Judges D Šváby, K Jürimäe (Rapporteur)
Advocate General M Bobek
At the time when the debtor, a Netherlands national, had his assets frozen by an English court, he owned immovable property in France. Subsequently, the debtor sold that property to a company, 90% of which was owned by his sister. Shortly afterwards the debtor was, on his own petition, declared bankrupt by an English court pursuant to Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000 and the relevant United Kingdom legislation, and a trustee in bankruptcy was appointed. Article 3(1) of the Regulation conferred exclusive jurisdiction to open insolvency proceedings on the courts of the member state in which the centre of the debtor’s interests was situated. Pursuant to article 16(1), any judgment opening insolvency proceedings given by a court of a member state which had jurisdiction pursuant to article 3 was to be recognised in all the other member states. Article 25(1) provided that member states were to recognise further judgments given by that court concerning the course and closure of such proceedings, including judgments deriving directly from the insolvency proceedings which were closely linked with them, even if they were handed down by another court. The trustee brought proceedings against the debtor, his sister and his sister’s company before a French court seeking a declaration that the sale and mortgage of the properties were ineffective as against the bankruptcy estate. The bank, which had financed the acquisition of those properties, intervened in the proceedings. On the date that the English court closed the bankruptcy proceedings, the French court ruled that the sales were ineffective as against the trustee in bankruptcy, to the extent of the outstanding sums owed to creditors. Subsequently, the debtor appealed and his sister, her company and the trustee in bankruptcy cross-appealed to the Court of Cassation, France, which had doubts as to the determination of the court with international jurisdiction to determine the dispute, as well as to the relationship between article 3(1) and article 25(1) of the Regulation. The court, accordingly, stayed the proceedings and referred a number of questions on the interpretation of articles 3(1) and 25(1) to the Court of Justice of the European Union for preliminary ruling.
On the reference—
Held, (1) the action in issue in the present case had its legal basis in the United Kingdom insolvency rules and was initiated by the debtor’s trustee in bankruptcy as part of his general task of managing and liquidating the assets in the interests of the creditors. Therefore, the action derived directly from the insolvency proceedings and was closely connected with them, and fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the member state in which the insolvency proceedings were opened under article 3(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000. That conclusion could not be called into question by the fact that the action concerned immovable property in a member state other than that in which the insolvency proceedings were opened since, inter alia, the Regulation did not confer international jurisdiction on the courts where the property was located to hear an action for the restitution of those assets to the bankruptcy estate. Accordingly, an action brought by the trustee in bankruptcy appointed by a court of the member state in which the insolvency proceedings were opened, seeking a declaration that the sale and mortgage of immovable property situated in another member state were ineffective as against the general body of creditors, fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the first member state under article 3(1) of Regulation No 1346/2000 (judgment, paras 25, 30–35, operative part, para 1).
(2) Article 25(1) of Regulation No 1346/2000 could not be interpreted in such a way as to call into question the exclusive nature of the international jurisdiction of the courts of the member state where the insolvency proceedings were opened to hear actions which derived from those proceedings and which were closely connected with them. Accordingly, a judgment by which a court of the member state in which the insolvency proceedings were opened, authorising the trustee in bankruptcy to bring an action in another member state, even if that action fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of that court, did not have the effect of conferring international jurisdiction on the courts of that other member state (judgment, paras 38–41, operative part, para 2).
J Ghestin for the debtor, his sister and the company.
P Spinosi for the intervening bank.
D Colas, D Dubois and E de Moustier, agents, for the French Government.
M Wilderspin, agent, for the European Commission.