Comité d’entreprise de Nortel Networks SA and Others v Cosme Rogeau liquidator of Nortel Networks SA and Cosme Rogeau liquidator of Nortel Networks SA v Alan Robert Bloom and Others.
Date: 2015-06-11
26. In that regard, the Court has already held that Regulations No 44/2001 and No 1346/2000 must be interpreted in such a way as to avoid any overlap between the rules of law that those instruments lay down and any legal vacuum. Accordingly, actions excluded, under Article 1(2)(b) of Regulation No 44/2001, from the scope of that regulation in so far as they come under ‘bankruptcy, proceedings relating to the winding-up of insolvent companies or other legal persons, judicial arrangements, compositions and analogous proceedings’ fall within the scope of Regulation No 1346/2000. Correspondingly, actions which fall outside the scope of Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1346/2000 fall within the scope of Regulation No 44/2001 (judgment in Nickel & Goeldner Spedition , C‑157/13, EU:C:2014:2145, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited).
27. The Court has also held that the scope of Regulation No 1346/2000 must not be interpreted broadly, and that only actions which derive directly from insolvency proceedings and are closely connected with them (‘related actions’) are excluded from the scope of Regulation No 44/2001. Consequently, only those actions fall within the scope of Regulation No 1346/2000 (see judgment in Nickel & Goeldner Spedition , C‑157/13, EU:C:2014:2145, paragraphs 22 and 23 and the case-law cited).
28. Finally, the Court has adopted as the decisive criterion for identifying the area within which an action falls not the procedural context of that action, but its legal basis. According to that approach, it must be determined whether the right or the obligation which forms the basis of the action has its source in the ordinary rules of civil and commercial law or in derogating rules specific to insolvency proceedings (judgment in Nickel & Goeldner Spedition , C‑157/13, EU:C:2014:2145, paragraph 27).
31. As regards the jurisdiction of the court which has opened secondary insolvency proceedings to rule on the determination of the debtor’s assets falling within the scope of the effects of those proceedings, it is settled case-law that Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1346/2000 must be interpreted as conferring international jurisdiction to hear and determine related actions on the Member State within the territory of which the insolvency proceedings have been opened (see, in particular, judgment in F-Tex , C‑213/10, EU:C:2012:215, paragraph 27 and the case-law cited).
36. Second, one of the fundamental objectives of the possibility, provided for in Article 27 of Regulation No 1346/2000, of opening secondary insolvency proceedings consists, in particular, in the protection of local interests, notwithstanding the fact that those proceedings may also pursue other objectives (see, to that effect, judgment in Burgo Group , C‑327/13, EU:C:2014:2158, paragraph 36).
39. As regards, finally, the issue whether the courts of the Member State in which secondary insolvency proceedings have been opened have exclusive, or concurrent, jurisdiction to rule on the determination of the debtor’s assets falling within the scope of the effects of those proceedings, it should be noted that the Court’s case-law acknowledging the jurisdiction of courts, under Article 3(1) of Regulation No 1346/2000, to rule on related actions is founded principally on the practical effect of that regulation (see, to this effect, judgments in Seagon , C‑339/07, EU:C:2009:83, paragraph 21, and F-Tex , C‑213/10, EU:C:2012:215, paragraph 27). As is apparent from paragraph 37 of the present judgment, the same applies to the analogous jurisdiction of courts possessing jurisdiction under Article 3(2) of the regulation.