Leathertex Divisione Sintetici SpA v Bodetex BVBA.
Date: 1999-10-05
21 As to that, in view of the allocation of jurisdiction under the preliminary ruling procedure provided for by the Protocol, it is for the national court to assess the relative importance of the contractual obligations at issue in the main proceedings and for the Court of Justice to interpret the Convention in the light of the findings made by the national court.
22 Moreover, to alter the substance of the question referred for a preliminary ruling would be incompatible with the Court's function under the Protocol and with its duty to ensure that the Governments of the Member States and the parties concerned are given the opportunity to submit observations pursuant to Article 5 of the Protocol and Article 20 of the EC Statute of the Court, bearing in mind that, under Article 20, only the order of the referring court is notified to the interested parties (see, in relation to the procedure under Article 177 of the EC Treaty (now Article 234 EC), Case C-352/95 Pytheron International v Bourdon [1997] ECR I-1729, paragraph 14, and Case C-235/95 AGS Assedic v Dumon and Froment [1998] ECR I-4531, paragraph 26).
31 It should be noted first of all that, in paragraphs 8, 9 and 10 of the judgment in Case 14/76 De Bloos v Bouyer [1976] ECR 1497, after observing that the Convention was intended to determine the international jurisdiction of the courts of the Contracting States, to facilitate the recognition of judgments and to introduce an expeditious procedure for securing their enforcement, the Court held that those objectives implied the need to avoid, so far as possible, creating a situation in which a number of courts had jurisdiction in respect of one and the same contract and that Article 5(1) of the Convention could not therefore be interpreted as referring to any obligation whatsoever arising under the contract in question. The Court concluded, in paragraphs 11 and 13 of the same judgment, that, for the purposes of determining the place of performance within the meaning of Article 5(1), the obligation to be taken into account was that which corresponded to the contractual right on which the plaintiff's action was based. It stated in paragraph 14 that, in a case where the plaintiff asserted the right to be paid damages or sought dissolution of the contract on the ground of the wrongful conduct of the other party, that obligation was still that which arose under the contract and the non-performance of which was relied upon to support such claims.
33 Also, the Court has held on several occasions that the place of performance of the obligation in question is to be determined by the law governing that obligation according to the conflict rules of the court seised (Case 12/76 Tessili v Dunlop [1976] ECR 1473, paragraph 13, Case C-288/92 Custom Made Commercial v Stawa Metallbau [1994] ECR I-2913, paragraph 26, and Case C-440/97 Groupe Concorde and Others v The Master of the Vessel Suhadiwarno Panjan and Others [1999] ECR I-0000, paragraph 32).
36 When the specific features of a contract of employment do not exist, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to identify the obligation which characterises the contract and to centralise at its place of performance all jurisdiction, based on place of performance, over disputes concerning all the obligations under the contract (Shenavai, cited above, paragraph 17).
38 Nor can the court which has jurisdiction to hear the claim for payment of compensation in lieu of notice found its jurisdiction in respect of the claim for payment of commission on any relation between those two claims.  As the Court has made clear, Article 22 of the Convention is intended to establish how related actions which have been brought before courts of different Contracting States are to be dealt with.  It does not confer jurisdiction.  In particular, it does not accord jurisdiction to a court of a Contracting State to try an action which is related to another action of which that court is seised pursuant to the rules of the Convention (see Case 150/80 Elefanten Schuh v Jacqmain [1981] ECR 1671, paragraph 19, and Case C-51/97 Réunion Européenne and Others v Spliethoff's Bevrachtingskantor and Another [1998] ECR I-6511, paragraph 39).
39 Finally, when a dispute relates to a number of obligations of equal rank arising from the same contract, the court before which the matter is brought cannot, when determining whether it has jurisdiction, be guided by the maxim accessorium sequitur principale referred to by the Court in paragraph 19 of the judgment in Shenavai, cited above.