Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2011:838
Date: 2011-12-15
Language of the case: French
Court formation: First Chamber
Subject matter: Area of freedom, security and justice;Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: France

Summary of the Judgment 1. Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Insolvency proceedings – Regulation No 1346/2000 – International jurisdiction to open insolvency proceedings – Courts of the Member State in which the centre of the debtor’s main interests is situated (Council Regulation No 1346/2000) 2. Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Insolvency proceedings – Regulation No 1346/2000 – International jurisdiction to open insolvency proceedings – Courts of the Member State in which the centre of the debtor’s main interests is situated – Criteria for determining (Council Regulation No 1346/2000) 1. On a proper construction of Regulation No 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings, a court of a Member State that has opened main insolvency proceedings against a company, on the view that the centre of the debtor’s main interests is situated in the territory of that Member State, may, under a rule of its national law, join to those proceedings a second company whose registered office is in another Member State only if it is established that the centre of that second company’s main interests is situated in the first Member State. In the system established by the Regulation for determining the competence of the Member States, which is based on the centre of the debtor’s main interests, each debtor constituting a distinct legal entity is subject to its own court jurisdiction. For it to be possible for a court, designated under Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1346/2000 as having jurisdiction with regard to a debtor, to join another legal entity to insolvency proceedings on the sole ground that their property has been intermixed, without considering where the centre of that entity’s main interests is situated, would constitute a circumvention of the system established by the Regulation. This would result in, inter alia, a risk of conflicting claims to jurisdiction between courts of different Member States, which the Regulation specifically intended to prevent in order to ensure uniform treatment of insolvency proceedings within the European Union. (see paras 25, 28-29, operative part 1) 2. On a proper construction of Regulation No 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings, when a company, whose registered office is situated within the territory of a Member State, is subject to an action that seeks to extend to it the effects of insolvency proceedings opened in another Member State against another company established within the territory of that other Member State, the mere finding that the property of those companies has been intermixed is not sufficient to establish that the centre of the main interests of the company concerned by the action is also situated in that other Member State. In order to reverse the presumption that this centre is the place of the registered office, it is necessary for an overall assessment of all the relevant factors to enable it to be established, in a manner ascertainable by third parties, that the actual centre of management and supervision of the company concerned by the joinder action is situated in the Member State where the initial insolvency proceedings were opened. (see para. 39, operative part 2)