EUPillar SPRL Ateliers Bodart & Vange v. Screenbase Limited

Summary

The appellant produces office furniture and developed its own flexible system called “flexi”. The defendant produces a similar system under the name “spirals”, which is sold in Europe by the Dutch company “3D Tradelink BV”. The appellant won several procedures against these two companies in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany. On 2 November 2001, the Court of Appeal of Brussels ordered the defendants to stop making and selling the furniture, subject to a penalty payment of 100,000 francs (2,478.94 EUR) per infringement. The defendant has been notified of this decision in the forms required by English law on 29 July 2002 and it accepts that the penalty payment would be enforceable for every infringement as from 6 August 2002. The defendant argues it complied by changing on its website that the spiral system is “only available for delivery in the UK”. However, the claimant submits to the court an official statement from a bailiff who says that he was able to access, through the defendant’s website, an image of the spiral system without said mention when he tried to do so, on four separate occasions. The appellant initiated proceedings before the enforcement judge of Liège. In total, the appellant claims 59,494.45 EUR (2,400,000 frs) corresponding to 24 infractions identified between 25 July 2002 and 25 November 2002 as well as 5,000 EUR in legal fees. The enforcement judge decided that the defendant had complied with the judgment of 2 November 2001 and dismissed the appellant’s claim. On appeal, the respondent argues that the Belgian courts do not have jurisdiction over the claim for payment of the penalty, since Art. 22(5) Brussels I Regulation provides that in proceedings concerned with the enforcement of judgments, the courts of the Member State in which the judgment has been or is to be enforced have exclusive jurisdiction. The Court decides that this the respondent thereby denies the provisions specific to the matter of penalty payments. Art. 49 Brussels I Regulation provides that “A foreign judgment which orders a periodic payment by way of a penalty shall be enforceable in the Member State in which enforcement is sought only if the amount of the payment has been finally determined by the courts of the Member State of origin.” Indeed, the claim of the appellant is not concerned with the enforcement of the judgment of 2 November 2001, but with the final determination of the sum of the penalty payment. This is a necessary prerequisite for the enforcement of that judgment in the UK. It is true that this intermediary step is not necessary in Belgian procedural law (even though it is possible on the basis of Art. 1385quater Belgian Judicial Code), but because of the disparity between legal systems in EU, when the dispute falls within the scope of the Brussels I Regulation. The Belgian courts do have jurisdiction. SHORT CRITIQUE This is a correct application of the Regulation.