European Business Law, the fourth volume in our series, shows how the European authorities simultaneously abolish all restrictions on access to and exercise of economic activities and support the growth of domestic markets, through the harmonization the internal legislation or the enactment of genuinely unified regulations.

European Business Law

Pursuant to Article 66(1), Regulation No 1215/2012 applies to legal proceedings instituted and to authentic instruments received after its entry into force, on 10 January 2015 . Regulation No 44/2001 shall continue to apply to judgments given in legal proceedings instituted and to court settlements approved or concluded before 10 January . All judgments rendered from its entry into force, as well as legal relationships created before, provided that the judicial proceedings have been instituted after that date , thus fall within its scope of application. 

Under the Brussels Convention, the Court of Justice specified that the question as to the moment at which the conditions for definite referral are met must be appraised and resolved, in the case of each court, according to the rules of its national law . According to Article 32 of Regulation No 1215/2012, a court is deemed to be seized either at the time when the document instituting the proceedings is lodged with the court, provided that the plaintiff subsequently has service effected on the defendant, or, if the document has to be served before lodged with the court, at the time when it is received by the authority responsible for service, provided that the plaintiff subsequently has the document lodged with the court. However, the solution found by the Court still seems relevant to determine the time of the referral: since Article 32 appears in Section 9 of the regulation on lis pendens and related actions, its application must remain limited to that context. 

Case C-514/10 Wolf Naturprodukte GmbH, Judgment of 21 June 2012, LawLex201200001762JBJ; Case C-361/18 Ágnes Weil v Géza Gulácsi, Judgment of 6 June 2019, LawLex201900000756JBJ: the starting point must be the date on which the action giving rise to the judgment for which enforcement is sought was instituted, not a later date, such as the date on which the application for the certificate certifying that such a judgment is enforceable was lodged.

 See, under Regulation No 44/2001, Case C-163/95 Freifrau von Horn, Judgment of 9 October 1997, LawLex200900000645JBJ, finding that the application of the rules on the recognition and enforcement of judgments depends on the basis of the jurisdiction of the court first seized, as its judgment cannot be recognized in the Member State of the court second seized if it is founded on rules which do not accord with the provisions of Title II of that Convention or with the provisions of a convention which was in force between the State of origin and the State addressed when the proceedings were instituted.

Case 25/79 Sanicentral SA v Collin [1979] ECR 3423, LawLex200900001736JBJ: having retained under the Brussels Convention that, where the judicial proceedings have been instituted after the coming into force of the Convention, the jurisdiction clause inserted into a contract of employment concluded before that date must be regarded as valid, even if the national rules in force at the time when the contract was entered into regard it as void.

Case 129/83 Zelger v Saliniti [1984] ECR 2397.

312. Temporal scope of application