The Jurisdictional Competence for the Recognition of the Foreign Judgements Compliant to Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012

Abstract

A thorny problem of the Regulation (EU) no. 1215/2012 concerns the determination of the international and territorial jurisdiction in matters related to the recognition as the main issue of a foreign judicial decision issued by a member state of the European Union. Considering the procedure identity existing between solving the recognition requests of the foreign judicial decisions and the one of the applications for refusal of enforcement of the same decisions, to which we also add the provisions of art. 24 paragraph 5 of the regulation, we deduce that for the recognition of foreign judicial decisions, the exclusive international jurisdictional competence belongs to the state on whose territory that recognition is sought. The competent court to decide, as a main issue, on the recognition of a decision given by a Member State of the European Union shall be determined based on the internal jurisdiction provisions of specific to each member state (for Romania by an extensive interpretation of article 1099 Code of Civil Procedure). A possible remedy of this gap in the regulation may be to introduce a new paragraph within art. 36 of the regulation which may give exclusive jurisdiction on the recognition of a foreign judicial decision, claimed as the main issue, to the court of the member state which receives the application, a court from the category notified to the Commission by the Member State addressed enforcing art. 75 letter (a) of the regulation.