Nejvyšší soud; 2017-06-15; 29 Cdo 4825/2015
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:CZ:NS:2017:29.CDO.4825.2015.1
Date: 2017-06-15
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Czechia

82017CZ0615(52)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
Two Czech natural persons (hereinafter ‘the plaintiffs’), as transferors, concluded a contract on the transfer of shares, with a company domiciled in Germany (hereinafter ‘the defendant’) as a transferee. The Rozhodčí soud při Hospodářské komoře a Agrární komoře (hereinafter ‘the arbitration court’) issued an arbitration award ordering the plaintiffs to pay a negative sale price of nearly EUR 18 million.
The plaintiffs filed an action before the Obvodní soud pro Prahu 1 (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’) seeking the annulment of the arbitration award and the postponement of its enforceability. The Court of First Instance, by its order, postponed the enforceability of the arbitration award, which was later appealed by the defendant to the Městský soud v Praze (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’).
The Court of Appeal cited Article 1(2)(d) of the Brussels I Regulation (1), according to which ‘the Regulation shall not apply to arbitration’ and decided pursuant to Czech law on the arbitration. The Court of Appeal held that the district courts (such as was the Court of First Instance) do not have jurisdiction over these matters, conversely, the regional courts should act here as the first instance courts. Therefore, the Court of Appeal annulled the order of the Court of First Instance and the referred the case, paradoxically, to the same Court of Appeal, because it was the regional court having jurisdiction in this specific case.
The plaintiffs filed a cassation appeal to the Nejvyšší soud (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) alleging that the Court of Appeal omitted important amendments of the Czech legislation, according to which disputes regarding the transfer of shares do not belong within the exclusive jurisdiction of the regional courts, but that district courts are fully competent to hear such actions.
The Supreme Court analysed the situation caused by several amendments of Czech legislation and concluded that even after these amendments the regional courts still have exclusive jurisdiction to hear disputes such as the present one, and, therefore, the legal opinion of the Court of Appeal was correct. However, the Supreme Court pointed out a manifest procedural error made by the Court of Appeal: since the Court of First Instance did not consider its jurisdiction over the case, it could not be considered by the Court of Appeal either. This is breach of paragraph 212a(6) of the o.s.ř. (2), according to which an order of the court by which it has not yet been decided as to the substance of the matter may be reviewed only for reasons related to what the first instance court dealt with in the operative part of that order.
The Supreme Court annulled the order of the Court of Appeal as well as the order of the Court of First Instance and referred the case back to the Court of First Instance for further hearing.
(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.
(2) Občanský soudní řád (Code of Civil Procedure).