EUPillar Viking Line ABP v The International Transport Workers' Federation, The Finnish Seamen's Union [2005] EWHC 1222 (Comm)

Summary

A case which clearly demonstrates that the litigants perceive jurisdiction as a significant issue in a cross-border context. The claimant, Viking, was the 13th largest passenger shipping company in the world. The defendants were the International Transport Workers' Federation, ITF, and The Finnish Seamen's Union, FTU. The claimant sought declaratory and injunctive relief. The claim forms were issued without any warning to either Defendant, in order to ensure that no pre-emptive declaratory proceedings were started in the Finnish Courts by the Defendants. The Defendants challenged the English court jurisdiction, arguing that the English court should refuse to entertain Viking’s claim on the grounds of comity. The defendants’ jurisdictional challenge was dismissed by the English court. In this context, Mrs Justice Gloster held: “72 In the present case, jurisdiction as against the ITF is based on its domicile in England. If this Court were to decline to exercise jurisdiction in this case on comity grounds, the effect would be to defeat the Claimant's claim to jurisdiction not only against the FSU, which is domiciled in Finland, but also against the ITF. That would run clearly counter to the principle that jurisdiction based on the Defendant's domicile must “ always ” be available, save in well-defined situations mentioned in the Regulation, since no provision is made in the Regulation for declining jurisdiction on the grounds now put forward by the Defendants. Conflicts of jurisdiction can arise under the Regulation. In particular its provisions have the effect in certain cases of conferring jurisdiction on the Courts of more than one Member State. In the present case, for example, the proceedings could have been brought either in England or in Finland, in either case basing jurisdiction against the ‘home’ Defendant on its domicile ( Article 2 ) and against the other Defendant on its being one of a number of Defendants to the same proceedings ( Article 6(1) ). The Regulation mechanism for resolving such conflicts is set out in Article 27.” [72] It is worth noting that court dealt with the jurisdictional issues, and went on to deal with the merits of the dispute. In the latter context, subsequently, the English Court of Appeal requested a preliminary reference from the CJEU.