Réunion Européenne v. Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskantoor 1

A number of topical issues arose for discussion and decision by the Court of Justice of the European Communities when litigation followed the discovery that a consignment of pears, sent from Melbourne to Rungis, France, had ripened and had gone rotten in transit. The pears were carried to Rotterdam on board a Dutch vessel, the Alblasgracht V002, under a bearer bill of lading which had been issued in Sydney by an Australian company, RCC Pty Ltd. From Rotterdam they had been carried by road to Rungis, where the damage came to light. The insurers of the consignee, Brambi Fruits, paid up, and, being subrogated to the rights of Brambi, proceeded to bring proceedings in the French courts against (1) RCC, (2) the actual sea carrier, Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskantoor BV, a Dutch company, and (3) the master of the Alblasgracht V002, also domiciled in the Netherlands, as representing the owners and charterers of that vessel. There was no doubt that as a matter of French law the court had international jurisdiction over RCC, but the Dutch defendants objected to the jurisdiction of the French courts over them. The questions for the ECJ were whether special jurisdiction over the Dutch defendants could be justified under the Brussels Convention, Art. 5.1 (on the footing that the matter was one relating to a contract), or under Art. 5.3 (on the footing that the matter was one relating to tort), or under Art. 6.1 (on the ground that the claims against the three defendants were indivisible and should be tried together). The court held that the claims against the sea carrier and against the ship’s master were not matters relating to a contract and were therefore matters relating to tort; that Art. 5.3 gave jurisdiction over the sea carrier and ship’s master to the courts at Rotterdam, but not to the French courts; and that Art. 6.1 was unavailable, no matter the connection (but that there was in any event no relevant connection) between the claims against the defendants, as none of the defendants was domiciled in France.