Saale Kareda v Stefan Benkö.
Date: 2017-06-15
27


For the purposes of answering that question, reference should be made to the interpretation given by the Court concerning Article 5(1) of Regulation No 44/2001 and Article 5(1) of the Brussels Convention, which also applies to Article 7(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012 given that those provisions may be regarded as equivalent (see, to that effect, judgment of 18 July 2013, ÖFAB, C‑147/12, EU:C:2013:490, paragraph 28).
28


It is apparent from that case-law, first, that the concept of ‘matters relating to a contract’, within the meaning of Article 5(1) of Regulation No 44/2001, must be interpreted autonomously in order to ensure that that concept is applied uniformly in all Member States and, secondly, that, in order to come within the scope of that concept, the claimant’s action must place in issue a legal obligation freely consented to by one person towards another (see, to that effect, judgments of 14 March 2013, Česká spořitelna, C‑419/11, EU:C:2013:165, paragraphs 45 to 47, and of 28 January 2015, Kolassa, C‑375/13, EU:C:2015:37, paragraphs 37 and 39).
29


In that regard, it should be recalled at the outset that the linking factors set out in Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation No 44/2001 apply to all claims founded on one and the same contract (see, to that effect, judgment of 9 July 2009, Rehder, C‑204/08, EU:C:2009:439, paragraph 33).
30


Secondly, in the case where non-performance of a contract is relied upon to support a claimant’s action, all obligations arising under that contract must be considered to come within the concept of matters relating to a contract (see, to that effect, judgments of 6 October 1976, De Bloos, 14/76, EU:C:1976:134, paragraphs 16 and 17, and of 8 March 1988, Arcado, 9/87, EU:C:1988:127, paragraph 13).
31


The same applies to obligations arising between two jointly and severally liable debtors, such as the parties to the main proceedings, and in particular to the possibility for a jointly and severally liable debtor who has paid, in whole or in part, the other debtor’s share in the common debt to reclaim the amount thus paid by bringing a recourse claim (see, by analogy, judgment of 12 October 2016, Kostanjevec, C‑185/15, EU:C:2016:763, paragraph 38). As the Advocate General has observed in point 31 of his Opinion, given that the purpose of the action in the main proceedings is itself linked to the existence of that contract, it would be artificial, for the purposes of the application of Regulation No 1215/2012, to separate those legal relationships from the contract which gave rise to them and on which they are based.
32


Finally, even though the provisions of Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted in the light of the objectives of that regulation and the system which it establishes (see, to that effect, judgment of 16 January 2014, Kainz, C‑45/13, EU:C:2014:7, paragraph 19), it is necessary to take into account the objective of consistency in application, particularly in regard to Regulation No 1215/2012 and the Rome I Regulation (see, to that effect, judgment of 21 January 2016, ERGO Insurance and Gjensidige Baltic, C‑359/14 and C‑475/14, EU:C:2016:40, paragraph 43). An interpretation to the effect that a recourse action, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, must be regarded as being covered by the concept of ‘matters relating to a contract’, within the meaning of Regulation No 1215/2012, is also consistent with that objective of consistency. Indeed, Article 16 of the Rome I Regulation expressly links the relationship between a number of debtors to that between the debtor and the creditor.
33


In the light of the foregoing, the answer to the first question is that Article 7(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted as meaning that a recourse claim between jointly and severally liable debtors under a credit agreement constitutes a ‘matter relating to a contract’, as referred to in that provision.
35


According to the Court’s case-law, the concept of ‘services’, within the meaning of Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation No 44/2001, the wording of which is identical to that of Article 7(1)(b) of Regulation No 1215/2012, implies, at the least, that the party who provides the service carries out a particular activity in return for remuneration (see, to that effect, judgment of 14 July 2016, Granarolo, C‑196/15, EU:C:2016:559, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited).
40


In this regard, it is necessary to establish, in accordance with the case-law of the Court, the obligation which characterises the contract (see, to that effect, judgment of 14 July 2016, Granarolo, C‑196/15, EU:C:2016:559, paragraph 33).
45


In that regard, no relevance attaches to the observation made by each of the parties to the main proceedings that they both have the status of ‘consumers’ and must accordingly enjoy the benefit of the jurisdiction rules for contracts entered into by consumers laid down in Articles 17 and 18 of Regulation No 1215/2012. As the Court has pointed out in relation to Articles 15 and 16 of Regulation No 44/2001, those rules cannot apply to relations between two consumers (see, to that effect, judgment of 5 December 2013, Vapenik, C‑508/12, EU:C:2013:790, paragraph 34).