Liam Jenkinson v Council of the European Union and Others.
Date: 2018-07-05
38


In the light of those provisions, the jurisdiction of the General Court, which is based on an arbitration clause, derogates from the ordinary rules of law and must, therefore, be given a restrictive interpretation (judgment of 18 December 1986, Commission v Zoubek, 426/85, EU:C:1986:501, paragraph 11).
39


Furthermore, while, under an arbitration clause entered into pursuant to Article 272 TFEU, the General Court may be called on to decide a dispute on the basis of the national law governing the contract, its jurisdiction to hear a dispute concerning that contract falls to be determined solely with regard to Article 272 TFEU and the terms of the arbitration clause, and this cannot be affected by provisions of national law which allegedly exclude its jurisdiction (judgment of 26 February 2015, Planet v Commission, C‑564/13 P, EU:C:2015:124,, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited).
40


It follows that the General Court may hear and determine only claims arising from the contract concluded with the European Union which contains the arbitration clause, or claims that are directly connected with the obligations arising from that contract (see, to that effect, judgment of 18 December 1986, Commission v Zoubek, 426/85, EU:C:1986:501, paragraph 11)
44


However, as the Advocate General observed in points 45 and 46 of his Opinion, in connection with an employment relationship similar to that in the present case, in that it concerned a series of consecutive employment contracts concluded over a period of 15 years, only the last four of which contained an arbitration clause conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Justice to rule on all disputes concerning the validity, interpretation or implementation of those contracts, the Court found that the fact that the previous contracts did not contain such a clause and that, as regards the first years, there were not even any written contracts, does not preclude the Court having regard, in its assessment of the relationship between the parties, to all the contracts concluded (judgment of 1 July 1982, Porta v Commission, 109/81, EU:C:1982:253, paragraph 10).
55


The General Court having simply decided whether it had jurisdiction and whether the action was admissible, but not addressed the substance of the case, it should be noted that, according to the Court’s settled case-law, as a rule, the state of the proceedings does not permit final judgment to be given on the substance of an action brought before the General Court where that court dismissed the action as inadmissible by upholding a plea of inadmissibility and did not reserve a decision on that plea for the final judgment (judgment of 17 December 2009, Review M v EMEA, C‑197/09 RX-II, EU:C:2009:804, paragraph 29 and the case-law cited).
56


Admittedly, it is possible, in certain circumstances, for a ruling to be given on the substance of an action even though the proceedings at first instance were confined to consideration of a plea of inadmissibility which the General Court upheld. That may be so where, first, the setting aside of the judgment or order under appeal necessarily brings about a definitive resolution of the substance of the action in question or, second, the examination of the substance of the application for annulment is based on arguments exchanged by the parties in the appeal proceedings following the reasoning adopted by the court at first instance (judgment of 17 December 2009, Review M v EMEA, C‑197/09 RX-II, EU:C:2009:804, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited).