Cour de cassation 1ère Chambre civile; 2022-06-15; 1re Civ., 15 juin 2022, pourvoi n° 18-24.850
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:FR:CCASS:2022:C100475
Date: 2022-06-15
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: France

82022FR0615(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
This case concerned an alleged disparagement. The Cour de Cassation (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) had to assess whether the cour d’appel de Lyon (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) made a correct application of the law when it held that the French courts had no jurisdiction.
A Czech company (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) sued for disparagement before the French courts a person who was domiciled and carried his business in Hungary (hereinafter ‘the defendant’).
The defendant claimed that the French courts had no jurisdiction. The case was brought before the Court of Appeal, which ruled that they did not because ‘it is not enough that the allegedly disparaging statements posted on the Internet are accessible in the jurisdiction of the court addressed; they need to be of any interest to Internet users residing in that jurisdiction, and to be likely to cause harm in the jurisdiction’.
The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court. It argued that the damage was caused in France since the content in question was accessible in that country, and claimed that the Court of Appeal infringed Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1), 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’.
The Supreme Court stayed the proceedings and referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter ‘the CJEU’) a question pertaining to this article. The CJEU answered (Case C-251/20) that ‘Article 7(2) of [the Brussels I Regulation (recast)] must be interpreted as meaning that a person who, considering that his or her rights have been infringed by the dissemination of disparaging comments concerning him or her on the internet, seeks not only the rectification of the information and the removal of the content placed online concerning him or her but also compensation for the damage resulting from that placement may claim, before the courts of each Member State in which those comments are or were accessible, compensation for the damage suffered in the Member State of the court seised, even though those courts do not have jurisdiction to rule on the application for rectification and removal’ (2).
Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that the plaintiff could lodge before the French courts a claim for compensation limited to the damage it suffered in France.
For this reason, the Supreme Court set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
(1) 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).
(2) Judgment of the Court of Justice of 21 December 2021, Gtflix Tv v DR, C-251/20, ECLI:EU:C:2021:1036, paragraph 44.