Cour de cassation 1ère Chambre civile; 2023-03-22; 1re Civ., 22 mars 2023, pourvoi n° 21-24.432
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:FR:CCASS:2023:C100207
Date: 2023-03-22
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: France

82023FR0322(52)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
In this case, the Cour de Cassation (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) examined whether the cour d’appel de Paris (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) rightfully held that the French courts had no jurisdiction.
A natural person (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) loaned works of art to the company Documenta und Museum Fridericianum GGMBH (hereinafter ‘defendant 1’), under contracts that included a clause conferring jurisdiction to the courts of the town of Kassel, in Germany. Defendant 1 entered with the company Axa Art Versicherung AG (hereinafter ‘defendant 2’) an insurance contract that included an arbitration clause which designated an arbitral court in Frankfurt. As one of the works of art incurred damage, the plaintiff sued both defendants in the French courts. Afterwards, defendant 2 was acquired by the company XL Insurance Company SE (hereinafter ‘defendant 3’).
Before the juge de la mise en état (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’), defendants 1 and 2 objected to the jurisdiction of the French courts, relying on the above-mentioned clauses. The Court of First Instance ruled that the French courts did not have jurisdiction. The plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeal, was unsuccessful, and appealed to the Supreme Court.
Before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, the plaintiff claimed to be a consumer and argued that a jurisdiction clause is unfair if it deprives a consumer of the possibility to sue a professional person in the courts of the State where this consumer is domiciled. The Court of Appeal held that, assuming that the plaintiff was indeed a consumer, the loan contracts met no criteria of Article 17(1) of Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1). The Supreme Court confirmed this, and added that ‘only the person acting outside and independently of any trade or professional activity or purpose, solely for the purpose of satisfying his own needs in terms of private consumption, is covered by the special rules laid down by the Convention to protect the consumer as the party deemed to be the weaker party’ (2).
Regarding the arbitration clause in the insurance contract, the Court of Appeal cited Article 1448 of the code civil (3), which provides that ‘when a dispute governed by an arbitration agreement is brought before a court of the State, this court declines jurisdiction except if the arbitration court is not yet seised and if the arbitration agreement is manifestly null or manifestly inapplicable’. The Court of Appeal stated that, since the plaintiff relied on her allegedly being a consumer, the arbitration clause was enforceable against her, and was not manifestly inapplicable. In her appeal to the Supreme Court, the plaintiff argued that the contract simultaneously designated State courts and an arbitration court, so that this contract included both a jurisdiction clause and an arbitration clause. According to the plaintiff, a jurisdiction clause may not prevent an insured person to sue his or her assurer in the courts of the Member State where this insured person is domiciled, and the arbitration clause was inapplicable because it could not be established that the parties meant to give priority to the arbitration court. However, the Supreme Court noted that the Court of Appeal found that the parties agreed that the clause included in the insurance contract was an arbitration clause; and as a result, this contract included no jurisdiction clause.
The appeal was dismissed.
(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 (recast).
(2) The Supreme Court here relies on the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. See for instance Judgment of the Court of Justice of 20 January 2005, Johann Gruber v Bay Wa AG, C-464/01, ECLI:EU:C:2005:32, paragraph 36.
(3) Code civil (Civil Code).