Case number and/or case name
OLG Stuttgart, 31.7.2012 – 5 U 150/11
Summary
The plaintiff asserts a recourse claim concerning insurance benefits. The three defendants are companies based in Liechtenstein (no. 1), Germany (no. 2) and Austria (no. 3). The Regional Court denied the international jurisdiction regarding the claim against the defendant no.1.
The Court held that German courts had international jurisdiction regarding the claim against defendant no. 1 by analogy to Art. 6 No 1 Brussels I. According to the court the rule applied to the present case although the defendant no. 1 was not ‘A person domiciled in a Member State’ within the meaning of Art. 6 Brussels I because the defendant no.1 was being sued among other defendants who were based in the European Union.
The court’s conclusion can’t be maintained given the jurisdiction of the CJEU one year later in 2013 (11.4.2013 –Land Berlin ./. Ellen Mirjam Sapir and others, C-645/11) where the CJEU stated that Art. 6 Brussels I didn’t apply to defendants not having their seat in a country outside the territory of a Member State. The wording of Art. 6 Brussels was clear: the defendant has to be domiciled in a member state [paragraph 52 of the judgment]. Art. 6 Brussels I further was an exception to the principle that jurisdiction is based on the defendant’s domicile and therefore had to be interpreted restrictively [paragraph 53 of the judgment]. Art. 4 (1) Brussels I ruled exhaustively the issue of a defendant not being domiciled in a member state [paragraph 54]. Therefore the judgment is not correct.