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Parallel litigation & Lis pendens

August 2, 2022 In Jurisdictional issues, Parallel litigation & Lis pendens, Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, Uncategorized By Various authors

CJEU Rules that Judgments on Awards Circumventing Brussels Regulation Cannot Form Basis for Non-recognition of Irreconcilable Judgments

This article has been co-authored by Nicholas Lawn (Partner at Van Bael & Bellis) and Helin Laufer (Associate at Van Bael & Bellis)

In a recent judgment in the case of London Steam-Ship Owners’ Mutual Insurance Association Limited v. Kingdom of Spain (Case C‑700/20, Judgment of 20 June 2022) (the Judgment), the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU) issued a preliminary ruling holding that arbitration proceedings initiated in the United Kingdom and the resulting award could not block the recognition of a Spanish judgment requiring an insurer to compensate Spain for the environmental damage caused by the Prestige oil tanker (Prestige) off the coast of Spain.

The CJEU held that the proper interpretation of EU Regulation No 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (the Brussels Regulation) entails that, although a judgment entered by a court of a Member State in the terms of an arbitral award may, in principle, form the basis for the refusal to recognise a subsequent irreconcilable judgment of the courts of another Member State, a judgment should not be recognised where it would result in an outcome that the court of a Member State could not have reached without infringing the provisions and fundamental objectives of the Brussels Regulation. In short, the English courts were required to recognise the Spanish court’s judgment and the insurer was liable to Spain for EUR 1 billion.READ MORE

February 19, 2020 In Jurisdictional issues, Parallel litigation & Lis pendens, Special guest(s) By Quentin Decleve

Munich Court of Appeals Issues Anti-Anti-Suit Injunction in FRAND Case

As a supplement to the blogpost published a couple of weeks ago on the judgment of the Paris Court of First Instance (Tribunal de Grande Instance) of 8 November 2019 which issued an anti-anti-suit injunction against Lenovo ordering that company to withdraw a request for an anti-suit injunction pending before a US Court, Mr Peter Bert (a reader of this blog) shared with me an article that he wrote concerning a similar case recently put before German courts.

My colleagues Steve Ross and Rebecca Halbach discussed this German case in the latest edition of Van Bael & Bellis’ Competition Law Newsletter. I have decided to reproduce their article below.

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Article drafted by Steve Ross and Rebecca Halbach

On 12 December 2019, the Munich Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht München) (the Court) upheld the judgment of the Munich District Court (Landgericht München I) of 2 October 2019 which had granted a preliminary injunction in a case pitting Continental (Continental), an automobile supplier, against Nokia (Nokia), a telecommunications company. The Court ordered Continental to withdraw the action for anti-suit injunction which that company had brought against Nokia before the US District Court of the Northern District of California (the US Court) in a patent dispute.READ MORE

January 14, 2020 In Jurisdictional issues, Parallel litigation & Lis pendens, Special guest(s) By Quentin Decleve

French Court Issues Anti-Anti-Suit Injunction Claim in FRAND Dispute

Article drafted by Steve Ross, Associate at Van Bael & Bellis

On 8 November 2019, the Paris Court of First Instance (Tribunal de Grande Instance) (the French Court) issued a judgment (in case RG 19/59311) for a preliminary injunction in a case pitting IPCOM GmbH & Co. KG (IPCom), an intellectual property rights licensing and technology R&D company, against Lenovo/Motorola (Lenovo), a telecommunications company. The French Court held that it had jurisdiction over the case with regard to a patent infringement claim and ordered Lenovo to withdraw the motion for an anti-suit injunction which that company had brought before the US District Court of the Northern District of California (the US Court) in so far as it concerns the French part of the patent.READ MORE

August 23, 2018 In Anti-suit injunctions, Arbitration agreement, Jurisdictional issues, Parallel litigation & Lis pendens By Quentin Decleve

English High Court Rules on Anti-Suit Injunctions and Disregards AG Wathelet’s Opinion in Gazprom

On 6 June 2018, the English High Court (the Court) ruled in Nori Holding Limited et al. that a European court was not entitled to grant anti-suit injunctions in order to prevent parallel judicial proceedings taking place in another EU Member State. The Court’s judgment is in line with the West Tankers ruling handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU) in 2009.READ MORE

January 4, 2018 In Jurisdictional issues, Parallel litigation & Lis pendens By Quentin Decleve

CJEU Rules on Issues of Lis Pendens and Jurisdiction Under Lugano Convention

Dear Readers – Happy New Year!

For a fresh start to the year, I wanted to highlight a recent judgment (dated 20 December 2017) of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU) which interprets the jurisdictional and lis pendens requirements contained in the Convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (the Lugano Convention). As most of you know, the Lugano Convention aims at extending the Brussels I Regulation’s regime on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters within the EU to Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.READ MORE

June 5, 2017 In Parallel litigation & Lis pendens By Quentin Decleve

CJEU Rules on Lis Pendens Doctrine After Initiation of Interlocutory Proceedings

On 4 May 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU) handed down a judgment interpreting and clarifying the rules on parallel litigation and lis pendens in trans-European civil and commercial litigation.

As you certainly know, parallel litigation and lis pendens refer to a situation that occurs when different legal proceedings relating to the same object and cause of action are brought between the same parties in the courts of different forums. In such a situation, in order to reduce concurrent proceedings before the courts of various Member States and to avoid irreconcilable decisions, Article 27 and following of the Regulation No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (the Brussels Regulation) provide that the first court seized with the dispute shall have the exclusive power to establish whether it is competent to rule on the particular dispute. It is only if this first court finds that it does not have jurisdiction to hear the case that the other courts will regain the power to hear that case. However, if the court first seized has confirmed its jurisdiction then the other courts shall decline jurisdiction in favour of that court.

In the case at hand, the CJEU was asked to interpret Article 27 and following of the Brussels Regulation in order to examine whether interlocutory proceedings brought before the courts of one Member State pre-empted legal proceedings to be brought before the courts of the other Member States in a dispute involving the same parties and the same cause of action.READ MORE