Vereniging van Effectenbezitters v BP plc.
Date: 2021-05-12
23


As a preliminary point, it must be noted that, in so far as, in accordance with recital 34 of Regulation No 1215/2012, that regulation repeals and replaces Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (OJ 2001 L 12, p. 1), which itself replaced the Convention of 27 September 1968 on jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (OJ 1978 L 304, p. 36), as amended by successive conventions on the accession of new Member States to that convention, the Court’s interpretation of the provisions of the latter legal instruments also applies to Regulation No 1215/2012 whenever those provisions may be regarded as ‘equivalent’. That is the case with point 3 of Article 5 of that convention, as amended, and Regulation No 44/2001, on the one hand, and with Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012, on the other (judgment of 9 July 2020, Verein für Konsumenteninformation, C‑343/19, EU:C:2020:534, paragraph 22).
24


It must also be recalled that, according to the Court’s settled case-law, the rule of special jurisdiction laid down by Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted independently and strictly (see, to that effect, judgment of 12 September 2018, Löber, C‑304/17, EU:C:2018:701, paragraph 17 and the case-law cited).
25


The jurisdiction provided for in Article 4 of Regulation No 1215/2012, namely that of the courts of the Member State in which the defendant is domiciled, constitutes the general rule. It is only by way of derogation from that general rule that the regulation provides for special and exclusive rules of jurisdiction for cases, which are exhaustively listed, in which the defendant may or must, depending on the case, be sued in the courts of another Member State (see, to that effect, judgment of 12 September 2018, Löber, C‑304/17, EU:C:2018:701, paragraph 18 and the case-law cited).
26


Nevertheless, as the Court has repeatedly found, the concept of ‘place where the harmful event occurred’, within the meaning of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012, is intended to cover both the place where the damage occurred and the place of the event giving rise to that damage, with the result that the defendant may be sued, at the option of the applicant, in the courts for either of those two places (judgment of 9 July 2020, Verein für Konsumenteninformation, C‑343/19, EU:C:2020:534, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).
27


That concept of the ‘place where the harmful event occurred’ in Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012 may not, however, be construed so extensively as to encompass any place where the adverse consequences of an event, which has caused damage actually arising elsewhere, can be felt (judgment of 12 September 2018, Löber, C‑304/17, EU:C:2018:701, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).
28


The Court has also clarified that that concept does not refer to the place where the applicant is domiciled and where his assets are concentrated by reason only of the fact that he or she has suffered financial damage there resulting from the loss of part of his or her assets which arose and was incurred in another Member State (judgments of 10 June 2004, Kronhofer, C‑168/02, EU:C:2004:364, paragraph 21, and of 16 June 2016, Universal Music International Holding, C‑12/15, EU:C:2016:449, paragraph 35).
29


Although the mere fact that the applicant has suffered financial consequences cannot justify the attribution of jurisdiction to the courts of the applicant’s domicile, such an attribution of jurisdiction is justified if that domicile is in fact the place in which the events giving rise to the damage took place or the damage occurred (see, to that effect, judgment of 12 September 2018, Löber, C‑304/17, EU:C:2018:701, paragraphs 24 and 25 and the case-law cited).
31


It is apparent from the Court’s case-law that such a place is that where the alleged damage actually manifests itself (judgment of 12 September 2018, Löber, C‑304/17, EU:C:2018:701, paragraph 27 and the case-law cited).
32


In that regard, the Court has already noted that it is possible for the courts where the applicant is domiciled to have jurisdiction, on the basis of the place where the damage occurred, to hear and determine an action seeking to put in issue the liability of the issuer of a certificate on the basis of the prospectus relating to it and of breach of other legal information obligations binding on the issuer, particularly when the damage alleged occurred directly in the applicant’s bank account held with a bank established within the area of jurisdiction of those courts (judgment of 12 September 2018, Löber, C‑304/17, EU:C:2018:701, paragraph 28 and the case-law cited).
33


The place in which the damage occurred thus identified is in line with the objective of Regulation No 1215/2012, which is to strengthen the legal protection of persons established in the European Union by simultaneously enabling the applicant to identify easily the court in which he or she may sue and the defendant reasonably to foresee in which court he or she may be sued, given that the issuer of a certificate who does not comply with their legal obligations in respect of the prospectus must, when they decide to notify the prospectus relating to that certificate in other Member States, anticipate that inadequately informed operators, domiciled in those Member States, might invest in that certificate and suffer damage (see, to that effect, judgments of 28 January 2015, Kolassa, C‑375/13, EU:C:2015:37, paragraph 56, and of 12 September 2018, Löber, C‑304/17, EU:C:2018:701, paragraph 35).
39


It should be noted, however, that it is apparent from the order for reference that the dispute in the main proceedings does not concern such individual actions for damages. It follows that those questions are, at this stage, hypothetical and that the inherent need for the answer to them for the resolution of that dispute has not been established. In those circumstances, since the function entrusted to the Court of Justice is to contribute to the administration of justice in the Member States and not to deliver advisory opinions on general or hypothetical questions, those questions are inadmissible (see, by analogy, judgment of 26 November 2020, Sögård Fastigheter, C‑787/18, EU:C:2020:964, paragraphs 76, 80 and 81).