Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2012:54
Date: 2012-02-02
Language of the case: Czech
Subject matter: Area of freedom, security and justice;Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Czechia

Summary of the Judgment Judicial cooperation in civil matters — Jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters — Regulation No 44/2001 — Temporal scope — Member State acceding to the European Union in 2004 — Recognition and enforcement of judgments — Grounds for refusing enforcement — Request for enforcement in the Member State addressed of a judgment delivered in another Member State before the entry into force of the regulation in the Member State addressed — Definition of ‘entry into force’ for the purpose of Article 66(2) of the regulation — Necessary that, at the time the judgment for which recognition is sought was delivered, the regulation should already have entered into force both in the Member State of origin and in the Member State addressed — Regulation applicable only in the period following the two entries into force (Council Regulation No 44/2001, Art. 66(2)) Article 66(2) of Regulation No 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters must be interpreted as meaning that, for that regulation to be applicable for the purpose of the recognition and enforcement of a judgment, it is necessary that at the time of delivery of that judgment the regulation was in force both in the Member State of origin and in the Member State addressed. The application of the simplified rules of recognition and enforcement laid down by Regulation No 44/2001, which protect the claimant especially by enabling him to obtain the swift, certain and effective enforcement of the judgment delivered in his favour in the Member State of origin, is justified only to the extent that the judgment to be recognised or enforced was delivered in accordance with the rules of jurisdiction in that regulation, which protect the interests of the defendant, particularly by providing that he may not, in principle, be sued in the courts of a Member State other than that in which he is domiciled. By contrast, if the defendant is domiciled in a State which was not yet a Member of the European Union either at the date the action was brought or at the date the judgment was delivered, and is therefore regarded as domiciled in a third State for the purposes of the applicability of Regulation No 44/2001, the balance of interests between the parties is no longer ensured. Furthermore, Regulation No 44/2001 contains certain mechanisms which protect the defendant’s rights during the original proceedings in the State of origin, but they apply only if the defendant is domiciled in a Member State of the Union. It thus follows both from the history and from the scheme and purpose of Article 66 of Regulation No 44/2001 that the concept of ‘entry into force’ in that provision must be understood as the date from which that regulation applies in both the Member States concerned. (see paras 27-29, 33, operative part)