(Opinion) The claimant sought to use article 6.1 of the Judgments Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 as a means of invoking the jurisdiction of the Swedish courts over a claim against an English company, because a Swedish company was a co-defendant. One of the objections raised by the English defendant was that the claimant was making an abusive use of article 6.1, by joining the Swedish company as a vehicle for that purpose, so as to disable the primary rule (in article 2) requiring the English company to be sued in England.
Held: Advocate General Mengozzi said that in order to disapply article 6.1 it would be necessary to show not merely that the claimant had joined the Swedish defendant for the ‘sole object of removing one of those defendants from the courts of his own domicile’ but also that it would be necessary to show, not merely fraudulent or wrongful intent, but ‘that the action bought against the defendant domiciled in the forum member state appears to be unfounded . . manifestly unfounded in all respects – to the point of proving to be contrived – or devoid of any real interest for the claimant’.
Judges:
Advocate General Mengozzi
Citations:
[2008] QB 634, [2008] 2 WLR 853, [2007] All ER (D) 160, [2007] EUECJ C-98/06, [2008] CEC 21, [2007] ECR I-8319
Links:
Jurisdiction:
European
Cited by:
Cited – Vedanta Resources Plc and Another v Lungowe and Others SC 10-Apr-2019
The claimants alleged negligence causing them personal injury and other losses arising from pollution from mining operations of the defendants in Zambia. The company denied jurisdiction. In the Court of Appeal the defendants’ appeals were dismissed. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Jurisdiction
Updated: 30 January 2022; Ref: scu.671690