The plaintiff and the defendant concluded a contract according to which the plaintiff had to arrange delivery contracts between the defendant and a German company (‘E-Werke’). The defendant terminated the contract. The plaintiff contests that the termination of the contract was correct and therefore claims for commission.
The court came to the conclusion that German courts didn’t have international jurisdiction pursuant to Art. 5 no. 1 (a), (b) Brussels I. Germany couldn’t be seen as the ‘place of performance’ in Art. 5 no. 1 (b) Brussels I in view of the term ‘provision of services’. It was decisive where the ‘provision of services’ had been undertaken by the plaintiff. The fact that the plaintiff went to the German company two times wasn’t sufficient to assume that the provision of services has been undertaken in Germany: first, the parties also met in Hungary. Furthermore, the correspondence mainly was conducted via mail. Additionally, some orders arranged by the plaintiff weren’t directly connected with the two meetings in Germany.
The plaintiff didn’t explain sufficiently that the provision of services was undertaken in Germany. Rather there was several different information concerning the place of the provision of services. The given aspects didn’t allow determining a definite place where the plaintiff primarily took action. Therefore the Court decided correctly to not assume its international jurisdiction.