Oberster Gerichtshof; 2016-07-20; 6 Ob 23/16z
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:AT:OGH0002:2016:0060OB00023.16Z.0720.000
Date: 2016-07-20
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Austria

82016AT0720(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A natural person resident in Vienna (the "plaintiff") brought a civil action for breach of EU data protection against the Irish subsidiary of Facebook (the "defendant"), and by the assignment of claims, the plaintiff (assignee) also represented other Facebook users (assignors).
The international jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance was given by Article 16(1) of the Brussels I Regulation (¹) through the latter option.
The defendant raised the plea of international incompetence of the Court of First Instance.
The Court of First Instance (Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen Wien) rejected the action. The plaintiff also uses Facebook professionally and consumer jurisdiction could not be considered. The assignor’s personally justified place of jurisdiction is not transferred to the assignee.
The Court of Appeal (Oberlandesgericht Wien) amended the decision of the Court of First Instance so that it rejected the complaint only with regard to the claims not concerning the plaintiff personally.
Both conflicting parties fought against this decision by appeal on points of law.
The Oberster Gerichtshof (the "OGH") had to answer the following two questions:
1. Is Article 15 of the Brussels I Regulation to be interpreted to mean that a consumer, through his professional or commercial activities on a Facebook account, loses the consumer property in another Facebook account intended for private purposes?
2. Is Article 16 of the Brussels I Regulation to be interpreted as allowing a consumer and plaintiff in a Member State to assert similar claims of other consumers with a different domicile at his place of jurisdiction at the same time as he asserts his own claims from a consumer business?
The OGH presented these two questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling. Up to its interpretation, the procedure on appeals on points of law was suspended.
(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, valid until 09.01.2015.