December 2025 at the Court of Justice of the European Union

Before the Christmas break (from 22 December 2025 to 11 January 2026), the Court of Justice will publish several decisions and opinions related to private international law.

As of 30 November 2025, the scheduled calendar includes the decision of 2 December in case C-34/24, Right to Consumer Justice et Stichting App Stores Claims.

The main dispute concerns collective action for damages brought by Dutch foundations against Apple Inc. (domicile in the US) and Apple Distribution International Ltd. (with seat in Ireland), under the Netherlands wet afwikkeling massaschade in collectieve actie (Law on the Settlement of Mass Claims in Collective Action, ‘WAMCA’), as a result of alleged infringements of Article 102 TFEU causing users of the Netherlands Apple App Store to suffer damage. The Rechtbank Amsterdam (Netherlands) requires the interpretation and application of Article 7(2) of the Brussels I bis Regulation. The central question raised is which court has territorial jurisdiction to settle these disputes and whether the Regulation offers the possibility of applying national referral rules allowing for the concentration of related claims.

A hearing took place on 10 December 2024 (see my post here). Advocate General Campos Sánchez-Bordona published his opinion on 27 March 2025:

Article 7(2) of [the Brussels I bis Regulation] must be interpreted as meaning that:

– if, in a case involving the abuse of a dominant position which consists of charging commission on the price of apps offered for sale on an online platform specifically targeted at the whole of a Member State, the sale of those apps is accepted as the event giving rise to the damage, the place where that event occurred may be situated at the domicile of a user purchasing those apps, within that Member State;

– the place where the damage occurred may be treated as the place of domicile, within the market concerned, of a user who suffered the effects of the abuse of a dominant position, by paying an additional cost when purchasing the apps;

– as EU law currently stands, the interpretation of Article 7(2) of [the Brussels I bis Regulation] does not differ where the action was brought by an entity which is qualified under national law to bring representative actions, which may include claims for damages, to protect, but not in name, the interests of multiple users;

– the allocation of international and territorial jurisdiction to a court of a Member State, as a result of the application of Article 7(2) of [the Brussels I bis Regulation], is compatible with a national rule which permits a court to decline jurisdiction in favour of another court which is already seised of a similar action, where that rule contributes to achieving the objective of the sound administration of justice, a matter which it is for the referring court to determine.

The proposals are consistent with the Court of Justice’s existing case law, which, like the Brussels I Regulation itself, was not developed with collective litigation (or torts in today’s digital world) in mind. The fact that the case has been allocated to the grand chamber (K. Lenaerts, T. von Danwitz, F. Biltgen, I. Jarukaitis, L. Arastey Sahún, I. Ziemele, J. Passer, M. Condinanzi, F. Schalin, A. Kumin, N. Jääskinen, Z. Csehi, B. Smulders, S. Gervasoni, and O. Spineanu-Matei as reporting judge) most probably indicates the Court’s intention to depart from its previous jurisprudence and, at the same time, provide guidance to the Commission in view of the recast of the current regulation.

On Wednesday 3 December a hearing will take place in case C-716/24, Ponner. The Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main (Germany) has referred two questions to the Court for the interpretation of Regulation 655/2014 establishing a European Account Preservation Order procedure (the EAPO Regulation):

Must Article 2(c) of [the EAPO Regulation], read in conjunction with Recital 8 of Regulation (EU) No 655/2014, be interpreted as meaning that the opening of insolvency proceedings not covered by Regulation (EU) 2015/848 … on insolvency proceedings (recast), but conducted in a third country, precludes the issuing of an account preservation order under Article 7(1) of [the EAPO Regulation] or the forwarding of the request for account information under Article 14(3) of [the EAPO Regulation] if the national law of the Member State responsible for issuing the account preservation order recognises the insolvency proceedings in the third country concerned?

 Must the first sub-paragraph of Article 14(1) and (3) of [the EAPO Regulation] – namely the ‘reasons to believe that the debtor holds one or more accounts with a bank in a specific Member State’ to be provided by the creditor and ‘well substantiated’ – be interpreted as meaning that circumstances which do not specifically indicate the existence of an account in the Member State concerned, but which generally imply strong economic links between the debtor and the Member State concerned, such as, for example, payments to the debtor via a payment service provider with registered office in the Member State concerned which is a subsidiary of the debtor, or the existence of an agency or branch of the debtor with registered office in that Member State?

The facts can be summarised as follows. EJ obtained an enforceable default judgment from the Landgericht Frankfurt am Main, against DX N.V., a company based in Curaçao, whose business consists of operating games of chance. On 29 May 2024, EJ requested information about the accounts it believed DX N.V. held in Cyprus, as well as their preventive seizure under Article 14 of Regulation No 655/2014. In view of the involvement of Cypriot companies in the collection of bets, EJ considered that it had reason to believe that that company held accounts in Cyprus. It also argued that DX N.V. was a ‘letterbox company’ which, as a result, had no seizable assets in Curaçao. On 5 June 2024, the request for information relating to the said bank accounts was rejected. EJ lodged an immediate appeal with the referring court against that court’s decision. In this context, it presented further evidence to establish that DX N.V. did not have any accounts in Curaçao, but may have had accounts in Cyprus. EJ also indicated that, according to the Curaçao commercial register, insolvency proceedings had been initiated in respect of the assets of DX N.V. since 10 June 2024.

The court, sitting in a chamber composed of five judges (I. Jarukautis, M. Condinanzi, R. Frendo, A. Kornezov and N. Jääskinen as reporting judge) will be supported by the opinion of advocate general R. Norkus

The same chamber is in charge of the preliminary ruling in case C-279/24, Liechtensteinische Landesbank, to be published on Thursday 4 December (see here for a summary of facts). The Oberster Gerichtshof (Supreme Court, Austria) has referred these questions to the Court:

Must the legal consequences of orders for the acquisition of financial products placed by a consumer domiciled in State A (here Italy) on the basis of an ongoing business relationship with a bank domiciled in State B (here Austria) be assessed in accordance with the law resulting from Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I Regulation) if the conditions for the application of Article 6 of the Rome I Regulation were met when the individual orders were placed but not when the business relationship was entered into and the parties had at that time chosen the law of State B for the entire business relationship in accordance with Article 3 of the Rome I Regulation?

If question 1 is answered in the affirmative:

Is the exception in Article 6(4)(a) of the Rome I Regulation applicable where a bank opens accounts for a consumer domiciled in another Member State on the basis of a contract and subsequently acquires financial products for the consumer on the basis of the consumer’s orders that are attributed to the accounts, where the consumer may (also) place the orders by means of remote communication?

If question 1 is answered in the affirmative and question 2 is answered in the negative: Must a choice of law made before the conditions for the application of Article 6 of the Rome I Regulation were met be regarded as unfair within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts […] after those conditions were met if the contract does not refer to the legal consequences of Article 6(2) of the Rome I Regulation?

In his opinion published on 22 May 2025, advocate general R. Norkus proposes the Court should answer that

The legal effects of orders for the purchase of financial products given by a consumer residing in State A to a bank established in State B within the framework of an ongoing commercial relationship must be assessed by reference to the law designated by the parties in the contract that gave rise to the commercial relationship, even if, after that contract was concluded, the conditions for the application of Article 6(1) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I) are satisfied and were satisfied when the various orders were placed.

The decision in case C-485/24, Locatrans, will be published one week later, on Thursday 11 December, in answer to a request from the French Cour de Cassation on the 1980 Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations:

Are Articles 3 and 6 of the [Rome Cnvention] to be interpreted as meaning that, in the case where the employee carries out the same activities for his employer in more than one Contracting State, the full duration of the employment relationship should, in order to determine the law which would be applicable in the absence of a choice made by the parties, be taken into account in order to determine the place where the person concerned habitually carried out his work or should the most recent period of work be taken into account where the employee, having worked for a certain time in one place, then carries out his activities in a lasting manner in a different place which is clearly intended by the parties to become a new habitual place of work?

I reported here on the publication of the opinion by advocate general R. Norkus, which has been commented by our editor Ugljesa Grusic in October in the EAPIL blog. The deciding chamber is composed of judges F. Biltgen, I. Ziemele, S. Gervasoni, M. Bošnjak and A. Kumin as reporting judge.

Finally, on the same day advocate general J. Richard de la Tour will publish his opinion in case C- 791/24, TERVE Production, to be decided by the same formation of judges as case C-485/24, Locatrans. The Supreme Court of Slovakia has referred three questions to the Court of Justice on the interpretation of the Brussels I bis Regulation:

Must the provisions of Article 7(1) of [the Brussels I bis Regulation] be interpreted as meaning that an action to substitute the approval of the appellant’s draft agreement concerning the purchase of shares with a court ruling should be considered an action ‘in matters relating to a contract’?

If the first question is answered in the negative, must the provisions of Article 7(2) of [the Brussels I bis Regulation] be interpreted as meaning that an action to substitute the approval of the appellant’s draft agreement concerning the purchase of shares with a court ruling should be considered an action ‘in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict’?

Must the provisions of Article 24(2) of [the Brussels I bis Regulation] be interpreted as also applying to the main proceedings in view of the fact that the appellant requests that the court in the main proceedings consider, as a preliminary issue, its plea that the resolution of the general meeting approving the transfer of the shares of the other shareholders (including the appellant’s shares) to the respondent is non-existent or invalid?

The dispute, which opposes a Slovak company, TERVE Production, and a Luxembourg company, Intesa Sanpaolo Holding International S.A., seeks to obtain a court order requiring Intesa to accept a draft contract for the purchase of shares belonging to TERVE.  Both were shareholders in the Slovak bank VÚB, with Intesa holding by far the majority of the shares. Following the decision of VÚB’s general meeting on 18 December 2020 to delist its shares from the stock exchange, Intesa issued, in place of the issuing bank and in accordance with the Slovak Securities Act, a mandatory public takeover bid for the purchase of all listed shares. The transfer of the shares of all remaining shareholders, carried out in connection with the exercise of the mandatory squeeze-out right pursuant to the Securities Act, was approved by the VÚB general meeting on 19 April 2021.

On 18 August 2021, asserting its mandatory sell-out right on the basis of the Slovak Securities Act, TERVE filed an action with the Okresný súd Bratislava V (District Court of Bratislava V, Slovak Republic) seeking a court order replacing Intesa’s acceptance of the draft contract for the purchase of its shares. To justify the jurisdiction of the Slovak court, TERVE relied on Article 7(1) of Regulation Brussels I bis. The court declined jurisdiction. Upon appeal by TERVE, the Krajský súd v Bratislave (Regional Court in Bratislava, Slovak Republic) set aside the decision at first instance, basing its jurisdiction on Article 7(2) of the same Regulation. Intesa lodged an appealed against that decision with the Najvyšší súd Slovenskej republiky (Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic), arguing that only the Luxembourg courts have jurisdiction, in accordance with the general rule on jurisdiction in Article 4 of the Brussels I bis Regulation.

In the main dispute Intesa claims that TERVE no longer owns the shares with respect to which Intensa’s declaration of intent is to be substituted as a result of exercising the right of squeeze-out under the Securities Law. TERVE, in turn, raises, as a preliminary questions, the validity or existence of the resolution of the general meeting of VÚB, a. s. of 19 April 2021, which approved the transfer of the shares of all the other shareholders of VÚB, a. s. to Intesa. The referring court wonders whether the fact that that annulment is not the sole or main subject matter of the proceedings at issue could nevertheless be decisive in concluding that there is exclusive jurisdiction on the basis of Article 24(2) of Regulation Brussels I bis, according to which the courts of the Member State in which the company has its registered office have jurisdiction to rule on the validity of the transfer of shares.

The request for apreliminary ruling has been allocated to a chamber composed of judges F. Biltgen (reporting), I. Ziemele, A. Kumin, S. Gervasoni and M. Bošnjak.