Cour de cassation; 2023-06-28; Com., 28 juin 2023, pourvoi n° 21-24.883
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:FR:CCASS:2023:CO00475
Date: 2023-06-28
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: France

82023FR0628(52)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
In this case, the Cour de Cassation (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) examined if the cour d’appel de Paris (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) made a correct application of the law when it identified the centre of interests of an association of unions.
The Fédération française des taxis de province (hereinafter ‘the defendant’) sued the companies Uber BV and Uber International BV (hereinafter ‘the plaintiffs’) before the tribunal judiciaire de Paris (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance in Paris’). The defendant accused the plaintiffs of unfair competition. The plaintiffs claimed the tribunal judiciaire de Marseille (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance in Marseilles’) had jurisdiction.
The Court of Appeal held that the Court of First Instance in Paris had jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal considered that, according to its statutes, and despite its name (1), the purpose of the defendant was indeed the protection of the profession of taxi driver in general.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court.
They cited Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (2), which provides that ‘[a] person domiciled in a Member State may be sued in another Member State […] in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, in the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur’. They also relied on the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter ‘the CJEU’), which held in Case C-194/16 that, under this article, ‘[a] person who considers that his rights have been infringed’ may ‘bring an action before the courts of the Member State in which his centre of interests is located’ (3). The plaintiffs considered that the grounds of the judgment of the Court of Appeal did not prove that the centre of the defendant’s interests was located in the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance in Paris.
The plaintiffs also claimed that the name of the defendant, and the fact that, in the document instituting the proceedings, it presented itself as bringing together ‘provincial taxi operators, renters and employees’, demonstrated that the centre of its interests was not in Paris.
The Supreme Court held that this latter argument could not be accepted because it challenged the interpretation of the statutes of the defendant, which came under the discretion of the Court of Appeal.
Moreover, the Supreme cited Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) and the case-law of the CJEU, which held in Case C-21/76 that the place where the harmful event occurred may be the place where the damage occurred or the place of the event giving rise to it, and that the defendant may be sued in the courts for either of those places (4). The Supreme Court noted that a bailiff’s report attested that, if the actions of which the defendant was accused did occur, they would have taken place, at least in part, in the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance in Paris, and concluded that this court had jurisdiction.
The appeal was dismissed.
(1) The plaintiff’s name means ‘French Union of Provincial Taxi Drivers’.
(2) Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (recast).
(3) Judgment of the Court of Justice of 17 October 2017, Bolagsupplysningen OÜ and Ingrid Ilsjan, C-194/16, ECLI:EU:C:2017:766, paragraph 38.
(4) Judgment of the Court of Justice of 30 November 1976, Handelskwekerij G. J. Bier BV, C-21/76, ECLI:EU:C:1976:166.