Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2024:706
Date: 2024-09-05
Language of the case: German
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Austria

summary of the approach that applies both to cyber contracts and to cybercrime, point 715 (p. 592) of that book. 24 See Sindres, D., ‘Compétence judiciaire, Reconnaissance et Exécution des décisions en matière civile et commerciale. – Compétence. – Règles ordinaires de compétence. – Option de compétence en matière contractuelle. – Article 7, [sect] 1, du règlement (UE) no 1215/2012’, JurisClasseur Droit international, LexisNexis, Paris, 1 January 2022, fascicule 584-130, point 71, first and second paragraphs, in which the expression ‘final destination’ of the services or the supply is also used. 25 See Sindres, D., op. cit., point 71, third paragraph. 26 The word ‘provision’ is understood here in the following sense: the provision of something to someone, in the sense of delivering, procuring, giving or providing, and not, for example, ‘making an effort’. 27 See the judgment in Car Trim (paragraph 62). 28 See the judgment in Wood Floor (paragraph 38). 29 See the judgment in Wood Floor (paragraph 40). See, in the same sense, judgment of 10 September 2015, Holterman Ferho Exploitatie and Others (C‑47/14, EU:C:2015:574, paragraph 64). 30 See, earlier, the judgment in Wood Floor (paragraph 41). 31 See the judgment in Saey Home & Garden (paragraph 45). 32 On that analogy, see Fawcett, J., Harris, J., and Bridge, M., International Sale of Goods in the Conflict of Laws, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, cited by El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 528 (pp. 436 and 437). 33 See also, in the same sense, Sindres, D., op. cit., point 76, sixth paragraph. 34 See, to that effect, the judgment in Wood Floor (paragraphs 35 and 38). 35 See, to that effect, the judgment in Saey Home & Garden (paragraphs 43 and 45). 36 See the judgment in Wood Floor (paragraph 22, and also paragraphs 25 and 26). 37 See judgment in Color Drack (paragraph 8). 38 C‑204/08, EU:C:2009:439. 39 See the judgment of 9 July 2009, Rehder (C‑204/08, EU:C:2009:439, paragraph 2). 40 See, to that effect, the judgment in Wood Floor (paragraph 40 and the case-law cited). 41 This aspect is underlined by Mailhé, F., in his commentary on the judgment of 15 June 2017, Kareda (C‑249/16, ‘the judgment in Kareda’, EU:C:2017:472), in Payan, G., Espace judiciaire civil européen: Arrêts de la CJUE et commentaires, Collection ‘Droit de l’Union européenne’, Bruylant, Brussels, 2020, point 372 (p. 315). 42 See, for a reference to such a hypothesis, Sindres, D., op. cit., point 71, 11th paragraph. 43 See the judgment in Kareda (paragraph 42). 44 See the judgment in Kareda (paragraphs 18, 41 and 42). 45 See, to that effect, Mankowski, P., ‘Article 7’, in Magnus, U. and Mankowski, P., European Commentaries on Private International Law, Brussels Ibis Regulation, 2nd ed., Otto Schmidt, Cologne, 2023, pp. 222 and 223, in particular point 184 (p. 222). 46 See Mankowski, P., op. cit., point 184, and, to the same effect, Sindres, D., op. cit., point 70. See, in that regard, for what in my view is a valid distinction between mere advice and a provision of services which relates to a specific place, Gottwald, P., ‘Art. 7 [Besondere Gerichtsstände]’, in Rauscher, T. and Krüger, W., Münchener Kommentar zur Zivilprozessordnung, 6th ed., C.H. Beck, Munich, 2022, point 31, to be compared with Simotta, D-A., ‘Art 7 EuGVVO 2012’, in Fasching, H.W., and Konecny, A., Zivilprozessgesetze, 2nd ed., Manz, Vienna, 2022, point 203, articles which are cited by the referring court. That distinction provides justification for not treating in the same way two types of provisions of services which have been the subject of precedents, namely the services of a lawyer and those of an architect, and therefore of a software editor. For a contrario reasoning in that area, see judgment 20 U 3515/09 of the Oberlandesgericht München (Higher Regional Court, Munich, Germany) of 23 December 2009, and commentary by Mankowski, P., ‘Internationale Zuständigkeit am Erfüllungsort bei Softwareentwicklungsverträgen’, Computer und Recht, Otto Schmidt, Cologne, 2010, No 137, also cited by the referring court. 47 See, for a detailed account, El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 517 et seq. See also Reymond, M., ‘Jurisdiction under Article 7 no. 1 of the Recast Brussels I Regulation: The Case of Contracts for the Supply of Software’, Yearbook of Private International Law, vol. 16 (2014/2015), pp. 219 to 239, in particular pp. 220 to 224 for the technical explanations and p. 224 for this summary: ‘the term “supply of software” does not identify a single, easily identified type of transaction; rather, it designates a series of different kinds of dealings which, while they share the common point of addressing the transfer of a software, are distinguished not only by their operational details, but also by the content of the rights and obligations granted to the party to whom the software is transferred’. 48 See observations of Mankowski, P., ‘Internationale Zuständigkeit am Erfüllungsort bei Softwareentwicklungsverträgen’, op. cit., based on the assertion that services covered by a software development contract are generally supplied at the place where the software is developed and that that place is generally the contractual establishment of the software developer. 49 See, to the same effect, El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 528, second paragraph (p. 435). In addition, the Court has pointed out, in a case concerning the interpretation of the concept of ‘sale of goods’ by a commercial agent, that, ‘in the particular case of the sale of a copy of computer software, the Court [had] held that the downloading of a copy of a computer program and the conclusion of a user licence agreement for that copy form an indivisible whole. Downloading a copy of such a program is pointless if the copy cannot be used by its possessor’. See judgment of 16 September 2021, The Software Incubator (C‑410/19, EU:C:2021:742, paragraph 41 and the case-law cited). 50 On the outsourcing of services, see Le Tourneau, P., Contrats du numérique: informatiques et électroniques, 12th ed., Dalloz, Paris, 2022, point 342.11 (p. 550). 51 According to the definition given in Beelen, A., Charlier, C. and Vigneron, J., Guide pratique des plateformes: 20 Legal designs commentés, Larcier, Brussels, 2021, pp. 44 and 45, ‘IT platforms offer “apps” of all types and allow users of those apps and third party developers to interact. … Apple iOS, Google Android, or Microsoft Windows are examples of IT platforms’. 52 See definition and observations set out in footnote 56 to this Opinion. See also analysis by Marchadier, F., ‘Internet et droit international privé’, JurisClasseur Droit international, LexisNexis, Paris, 2 January 2023, vol. 544-60, point 23, concerning the fact that ‘favouring the place from which the service provider’s activity is deployed … assumes determining whether that place depends on the establishment of the service provider or on the hosting of the service provider’s website’. 53 I would point out, as many writers have done, that that location is often uncertain and readily changeable. See, in particular, El Hage, Y., op. cit., points 87 and 88 (pp. 78 and 79), and point 528, last paragraph (p. 437); Mankowski, P., ‘Article 7’, op. cit., point 184; and Gottwald, P., op. cit., paragraph 31. See also Marchadier, F., op. cit., point 8, in particular on the Court’s case-law on trade mark infringement. See also judgment 20 U 3515/09 of the Oberlandesgericht München (Higher Regional Court, Munich) of 23 December 2009, paragraph 48. 54 See, for a detailed presentation, Le Tourneau, P., op. cit., point 342.14 (p. 552), and the article cited by that author written by Alterman, H. and Perbost, F., ‘Les points essentiels du contrat Saas’, Revue de jurisprudence commerciale, Thomson Reuters, 2010, No 1. 55 See confirmation drawn from the 2015 analysis of Reymond, M., op. cit., p. 231. 56 The expression ‘infonuage’ [cloud computing] is sometimes used in everyday French. The service provided in this case allows the user to store data on interconnected remote servers, generally belonging to an outside service provider, to access those data on those servers and to use the servers’ computing resources. See, on those characteristics, Opinion of Advocate General Szpunar in VCAST (C‑265/16, EU:C:2017:649, points 1 and 2). Le Tourneau, P., op. cit., points 342.12 to 342.14 (pp. 550 to 552), emphasises that, in that context, ‘IT is decentralised and … the apps’ location is not known to the customer’, that it is a question of ‘on-demand IT’, which has the advantage that undertakings, just like individuals, no longer need to invest in high-capacity computers in order to store their data. The price of the service varies ‘depending on the customer’s actual consumption, as in the case of electricity’. El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 520 (pp. 429 and 430), observes that, while the customer can access that digital content storage site ‘from anywhere, by means of a simple internet connection’, the implementation of the service is not concentrated in the place where the remote servers are located, since the customer must transfer his or her data in order to have access to them, which makes it possible to determine the country in which ‘the actual effects of the contract are mainly felt’. 57 On the principle of technological neutrality that justifies the silence of the private international law texts on networks, including the internet, see the explanations of Azzi, T., ‘Rapport général: droit international privé et immatériel’, in L’immatériel, Journées internationales espagnoles de l’Association Henri Capitant des amis de la culture juridique française, 2014, cited by El Hage, Y., op. cit., p. 112, and the analysis by the latter, points 135 to 142 (pp. 113 to 119). 58 See, in that regard, note on the website https://www.culture.fr/franceterme, stating that ‘cloud computing is a particular form of IT management, where the location and the functioning of the cloud are not disclosed to customers’ (free translation). See JORF No 129, of 6 June 2010 (p. 42). 59 See, by way of comparison, the choice of alternative criteria, namely the place where the controller (or processor) has an establishment or the place where the data subject has his or her habitual residence, offered by the EU legislature in data protection matters in Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (OJ 2016 L 119, p. 1), Article 79(2). See also, in practice, the choice in jurisdiction clauses of that of the Member State in whose territory the service provider is located, to be compared with the general conditions applicable to contracts for IT works and individual software maintenance contracts applicable in Switzerland, cited by Reymond, M., op. cit., p. 238, footnote 60. See, for the updated version of that work, https://backend.bkb.admin.ch/fileservice/sdweb-docs-prod-bkbadminch-files/files/2024/08/13/9d43df1a-4ff8-45fe-b530-1ea8d9716399.pdf. 60 See judgments of 9 July 2009, Rehder (C‑204/08, EU:C:2009:439, paragraphs 42 and 43), and of 7 March 2018, flightright and Others (C‑274/16, C‑447/16 and C‑448/16, EU:C:2018:160, paragraph 73). 61 See, by analogy, the judgment in Color Drack (paragraph 40). 62 See, in particular, the judgment in Wood Floor (paragraph 36). See also, to that effect, El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 549 (p. 447) and point 617 (p. 502). See, moreover, for the adoption of a solution consisting in ascertaining the Member State in which the greatest part of the service is provided in the European Union, even though the service is mainly provided in a third State, Gaudemet-Tallon, H. and Ancel, M.-E., Compétence et exécution des jugements en Europe, Règlements 44/2001 et 1215/2012, Conventions de Bruxelles (1968) et de Lugano (1998 et 2007), 7th ed., Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, collection ‘Droit des affaires’, Paris, 2024, point 221 (p. 340). 63 See, to that effect, El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 550 (p. 447), in which the example is also given, by way of illustration, of a company supplying accounting software to a foreign undertaking, to be compared with the case in the main proceedings, in which the German legislation was to be complied with. 64 See, on that objective, El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 617 (pp. 502 and 503), and also, on the solution, Gaudemet-Tallon, H. and Ancel, M.-E., op. cit., footnote 257 (p. 340) and, where it is difficult or impossible to determine the place of performance, point 222 (p. 341). 65 OJ 2008 L 177, p. 6; ‘the Rome I Regulation’. 66 See, on the compatibility of that rule with the internet, opinion of Cachard, O., La régulation internationale du marché électronique, Bibliothèque de droit privé, vol. 365, Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, Paris, 2002, and de Usunier, L., ‘La loi applicable aux contrats électroniques’, in Rochfeld, J., L’acquis communautaire – Le contrat électronique, Economica, Paris, 2010, cited by El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 132 (p. 111). 67 See, to that effect, Mankowski, P., ‘Article 7’, op. cit., point 184, which refers to Article 4(2) of the Rome I Regulation. 68 See footnote 21 to this Opinion. 69 In the words of that provision, ‘where it is clear from all the circumstances of the case that the contract is manifestly more closely connected with a country other than that indicated in paragraph 1 or 2, the law of that other country shall apply’. 70 See El Hage, Y., op. cit., point 616 (p. 501). As regards the reasons for the application in particular of Article 4(3) of the Rome I Regulation, called the ‘exception clause’, see points 592 (p. 480) and 598 (p. 486). See also the illustrations provided in points 594 to 596 (pp. 484 to 486).