Case law Developments in PIL

May 2021 at the CJEU

In May 2021 the activity of the CJEU regarding PIL will focus on insolvency and civil and commercial matters.

The decision in C- 709/19, Vereniging van Effectenbezitters (first chamber: J.L. Bonichot, L. Bay Larsen, C. Toader, N. Jääskinen, and M. Safjan as reporting judge) will be delivered on May 12th. AG Campos Sánchez-Bordona’s Opinion was published last December. To the first question, once again on Article 7(2) Brussels Ibis Regulation and the Erfolgsort in a case of purely financial damage, he had proposed to drop the approach holding the location of an investment account as the place of the damage, and requiring particular circumstances to concur for jurisdiction to be established at that place. Moreover, he had provided a separate analysis of the fact that the claim had been filed by a Stichting under Article 3:305a Dutch civil code for merely declaratory purposes (the only possibility open at the time). NoA: A similar request for a preliminary judgment is currently pending before the Court, see C-498/20. Recent examples of claim-bundling strategy following the Dutch model, apt to raise (should they get to court) doubts relating to jurisdiction, can be found in the press: see, recently, FAZ.

A second PIL-related decision will be published on May 20. In Case C-913/19, CNP, the referring court asked several questions to the CJEU on section 3 of Chapter II of the Brussels Ibis Regulation and Articles 7(2) and 7(5) of said Regulation. AG Campos Sánchez-Bordona’s Opinion, delivered last January, follows closely the case law of the CJEU on Article 7(5); it additionally analyses its relationship to Articles 145 and 152 of the Directive 2009/138/EC, on the taking-up and pursuit of the business of insurance and reinsurance. The case has been allocated to the third chamber (S. Prechal, N. Wahl, F. Biltgen, J. Passer, L.S. Rossi as reporting judge).

On the same day, the Opinion of AG Campos’s in C-25/20, Alpine Bau, will also be published. Here, the Višje sodišče v Ljubljani (Slovenia) asks the CJEU whether Article 32(2) of Regulation 1346/2000 is to be interpreted as meaning that the rules on the time limits for lodging creditors’ claims, and the consequences of lodging claims out of time under the law of the State in which the secondary proceedings are being conducted, apply to the lodgement of claims in secondary proceedings by the liquidator in the main insolvency proceeding.

No other PIL-related decisions, conclusions or hearings are scheduled so far. Case C-124/20, Bank Melli Iran, might nevertheless be of interest, in that it relates to commercial policies and the protection against the effects of the extraterritorial application of a third State legislation. AG Hogan’s Opinion will be published on May 12th.

Legal Secretary CJEU Full Professor PIL University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) Senior research fellow MPI Luxembourg (on leave) Usual disclaimer applies

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