Melzer v MF Global UK Ltd.
Date: 2013-05-16
22. It must also be recalled that the provisions of Regulation No 44/2001 must be interpreted independently, by reference to its scheme and purpose (see, inter alia, Case C‑189/08 Zuid‑Chemie  [2009] ECR I‑6917, paragraph 17 and the case-law cited, and Joined Cases C-509/09 and C-161/10 eDate Advertising and Others  [2011] ECR I-0000, paragraph 38).
23. That being the case, it must be stated that it is only by way of derogation from that fundamental principle laid down in Article 2(1) of Regulation No 44/2001, attributing jurisdiction to the courts of the defendant’s domicile, that Section 2 of Chapter II thereof makes provision for certain special jurisdictional rules, such as that laid down in Article 5(3) of that regulation.
24. In so far as the jurisdiction of the court of the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur constitutes a rule of special jurisdiction, it must be interpreted restrictively and cannot give rise to an interpretation going beyond the cases expressly envisaged by Regulation No 44/2001 (see, by analogy, Zuid‑Chemie , paragraph 22).
25. The fact remains that the expression ‘place where the harmful event occurred or may occur’ in Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001 is intended to cover both the place where the damage occurred and the place of the event giving rise to it, so that the defendant may be sued, at the option of the applicant, in the courts for either of those places (Case C-523/10 Wintersteiger [2012] ECR I-0000, paragraph 19 and the case-law cited).
26. In that connection, according to settled case-law, the rule of special jurisdiction laid down in Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001 is based on the existence of a particularly close connecting factor between the dispute and the courts of the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur, which justifies the attribution of jurisdiction to those courts for reasons relating to the sound administration of justice and the efficacious conduct of proceedings (see, to that effect, Zuid‑Chemie , paragraph 24, and eDate Advertising and Others , paragraph 40).
27. In matters relating to tort, delict and quasi-delict, the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred are usually the most appropriate for deciding the case, in particular on the grounds of proximity and ease of taking evidence (see, to that effect, Case C-167/00 Henkel [2002] ECR I-8111, paragraph 46, and Zuid‑Chemie , paragraph 24).
28. Since the identification of one of the connecting factors recognised by the case‑law set out in paragraph 25 of this judgment thus enables the court objectively best placed to determine whether the elements establishing the liability of the person sued are present to take jurisdiction, the relevant connecting factor must be situated within the jurisdiction of the court seised (see, to that effect, Case C-133/11 Folien Fischer and Fofitec  [2012] ECR I-0000, paragraph 52).
34. The use of national legal concepts in the context of Regulation No 44/2001 would give rising to different outcomes among the Member States liable to compromise the aim of unifying the rules of jurisdiction pursued by that regulation, as is clear from recital 2 in the preamble thereto (see, by analogy, Case C-543/10 Refcomp  [2013] ECR I-0000, paragraph 39).
35. Furthermore, a solution which consists in making the identification of the connecting factor dependent on assessment criteria having their source in national substantive law would be contrary to the objective of legal certainty since, depending on the applicable law, the actions of a person which took place in a Member State other than that of the court seised might or might not be classified as the event giving rise to the damage for the purpose of the attribution of jurisdiction under Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001. That solution would not allow the defendant reasonably to predict the court before which he might be sued.
40. It follows from the foregoing that, in circumstances such as those in the main proceedings, in which only one among several presumed perpetrators of the alleged harmful act is sued before a court within whose jurisdiction he has not acted, an autonomous interpretation of Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001, in accordance with the objectives and general scheme thereof, precludes the event giving rise to the damage from being regarded as taking place within the jurisdiction of that court.
41. Accordingly, the answer to the question referred is that Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001 must be interpreted as meaning that it does not allow the courts of the place where a harmful event occurred which is imputed to one of the presumed perpetrators of damage, who is not a party to the dispute, to take jurisdiction over another presumed perpetrator of that damage who has not acted within the jurisdiction of the court seised.
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