Formation/Cours

The seminar examines the current framework of civil judicial cooperation within the EU and aims to provide students with the theoretical bases needed to understand the challenges associated with cross-border litigation and the responses formulated by the European legislature in order to address them. The course will also give students practical tools for designing effective litigation strategies for the cross-border enforcement of claims, such as how to recover debts from foreign defendants, how to resolve consumer disputes, or how to recognise and enforce foreign judgments and extrajudicial titles. By the end of the course, students will have a better understanding of the rules and procedures that determine which court should hear their case, as well as the principles governing the circulation of titles across Member States.

The seminar will be divided into four parts, each of them addressing a subset of real-life legal issues that might arise in the context of cross-border civil and commercial litigation.

Part I (Classes 1 and 2) will describe the complex landscape of European rules on cross-border litigation, including both the Brussels bis Regulation and the so-called 2nd generation instruments for cross-border enforcement (EEO, EPO, ESCP, and EAPO), and examine the advantages and drawbacks resulting from the significant overlaps among these different legal regimes.

Part II (Classes 3 and 4) will explain how sophisticated parties may take into account rules on choice-of-court agreements and cross-border enforcement in order to devise effective litigation strategies.

Part III (Classes 5 and 6) will then dynamically address some concrete examples of articulation between several European instruments in cross-border litigation, by singling out the case of default judgments and consumer litigation.

Finally, Part IV (Classes 7 and 8) will provide an overview of the European rules applicable to interim relief and evidence gathering in the EU.