Qivive successfully represents client in a French commercial court in a dispute subject to the CISG
Qivive has successfully represented an Austrian company in the field of battery technology before the French courts.
Our client was sued before the Commercial Court of Caen after supplying batteries to a French company. The proceedings before the French courts were handled by our litigation team (led by Edith Aupetit and Caroline Reneaume), who advised the Austrian company in German throughout the proceedings.
The commercial relationship was governed by the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and Austrian law was applicable for further questions. Qivive worked closely with the law firm GPK Pegger Kofler & Partners (in particular with Dr Georg Huber and Teresa Bösch) on legal issues in Austrian law.
The court declined jurisdiction on the basis of Article 7(1)(b) of the Brussels I bis Regulation. This Article provides for a choice of court in matters relating to a contract in favour of the courts of the Member State "where, under the contract, the goods were delivered or should have been delivered". In this case, the French court based its lack of jurisdiction in favour of the Austrian courts on an ex-works delivery clause contained in invoices.
Although we did not consider the jurisdiction objection to be our strongest argument, we were ultimately able to convince the Commercial Court of Caen with our written submissions and the plea delivered by Edith Aupetit. In addition, further well-founded arguments were put forward regarding the inadmissibility of the action, which could also have led to success: in our opinion, the French company's claims were inadmissible due to the failure to meet the time limit for inspection and notification under Articles 38 and 39 of the CISG. Furthermore, the claims were time-barred under Austrian law and the defects were not sufficiently proven.
The claimant did not appeal against the decision and must now decide whether to file the suit in the Austrian courts.
