OGH; 2020-02-27; 8 Ob10/20h
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:AT:OGH0002:2020:0080OB00010.20H.0227.000
Date: 2020-02-27
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Austria

82020AT0227(52)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A private person living in Austria (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) filed an action against the EU Member State Greece (hereinafter ‘the defendant’) seeking compensation for loss due to the purchase of Greek government bonds.
The plaintiff claimed that the defendant, as the issuer, unlawfully violated the respective rights of the plaintiff by carrying out a malicious compulsory conversion of these bonds.
The plaintiff assumed that the government bonds which he acquired on a secondary market had been issued under English law and not Greek law, and that the Austrian courts were therefore competent under Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1).
The Oberlandesgericht Linz (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) dismissed the action within appellate proceedings.
The Oberstes Gerichtshof dismissed the extraordinary revision filed by the plaintiff stating that the preconditions under Article 528(1) ZPO (3) had not been met.
According to a previous decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (3), the dispute did not fall into the applicability of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) due to the fact that the defendant acted as a sovereign state when adopting the debt restructuring act to carry out the compulsory conversion. Therefore, the conversion did not represent a civil or commercial matter under Article 1(1) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast).
If the bonds, however, had been issued under English law as the plaintiff argued in this case, he could have been able to pursue possible claims for compensation. But even in such case, the claims would be prevented by the state immunity of the defendant.
(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.
(2) Gesetz vom 1. August 1895 über das gerichtliche Verfahren in bürgerlichen Rechtsstreitigkeiten (Act of 1 August 1895, the Austrian Code of Civil Procedure).
(3) Judgment of the Court of Justice of 15 November 2018, Hellenische Republik v Leo Kuhn, C-308/17, ECLI:EU:C:2018:911.