PIL instrument(s)

Case number and/or case name

ITT20150615 Cassazione (Plenary Session), order n. 12308/2015 (BI)

Details of the court

Italy, Third Instance

Articles referred to by the court

Date of the judgement

14 June 2015

Appeal history

CJEU's case law cited by the court

Summary

Pursuant to Art. 23 of Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 (applicable to the case at issue), Italian courts have jurisdiction over the proceedings for opposition against a summary judgment (decreto ingiuntivo) issued upon request of an Italian company for the payment due in relation to second-hand cars sold to a German company, as both contracts concluded between the parties contain an explicit (and undisputed) choice-of-court clause in favour of the Italian courts, whose validity can no longer be contested before the Supreme Court of Cassation (Corte di Cassazione) where no effect can be recognized to the (very general) statement about the existence of a subsequent agreement modifying the conditions of the relationship between the parties in parte qua. Actually, as it emerged from the opposed judgment, there is no evidence of a different regulation of the forum selection issue so to revoke the existing choice-of-court clauses; on the contrary, it does not seem plausible, indeed, that the regulation of a cross-border contract concluded in writing for an high economic value could be substituted by a mere oral agreement, necessarily destined to invalidity due to the written form explicitly required by the first contract for its modification).