The Greek Supreme Court on Jurisdiction in Employment Matters under the Brussels I bis Regulation

An employment dispute between a Greek stewardess and her employer offered the Supreme Court of Greece the opportunity to discuss the interpretation of Articles 20 and 21 of the Brussels I bis Regulation, on jurisdiction over individual employment contracts. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the matter (Ruling No 1453 of 2024) relies heavily on the judgment of the Court of Justice in the case of ROI Land Investments.

Background and Facts

A dispute arose between a Greek stewardess living in Piraeus (hereinafter, the plaintiff, or P) to an air carrier established in Saudi Arabia (the first respondent, or R1) and the CEO of the latter (the second respondent, or R2).

The business of R1 consists in carrying State and government officials and senior executives of Saudi companies. On 11 July 2022 P was working on a flight operated between Geneva and Cairo, on board a plane owned by R1, when, shortly after the pilot’s announcement that the landing procedures had started, a sudden loss of control of the plane caused serious injuries to P. As soon as the plane landed in Cairo, P was brought to the nearest hospital. She was later transported to Greece, where she underwent numerous operations. Wh was eventually diagnosed with a 90% professional incapacity

P decided to bring proceedings before the Piraeus Court of First Instance, alleging the accident had been caused by the negligence of her employer’s agents during the flight.

The following facts are undisputed: an employment contract was concluded in Greece, signed by P and R2; R2 had signed  the contract in his capacity as the CEO of R1, hence on behalf of R1; P was to be reimbursed by R1 for any costs incurred to travel between Piraeus and any airport she was instructed to go to serve as stewardess under the contract; P used to spend the time between flights at special dormitories in Riyadh, owned by R1; R2 had no domicile in Greece, but temporarily resided there.

The First Instance and Appellate Rulings

P’s sued R1 and R2 before the Piraeus Court of First Instance in 2018, seeking compensation for lost income, patrimonial and moral damages and reimbursement for medical expenses, requesting a total amount close to 3 million Euros. R1 did not enter an appearance. R2 appeared, instead, but challenged the jurisdiction of Greek courts.

The Piraeus Court dismissed the latter defence and asserted its jurisdiction over the case (decision No 1840/2021, unreported). It did so on the basis of domestic rules, namely Article 33 of the Greek code of civil procedure (whereby Greek courts have jurisdiction to entertain a case relating to a contract, where the latter was concluded in Greece), Article 37 of the same code (whereby several defendants can be jointly sued in Greece where one of them resides in the country), and Article 40 (which confers jurisdiction on Greek courts where the defendant owns property in Greece, as R2 did in the circumstances).

Unhappy about the provisions of the ruling regarding the substance of the dispute, P lodged an appeal before the Piraeus Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal determined that the Greek courts lacked jurisdiction. It observed that the dispute fell within the scope of Section 5 (on individual employment contracts) of Chapter II (on jurisdiction) of the Brussels I bis Regulation.

Specifically, the Court of Appeal considered that pursuant to Article 21(1)(b), which also applies to employers domiciled outside the EU (according to Article 21(2)), an employer may be sued: (i) in the courts for the place where or from where the employee habitually carries out his work or in the courts for the last place where he did so; or (ii) if the employee does not or did not habitually carry out his work in any one country, in the courts for the place where the business which engaged the employee is or was situated. The Court found, however that none of the latter conditions were met in the circumstances.

The Court of Appeal then turned to Article 6(1) of the Regulation. This provides that, if the defendant is not domiciled in a Member State, the jurisdiction of the courts of each Member State is determined by the law of that Member State. However, contrary to the view endorsed at first instance, it considered that the jurisdiction of Greek courts could not be asserted, in the circumstances, on the basis of Greek domestic rules. The Court of Appeal held, in particular, that the the First Instance Court had erred in asserting that the disputed contract was concluded at the plaintiff’s residence (in Piraeus).

The case, in the view of the Court of Appeal, fell under the objective purview of Article 21 of the Brussels I bis Regulation, on jurisdiction over individual employment contracts. The Court of Appeal ruled that the necessary conditions for extending international jurisdiction under Article 21 were not met, particularly concerning the absence of an express agreement between the parties regarding the attribution of jurisdiction to Greek courts.

This assertion refers to domestic procedural law, specifically Article 33 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure, the application of which is not permitted. Based on the above, it follows that the first instance court did not have international jurisdiction to adjudicate the dispute. By ruling otherwise, it erred in the interpretation and application of the Brussels I Regulation.

The Court of Appeal went to note that P could not rely on Greek procedural law (Articles 22, 33, and 37 of the Code of Civil Procedure), given the clear provisions of the Brussels I bis Regulation, It concluded that the lower court made an erroneous assumption by evaluating the jurisdiction based on domestic law rather than the provisions of the Regulation.

The Court of Appeal ultimately dismissed the lawsuit on grounds of jurisdiction, since the Court of First Instance had not taken into account the Brussels I bis Regulation and had failed to see that the Greek do not possess jurisdiction over the case under the Regulation.

The Ruling of the Greek Supreme Court

By the time the case reached the Supreme Court of Greece, the legal landscape surrounding the case had changed, notably as a result of the clarification provided by the Court of Justice of the European in ROI Land Invstment regarding the application of Article 6 of the Brussels I bis Regulation in litigation over employment matters. In 2022, the Court of Justice ruled in ROI Land Investment that the reservation made in Article 6(1) of the Regulation in respect of the application of Article 21(2) precludes a court of a Member State from relying on the domestic rules of jurisdiction ‘where the conditions for Article 21(2) of that regulation to apply are satisfied, even where those rules would be more favourable to the employee’. Instead, where the conditions for either Article 21(2) or any other of the provisions set out in Article 6(1) of the Regulation to apply are not satisfied, Article 6(1) must be interpreted as a meaning that ‘a court of a Member State is at liberty to apply those rules in order to determine jurisdiction’.

Relying on Articles 6(1) and 21(2) of the Brussels I bis Regulation, together with Articles 3, 4, and 33 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure, the Supreme Court of Greece found that the Court of Appeal had erred in declining jurisdiction. It held that Greek dohave jurisdiction to adjudicate claims arising from an employment contract for compensation due to a workplace accident, as the employment contract from which these claims arose was concluded in Greece for the purposes of Article 33 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure.

The latter provision, the Supreme Court explained, applies in the circumstances: (a) because it concerns claims made by an employee arising from an individual employment contract against an employer whose registered offices are not in a EU Member State, but rather in a country outside the Union, namely Saudi Arabia; and (b) because the conditions for applying Article 21(2) or any other provisions of Article 6(1) of the Regulation for determining international jurisdiction of Greek courts are not met; the Greek courts are neither the courts of the place of habitual performance of her work as a flight attendant, nor the courts of the place of establishment of the business that hired her, which is distinct and not identical to her employer’s business, and there was no explicit agreement between the parties regarding the extension of international jurisdiction for Greek courts.

Concluding Remarks

While the Court of Appeal emphasized the primacy of the Regulation over domestic law, the implications of domestic rules on jurisdiction at the place of conclusion of the contract remain of crucial importance. The case highlights the complex interplay of domestic rules and EU rules concerning jurisdiction in employment matters, and underlines the need for a nuanced understanding of both sets of provisions.