In Case C-228/11 Melzer v MS Global, the court at Dusseldorf requested the Court of Justice to clarify Article 5(3) Brussels I, the special jurisdictional rule for tort: on the basis of the application of this rule in Bier, a defendant may be sued in the place where the damage occurred (locus damni) and, if different, where the action (or inaction) leading to that damage occurred (the locus delicti commissi) . Article 5(3), like Article 5(1), determines not just international jurisdiction [i.e. the courts of which Member State have jurisdiction], but also territorial jurisdiction within that State.
Mr Melzer, who is domiciled in Berlin, was solicited as a client and looked after by telephone by the company Weise Wertpapier Handelsunternehmen (‘WWH’), whose registered office is in Düsseldorf. That company opened an account for Mr Melzer with MF Global UK Ltd (‘MF Global UK’), a brokerage house located in London, which traded in stock market futures for Mr Melzer in return for corresponding fees. Mr Melzer brought proceedings before the Landgericht Düsseldorf claiming that MF Global UK should be ordered to pay him damages equivalent to the difference between what he had paid out and what he had received in the context of those transactions, namely EUR 171 075.12, with interest. W.W.H. has not been implicated in the proceedings. In support of his claims, Mr Melzer maintained that he had not been sufficiently informed about the risks involved in futures trading, so far as options contracts were concerned, either by WWH or by MF Global UK.
The court at Dusseldorf rejected its jurisdiction on the basis of locus damni, arguing that this had taken place in Berlin (Melzer’s domicile), not Dusseldorf. It does however argue that it has jurisdiction on the basis of the locus delicti commissi, based on a combination of Article 5(3) Brussels I and the German Cicil Code. Under Paragraph 830 of that Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch), entitled ‘Joint participants and common purpose’:
‘(1) Where several persons have caused damage by the commission of an unlawful act undertaken in common, each of them shall be liable for that act. That is also the case even where it is impossible to determine which of the persons involved caused the damage by his act.
(2) Instigators and accomplices shall be treated as joint participants of the act.’
The attribution of W.W.H.’s actions to MS Global, in the view of the Dusseldorf court, gives it jurisdiction on the basis of Article 5(3). It asked the following of the Court of Justice:
‘In the context of jurisdiction in matters relating to tort or delict under Article 5(3) of Regulation [No 44/2001], where there is cross-border participation of several persons in a tort or delict, is reciprocal attribution of the place where the event occurred admissible for determining the place where the harmful event occurred?’
There is no trace in the Jurisdiction Regulation of any rule on attribution for acts committed in tort. There are however many arguments against allowing such attribution from creating extra fora:
The JR’s general rule determines jurisdiction in the domicile of the defendant. This principle may be subject to many exceptions, and to many a jurisdictional rule which trumps it, however it remains the principle. As emphasised repeatedly by the ECJ, exceptions to Article 2′s general rule must be interpreted strictly, for the exceptions would otherwise lead to too many potential jurisdictions. All the more so in the case at issue. Allegations of attributions are easily made, and it is not clear how far the Court can go in reviewing the merits of the argument at the jurisdictional stage.
A restrictive interpretation also serves the Regulation’s purpose, as emphasised by the ECJ, of predictability and reliability. A party may otherwise end up being pursued in courts in which it could not reasonably have foreseen to be sued.
Furthermore of course, the attributive rule at issue superimposes national law unto Article 5(3) JR. The Court’s emphasis on autonomous interpretation sits uneasily with that.
Alternative jurisdictional rules would have been possible to establish jurisdiction: Article 6′s rule on joinders (which would have required plaintiff to use WWH as an anchor defendant) comes to mind; as does Article 5(1)’s rule on contracts (although it may not have been easy to establish that the services under contract were or should have been provided in Dusseldorf).
The Court held on 16 May. It referred inter alia to Refcomp to emphasise the presumption against letting national law infiltrate the concepts used by the Regulation, and to many of the arguments referred to above, and held
Accordingly, the answer to the question referred is that Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001 must be interpreted as meaning that it does not allow the courts of the place where a harmful event occurred which is imputed to one of the presumed perpetrators of damage, who is not a party to the dispute, to take jurisdiction over another presumed perpetrator of that damage who has not acted within the jurisdiction of the court seised.
Geert.
