Oberster Gerichtshof; 2021-02-25; 2 Nc 4/21t
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:AT:OGH0002:2021:0020NC00004.21T.0225.000
Date: 2021-02-25
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Austria

82021AT0225(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A private limited liability company domiciled in Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) filed an action against a joint-stock company domiciled in Luxembourg (hereinafter ‘the defendant’) in connection with a business deal.
With regard to the specific agreement on jurisdiction concluded between the parties stipulating that the applicable law was the Austrian law and the competent courts were generally the Austrian courts, without the specification of a concrete court, the Handelsgericht Wien as the court seised (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’) found itself incompetent to hear the case due to a lack of local jurisdiction. It however confirmed that Austrian courts held international jurisdiction.
Subsequently, the plaintiff submitted a request to the Oberstes Gerichtshof (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) to determine a competent Austrian court to hear the dispute.
The Supreme Court also had to examine the international jurisdiction. As the proceedings regarding the determination of the competent court are by their nature one-sided, the Supreme Court had to base its decision on the arguments presented by the plaintiff. The Supreme Court confirmed the international jurisdiction as the agreement on jurisdiction concluded between the plaintiff and defendant was amongst others made in writing, thus meeting the requirement under Article 25(1)(a) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1).
Any possible objections against the existence of the international jurisdiction clause would have to be examined within additional two-sided proceedings.
Having regard to the details of this individual case, the Supreme Court found that the case was closely related to Vienna and determined the Court of First Instance to hear and decide the case.
(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.