Oberster Gerichtshof, Urteil vom 04/03/2005 9 Nc 4/05w
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:AT:OGH0002:2005:0090NC00004.05W.0304.000
Date: 2005-03-04
Subject matter: Lugano Convention
Origin: Austria

82005AT0304(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE SUMMARY
JURE SUMMARY
The plaintiff is a consumer protection association, to which consumers domiciled in Austria have ceded their claims against the defendant, a travel agency seated in Switzerland in order to sue them in court. The consumers had reserved and participated to trips booked as a package with the defendant and then suffered an infection of salmonella for which they intended to claim compensation. The de-termination of the competent Austrian court is requested.
The OGH (AT) finds in this regard that as there is no competent court for the interpretation of the Lugano Convention, one shall respec-tively consider the jurisprudence of the ECJ on the Brussels Convention. The latter has decided that a legal entity, which acts as assignee of the final private consumers’ rights without being itself involved in a contract between a commercial entity and a private individual, cannot be considered as a con-sumer. This also applies to a consumer protection association, which exercises a collective action in favour of the consumers. Thus, the plaintiff, who was aware of this jurisprudence, cannot invoke the ju-risdiction in Austria according to Article 14 Lugano Convention since it is not directly party to the travel packages contracts.