OGH; 2023-10-23; 5 Ob 163/23s
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:AT:OGH0002:2023:0050OB00163.23S.1023.000
Date: 2023-10-23
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Austria

82023AT1023(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A private person domiciled in Austria (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) filed an action against two managing directors of a debtor (hereinafter ‘the defendants’) to be paid the respective amount owed as established by a previous court judgment with the managing directors being joint and several debtors.
Under Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1), the payment obligation existed in Austria due to the domicile of the plaintiff.
The Landesgericht Korneuburg (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’), as the court seised, dismissed the action citing its own lack of international jurisdiction. Neither the place where the damage occurred nor the place of the event giving rise to it was located in Austria.
The Oberlandesgericht Wien (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) did not uphold the appeal of the plaintiff.
The revision filed by the plaintiff with the Oberstes Gerichtshof (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) was found not to raise any significant legal issue and, therefore, was not admissible.
In the form of an auxiliary explanation, the Supreme Court stated that plaintiffs who want to make use of a different than the general place of jurisdiction must present all circumstances giving rise to such special jurisdiction already in their petition. In this case, the plaintiff did not state that the defendants would have been domiciled in a European Union Member State. In his petition, the plaintiff solely stated that the defendants were the citizens of Israel and Malta. The contact address of both defendants was identical to the seat of the debtor. This fact, however, was not sufficient to establish whether their residence was there or in Malta, a European Union Member State.
The Supreme Court dismissed the revision of the plaintiff.
(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).