Reisch Montage AG v Kiesel Baumaschinen Handels GmbH.
Date: 2006-07-13
20. That Government refers to the case-law of the Court (Case C-365/88 Hagen  [1990] ECR I-1845, paragraphs 20 and 21; Case C-159/02 Turner  [2004] ECR I-3565, paragraph 29; and Case C-77/04 GIE Réunion européenne and Others  [2005] ECR I-4509, paragraph 34), claiming that a national court cannot base the dismissal of an action on a warranty or guarantee on the fact that the guarantor is domiciled in a Member State other than that of the national court, which is also the State in which the debtor, against whom the action is inadmissible, is domiciled.
22. It must be observed, at the outset, that the jurisdiction provided for in Article 2 of Regulation No 44/2001, namely that the courts of the Member State in which the defendant is domiciled are to have jurisdiction, constitutes the general principle and it is only by way of derogation from that principle that that regulation provides for special 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, in relation to the Convention of 27 September 1968 on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (OJ 1978 L 304, p. 36; ‘the Brussels Convention’), the provisions of which are essentially identical to those of Regulation No 44/2001, Case C-51/97 Réunion européenne and Others  [1998] ECR I-6511, paragraph 16, and Case C-265/02 Frahuil  [2004] ECR I-1543, paragraph 23).
23. In that regard, it is settled case-law that those special rules on jurisdiction must be strictly interpreted and cannot be given an interpretation going beyond the cases expressly envisaged by Regulation No 44/2001 (see, in relation to the Brussels Convention, Case C-168/02 Kronhofer [2004] ECR I-6009, paragraph 14 and the case-law cited).
24. It is for the national courts to interpret those rules having regard for the principle of legal certainty, which is one of the objectives of Regulation No 44/2001 (see, in relation to the Brussels Convention, Case C-440/97 GIE Groupe Concorde and Others  [1999] ECR I-6307, paragraph 23; Case C-256/00 Besix  [2002] ECR I-1699, paragraph 24; and Case C-281/02 Owusu  [2005] ECR I-1383, paragraph 38).
25. That principle requires, in particular, that the special rules on jurisdiction be interpreted in such a way as to enable a normally well-informed defendant reasonably to foresee before which courts, other than those of the State in which he is domiciled, he may be sued (see GIE Groupe Concorde and Others , paragraph 24; Besix , paragraph 26; and Owusu , paragraph 40).
29. It is settled case-law that the provisions of the regulation must be interpreted independently, by reference to its scheme and purpose (see, in relation to the Brussels Convention, Case C-433/01 Blijdenstein  [2004] ECR I-981, paragraph 24 and the case-law cited).
32. However, the special rule on jurisdiction provided for in Article 6(1) of Regulation No 44/2001 cannot be interpreted in such a way as to allow a plaintiff to make a claim against a number of defendants for the sole purpose of removing one of them from the jurisdiction of the courts of the Member State in which that defendant is domiciled (see, in relation to the Brussels Convention, Case 189/87 Kalfelis  [1988] ECR 5565, paragraphs 8 and 9, and Réunion européenne and Others , paragraph 47). However, this does not seem to be the case in the main proceedings.