Source: http://eplaw.org/eu-winfried-tilmann-epue-reg-and-upca-after-brexit/
Timestamp: 2020-04-08 04:57:37
Document Index: 512641800

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art 142', 'Art 142', 'Art 142', 'Art 84', 'Art 62', 'Art 62', 'Art 267', 'Art 21', 'Art 267', 'Art 267', 'Art 267', 'Art 267', 'Art 71', 'Art 21', 'Art 267', 'Art 142', 'Art 149', 'Art 87']

EU – Winfried Tilmann: EPUE-Reg and UPCA after Brexit – EPLAW
EU – Winfried Tilmann: EPUE-Reg and UPCA after Brexit
EPUE-Reg and UPCA after Brexit, by Prof. Dr. Winfried Tilmann, Hogan Lovells
The British voters have voted for a Brexit. What does that mean for the EPUE-Reg and for the UPCA?
However, since one of the two bases of the EPUE-Reg is Art 142 EPC, an agreement may be reached between the EPC member states being UPCA signatory states, including the UK, in the form of a Protocol to the UPCA agreeing that a unitary effect of an EPUE would be extended to the UK on the basis of Art 142 EPC. That agreement would be binding on the PMS and the UK on the basis of international law only. It would lead to two parallel unitary effects of the EPUE (1) in the participating member states of the EPUE-Reg (PMS) on the basis of the EPUE-Reg and (2) in the UK on the basis of the agreement pursuant to Art 142 EPC.
a) Art 84 UPCA provides that only EU-MS may ratify the UPCA. If the UK has ratified at the time of the legal exit, absent any change of the UPCA, the UK (or the other CMS, being the other party) may theoretically cancel the adherence of the UK to the UPCA pursuant to Art 62, 65, 67 of the Vienna Convention, because a fundamental circumstance has changed (Art 62 Vienna Convention).
(1) The CJEU, in its Opinion 1/09, has decided, that the UPCA may be concluded only if the referral procedure under Art 267 TFEU is not jeopardized. Pursuant to Art 21 UPCA and its referral to Art 267 TFEU the UPC is obliged to refer all questions on the construction of EU law applied by it to the CJEU. Therefore, the requirements of Art 267 TFEU are met to a full extent.
It is true that under Art 267 TFEU only the courts of EU-MS are permitted to refer questions pursuant to Art 267 TFEU, but the UPC is a common court of EU-MS (Art 71 a Brussels Ia-Reg) and would not lose that character, if a non-EU-MS (UK) who has ratified the UPCA being an EU-MS would continue to participate in the UPCA after leaving the Union, because that state, in ratifying, had fully accepted Art 21 UPCA and Art 267 TFEU and is bound to accept the Union law as defined by the CJEU. A statement to that effect could be included in the agreement based on Art 142 UPCA and also be endorsed in the exit-agreement EU-UK.
The same applies for the part of the proposed agreement of the CMS according to which a CMS who, at the time of ratification, was an EU-MS but does not continue to be an EU-MS may stay within the UPCA. This change may be brought about by a Protocol to the UPCA based on Art 149a(1) lit a EPC and later on the exit-agreement UK-EU, in combination with Art 87(2) UPCA, because the Protocol would bring the UPCA into line with Union law. Ratification by the CMS and by the UK would not be needed.
28th June 2016 at 8:46 am
The first proposoal for a solution in the current situation I’ve heard that is convincing. Not an easy one, but in absence of easy solutions one without the necessity of re-ratification and the possibility to keep UK in the system. What about the political support for such an intelligent solution?