music International Holding BV v Schilling et al [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:449.
- 15.
Case C-196/15, Granarolo SpA v Ambrosi Emmi France SA [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:559 [26-28]); cf., however, OGH 9 Ob 73/15y (Austrian Supreme Court) [2016] ecolex 2016,787 at 3.4 (national procedural law relevant).
- 16.
Recital 21 of the Brussels I Recast Regulation; Report on the Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters by Mr. P. Jenard [1979] C 59/1, 41.
- 17.
Recital 21 of the Brussels I Recast Regulation.
- 18.
Fiorini 2008, pp. 10–11 (noting that the Brussels Convention 1968 was, after all, finalised between the six founding States of the EEC, which all shared the same, civilian, heritage).
- 19.
- 20.
See the statement in Hobhouse J in S & W Berisford plc v New Hampshire Insurance Co [1990] 2 QB 631 where the judge stated that “the availability of such a discretion would destroy the framework of the [Brussels] convention and create lack of uniformity in the interpretation and implementation of the convention; see, however, Kuipers 2012, pp. 30–31 (criticising that the Court is basically “adopting the same interpretation techniques with regard to PIL as it had done in the pre-Maastricht era to provisions of public law”, instead of seeking to balance the interests of private parties).
- 21.
Pontier and Burg 2004, p. 37 (‘The principle that judgments are to be fully respected has an influence on the interpretation of rules laid down in Title II of the Convention’).
- 22.
Case C-220/88 Dumez France SA and Tracoba SARL v Hessische Landesbank and others ECR [1990] I-49 [18].
- 23.
Case C-256/00 Besix [2002] ECR I–1699 [27].
- 24.
Case C-125/79, Denilauler v SNC Couchet Frères [1980] ECR 1553 [13].
- 25.
Case C-220/84, AS-Autoteile Service GmbH v Malhé [1985] ECR 2267 [15]; see Pontier and Burg 2004, p. 56 (Article 2 is the cornerstone of the Brussels Convention and derogating rules must be strictly construed).
- 26.
Report on the Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations by Giuliano and Lagarde, [1980] OJ C 282/1; Preamble of the Rome Convention.
- 27.
Article 3(4), Article 5(3), Article 7(2) subpara 2.
- 28.
Recital 14 of the Rome II Regulation: ‘The requirement of legal certainty and the need to do justice in individual cases are essential elements of an area of justice. This Regulation provides for the connecting factors which are the most appropriate to achieve these objectives. Therefore, this Regulation provides for a general rule but also for specific rules and, in certain provisions, for an ‘escape clause’ which allows a departure from these rules where it is clear from all the circumstances of the case that the tort/delict is manifestly more closely connected with another country. This set of rules thus creates a flexible framework of conflict-of-law rules. Equally, it enables the court seised to treat individual cases in an appropriate manner.’
- 29.
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I) COM(2005) 650 final, 5.
- 30.
Arg. “the court of the Member State may stay the proceedings […]”.
- 31.
Case C-412/98 Group Josi Reinsurance Company SA v Universal General Insurance Company (UGIC) [2000] ECR I-5925 [46].
- 32.
Case C-605/14 Komu and Others, EU:C:2015:833 [24].
- 33.
See for the relationship between certainty and fairness Dickinson 2010, pp. 127–131.
- 34.
C-38/81 Effer v Kantner [1982] ECR 825 [6].
- 35.
Report on the Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters by Jenard [1979] C 59/1, 15.
- 36.
Ibid., para 7.
- 37.
Dickinson 2007, pp. 116–136 (offering an overview of the case law on the principle of legal certainty).
- 38.
Case C-185/07 Allianz SpA v West Tankers Inc [2009] ECR I-663.
- 39.
Fiorini 2008, pp. 10–11.
- 40.
Case 150/77 Bertrand [1978] ECR 1431, para 17; Case C-464/01 Gruber v Bay Wa AG [2005] ECR I-439 [32]; recently Case C-645/11 Land Berlin v Ellen Mirjam Sapir et al. ECLI:EU:C:2013:228 [41].
- 41.
Case C-12/76 [1976] ECR 1473—Industrie Tessili Italiana Como v Dunlop AG.
- 42.
Case C-288/92 [1994] ECR I-2913; C-440/97 Group Concorde v Master of the Vessel “Suhadiwarno Panjan” [1999] ECR I-6307.
- 43.
Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, ‘Comments on the European Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation of European Parliament and the Council on the law applicable to contractual obligations (“Rome I”)’ (2007) 71 RabelsZ (2007) 225, 237.
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Schmon, C. (2020). Certainty and Flexibility. In: The Interconnection of the EU Regulations Brussels I Recast and Rome I. Short Studies in Private International Law . T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-367-2_6
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