September 2025 at the Court of Justice of the European Union
The Court of Justice will resume its public activity on 2 September 2025. The most relevant event regarding private international law this month is scheduled for Thursday 11th, when the opinion of AG Ćapeta in case C-196/24, Aucrinde, will be published. The hearing took place last April as reported here. In the case at hand, the tribunal judiciaire de Chambéry (France) requests the interpretation of the Recast Evidence Regulation for the first time since said regulation became fully applicable, asking in particular:
1) Does Article 12 of [the Recast Evidence Regulation] allow a national court to refuse to apply that regulation and to comply with the request from the requesting State, on the ground that the procedure specified in the request is contrary to fundamental principles of the national law of the requested State, and in particular Article 16-11 of the Civil Code?
2) If Article 12 of [the Recast Evidence Regulation] applies regardless of national law, how should Article 1 (right to dignity) and Article 7 (right to respect for private life) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights be interpreted and the links between them determined in order to establish whether or not such an application of the Regulation infringes the Charter of Fundamental Rights?
The reporting judge is T. von Danwitz. Not surprisingly, the case has been allocated to the Grand Chamber.
The publication of other opinions or decisions may be of interest for the readers of this blog even if they do not address directly PIL instruments. I would include under the category the opinion of AG J. Richard de la Tour in case C-43/24, Shipov, to be published on Thursday 4th. As already reported in the blog, the Varhoven kasatsionen sad (Supreme Court, Bulgaria) is trying to establish the consequences of the Court’s judgments in cases Coman and Pancharevo, asking whether
the obligation of the Member States of the European Union to recognise a person’s civil status as established in another Member State under the law of that State, which is recognised in the case-law of the European Court of Justice (in the judgments in Cases C 673/16 and C 490/20 in relation to the application of Directive 2004/38/EC 3 and Article 21(1) TFEU, also apply in relation to gender as an essential element of the civil status entry, and does a change of gender, established in another Member State, on the part of a person who also has Bulgarian nationality, require that fact to be recorded in the corresponding registers of the Republic of Bulgaria?
Those dealing with maritime transport and civil liability should be aware of the publication, also on Thursday 4th, of the opinion of AG R. Norkus in case C-629/24, Costa Crociere e.a., where the French Court of Cassation has referred the following questions to Luxembourg:
Must Article 2, Article 3(1) and the first paragraph of Article 7 of Regulation (EC) No 392/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the liability of carriers of passengers by sea in the event of accidents, and Annex I thereto, be interpreted as governing the liability of a maritime carrier operating a cruise having the characteristics of a package holiday within the meaning of Council Directive 90/314/EEC of 13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours?
If the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, do those provisions of the Regulation govern the liability of that operator only where the personal injury relates to carriage by sea?
I would recommend as well to keep an eye on the decision of the Court, expected on Thursday 4 September, in C-203/24, Hakamp, where the main dispute concerns the determination of the social security legislation applicable to an employee resident in the Netherlands who performed activities, for an employer based in Liechtenstein, on a barge in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. As the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden put it itself, this request for a preliminary ruling raises the issue of how to determine whether an employee who is gainfully employed in two or more Member States can be deemed to perform a substantial part of his activities in the Member State of residence. The instruments at stake are Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems (the ‘Basic Regulation), and Regulation (EC) No 987/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems (the ‘Implementing Regulation’). The questions read:
What circumstances or types of circumstances are appropriate for assessing on the basis of Article 14(8) of the Implementing Regulation the question whether a person who normally pursues an activity as an employed person in two or more Member States pursues a substantial part of his activities in the State of residence in a case in which it is established that he performs activities there for 22 percent of his working time? Is it required in that respect that: (i) a circumstance be directly linked to the pursuit of activities, (ii) a circumstance contain an indication as to the place where the activities are performed, and (iii) quantitative conclusions can be drawn from the circumstance as to the weight that can be attributed to the activities that are performed in the State of residence as compared with the total of all the activities of the person concerned?
Must or can this assessment, in view of the answer to question 1, take into account: (i) the residence of the employee, (ii) the place of registration of the barge on which the employee performs his activities, (iii) the place of establishment of the owner and operator of the barge, (iv) the place where the vessel sailed during other periods in which the employee was not working on it and was not yet in the service of the employer, (v) the place of establishment of the employer, and (vi) the place where the employee boards and disembarks the vessel?
Over which period must it be assessed whether an employee pursues a substantial part of his activities in his State of residence?
Does the competent body of a Member State, in determining the legislation applicable, have discretion which the courts must in principle respect with regard to the concept of ‘substantial part of his activity’ in Article 13(1) of the Basic Regulation and, if so, how far does that discretion extend?
Finally, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to joint cases C-424/24, FIGC and CONI, and C-425/24, FIGC and CONI. Once more, the Court is asked about an issue touching upon the relationship between dispute resolution mechanisms in sport matters and ordinary jurisdiction, although this time the main proceedings do not concern sanctions imposed on athletes but on managers of a company carrying out a sporting activity, due to alleged misbehaviors in the exercise of business linked to said activity. In case C-425/24, the Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale per il Lazio (Italy) referred these questions to the Court of Justice:
Must EU law, and in particular Articles 6 and 19 TEU, in the light of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 6 of the ECHR, in relation to the principle of effective judicial protection, be interpreted as precluding:
– a national provision of a Member State, such as Article 2 of decreto-legge 220/2003 (Decree-Law No 220/2003), converted into legge 280/2003 (Law No 280/2003), as interpreted in Italian case-law, once the instances of national sports justice have been exhausted, from excluding recourse to judicial protection that confers a power on the national court (in this case, the administrative court) to annul disciplinary sanctions in sport and their future effects, and to suspend the effect of those sanctions as an interim measure, thereby limiting the national court to awarding equivalent compensatory protection, where it appears that the disciplinary power has been exercised unlawfully?
Must EU law, and in particular Articles 6 and 19 TEU, interpreted in the light of Articles 47, 48 and 49 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Articles 6 and 7 of the ECHR, be interpreted, so as to ensure observance of the principles of the legality of criminal offences and penalties, of legal certainty and sufficient precision of offences, as well as of due process, as precluding:
– a national provision, such as Article 2 of Decree-Law No 220/2003, converted into Law No 280/2003 – as interpreted in Italian case-law – which, in accordance with the principle of autonomy of sports law as enshrined in national law and interpreted in Italian case-law, allows sports governing bodies to impose a disciplinary sanction on a sports manager prohibiting him or her from undertaking professional activities on the ground that he or she infringed a provision of the sporting federation’s rules (Article 4(1) of the Codice di Giustizia Sportiva FGCI (FGCI Sports Justice Code)), which establishes, by a general clause formulated in vague terms, that all members and managers are required to observe, in addition to the by-laws and other regulations of the federation, the principles of honesty, fairness and integrity?
Must EU law, and in particular Articles 45, 49, 56, 101 and 102 TFEU and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, be interpreted as precluding:
– a national provision, such as Article 2 of Decree-Law No 220/2003, converted into Law No 280/2003, from allowing sports bodies to impose a disciplinary sanction on a manager of a sports club operating at international level which prohibits him or her from undertaking professional activities for 24 months at national and supranational level?
In C-425/24 the questions are basically the same. A common hearing for both cases will take place in Luxembourg on Thursday 17 September.