62022CJ0774_RES
Case C‑774/22
JX
v
FTI Touristik GmbH
(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Amtsgericht Nürnberg)
Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 29 July 2024
(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters – Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 – Article 18 – Jurisdiction over consumer contracts – Determination of the international and territorial jurisdiction of the courts of a Member State – International element – Travel in a third State)
Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters – Regulation No 1215/2012 – Jurisdiction over consumer contracts – Scope – Dispute between a consumer and a tour operator following the conclusion of a package travel contract – Contracting parties domiciled in the same Member State – Destination of the trip being abroad – International and territorial jurisdiction of the court in whose judicial district the consumer is domiciled – Included
(European Parliament and Council Regulations No 1896/2006, Art. 3(1), and No 1215/2012, recitals 3 and 26, and Arts 18 and 19(3))
(see paragraphs 25-37, 40-45, 47, operative part)
Résumé
Having been requested to deliver a preliminary ruling in the course of a dispute between a consumer domiciled in a Member State and a tour operator established in the same Member State, in relation to a trip abroad, booked by the former, the Court of Justice clarifies the scope of the Brussels Ia Regulation, (
1
) by examining, more specifically the existence of an international element in such a situation.
In December 2021, JX, a private individual domiciled in Nuremberg (Germany), concluded a package travel contract with FTI Touristik GmbH, a tour operator having its registered seat in Munich (Germany), for a trip in a third State.
JX seeks payment of damages in the amount of EUR 1500, before the Amtsgericht Nürnberg (Local Court, Nuremberg, Germany), the court of the place of his domicile, taking the view that he was not adequately informed of the entry and visa requirements in the country concerned. According to him, the territorial jurisdiction of that court derives from the protective rules of jurisdiction laid down in the Brussels Ia Regulation to the benefit of consumers. (
2
) FTI Touristik, for its part, contends that that court lacks territorial jurisdiction and maintains that that regulation does not apply to purely internal situations such as that at issue in the present case. In such a situation, the international element required for the application of that regulation is lacking.
By its reference for a preliminary ruling, the referring court asks the Court of Justice to clarify whether the Brussels Ia Regulation determines both the international and the territorial jurisdiction of the court of the Member State in whose judicial district the consumer is domiciled, in a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, in which the international element is limited to the destination of that travel, which is abroad.
Findings of the Court
With a view to examining, in the first place, whether the Brussels Ia Regulation applies to a dispute such as that at issue in the main proceedings, in which the applicant and the defendant are domiciled in the same Member State, the Court recalls that the application of the rules of jurisdiction of that regulation require the existence of an international element. Such an element exists, in particular, where the situation of the dispute concerned is such as to raise questions relating to the determination of international jurisdiction. If the international element is manifestly present where at least one of the parties has his or her habitual residence in a Member State other than the Member State of the court seised, the international element may also result from various factors related, inter alia, to the subject matter of the proceedings. Accordingly, the involvement of a Member State and a third State, for example, because the applicant and one defendant are domiciled in the first State and the events at issue occurred in the second, would also make the legal relationship at issue international in nature, since that situation is such as to raise questions in the Member State relating to the determination of international jurisdiction. It follows that a dispute relating to contractual obligations supposed to be performed in a third State or in a Member State other than the Member State in which the two parties are domiciled raises questions in relation to the determination of international jurisdiction and, therefore, fulfils the condition of the international element required in order for the dispute to fall within the scope of the Brussels Ia Regulation.
As regards disputes between consumers and traders, that interpretation is supported, first of all, by Article 18(1) of the Brussels Ia Regulation, (
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) according to which consumers may rely on the rule laid down in their favour against undertakings domiciled not only in other Member States, including third States, but also in the same Member State as that of their domicile. That interpretation is consistent, furthermore, with the purpose of the Brussels Ia Regulation, the Court having repeatedly held that that regulation pursues an objective of legal certainty, which requires that the national court seised may easily decide on its own jurisdiction, without being obliged to examine the merits of the case. In accordance with that objective, a case involving a traveller’s claim concerning problems suffered in relation to a trip abroad, organised and sold by a tour operator, must be treated as international for the purposes of the Brussels Ia Regulation, the destination of the trip being an easy element to check. Finally, that interpretation cannot be called into question by the reference made by the Court to the concept of ‘cross-border case’ which is defined in Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1896/2006 (
4
) as a case in which at least one of the parties is domiciled or habitually resident in a Member State other than the Member State of the court seised. As that regulation and the Brussels Ia Regulation have neither the same objective nor the same scope, the second regulation does not have to be interpreted in the light of the first.
Consequently, a dispute relating to a travel contract falls within the scope of the Brussels Ia Regulation, even though the contracting parties, namely the consumer and the other party to the contract, are both domiciled in the same Member State whereas the destination of the trip is abroad.
As regards, in the second place, the question of whether Article 18 of the Brussels Ia Regulation determines both the international and the territorial jurisdiction of the court concerned, the Court notes that it follows from the very wording of paragraph 1 of that article that the rules of jurisdiction stipulated in that provision, where the action is brought by a consumer, are aimed at, on the one hand, ‘the courts of the Member State in which [that other] party is domiciled’ and, on the other hand, ‘the courts for the place where the consumer is domiciled’. If the first of the two rules accordingly set out merely confers international jurisdiction on the judicial system of the designated State, taken as a whole, the second rule directly confers territorial jurisdiction on the court for the locality of the consumer’s domicile. That second rule accordingly determines not only the international jurisdiction of the court concerned, but also directly designates a precise court within a Member State, without reference to the rules on allocation of territorial jurisdiction in force in that Member State.
The Court concludes from that that Article 18 of the Brussels Ia Regulation determines both the international and the territorial jurisdiction of the court of the Member State in whose judicial district the consumer is domiciled, where such a court is seised, by that consumer, of a dispute between that consumer and a tour operator following the conclusion of a package travel contract, and where those two contracting parties are both domiciled in that Member State, but where the destination of that travel is abroad.
(
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)	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 (OJ 2012 L 351, p. 1) (‘the Brussels Ia Regulation’).
(
2
)	JX refers, in particular, to Articles 17 and 18 of the Brussels Ia Regulation.
(
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)	Under that provision, ‘a consumer may bring proceedings against the other party to a contract either in the courts of the Member State in which that party is domiciled or, regardless of the domicile of the other party, in the courts for the place where the consumer is domiciled’.
(
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)	Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 creating a European order for payment procedure (OJ 2006 L 399, p. 1).