A plea against withholding rights under French law: a view from the international practice

Abstract

“Introducing again a droit de prélèvement which would be available for all heirs of all nationalities would create a new exception to the conflict of law rules which have been adopted in the regulation, in contradiction with its objective. In addition, it is far from certain that the reintroduction of this droit de prélèvement would necessarily come within the scope of the exception of public policy under article 35 of the regulation […] Indeed |…] the regulation aims at providing a greater predictability in the area of succession law […] and this could lead the European Court of Justice to consider that a Member State could not systematically exclude any foreign law which would not organise forced heirship rights. The reintroduction of a droit de prélèvement would therefore lead to a great risk of annulment of the new rules by the European Court of Justice in proceedings for failure to fulfil an obligation, or in proceedings for a preliminary ruling.” 1