What constitutes an “accident” under Art. 17 Montreal Convention 1999?

One of the three requirements for a carrier by air to be held liable under Art. 17 of the Montreal Convention for death and injury of passengers, is that the death or injury was caused by an accident. In case-law, the scope of the term “accident” under this provision has been defined as an “unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger…”. It is distinguished between the bodily injury as such and the accident causing the bodily injury. An injury resulting from the passenger’s own internal reaction to the usual and normal operation of an aircraft does not constitute an accident under Art. 17 and thus excludes the carrier’s liability under the Convention. Only under special circumstances an exemption to the requirement that an injury has to be external (kursiv) to the passenger leads to the liability of the carrier.

New Court of Appeal decision – interpretation of “harmful events” under Art 5 (3) EC Regulation 44/2001

According to a very recent Court of Appeal decision from AMT’s High Court claim (the Defendant instructed ZIMMERs), it was decided that a tortfeasor, who was the Defendant, can be sued in his domestic court, where the tort or delict involves inducing a contractual party, AMT’s clients, to breach an exclusive jurisdiction clause. The ratio considered the correct interpretation of Art 5 (3) of the European Regulation 44/2001. Whereas the Claimant argued that the “harmful event” occured in England because the Claimant was deprived of the benefit of its jurisdiction clause conferring the right to conduct proceedings in England, the Defendant maintained that the location where initial claims (by AMT’s clients) were brought in breach of such a clause is decisive.

Reform of the Brussels I Regulation

The reform of the Brussels I Regulation is about to come into place on 10 January 2015 with a view of saving litigants costs and time of enforcing judgments obtained abroad. One of its major changes is the abolition of the need to obtain an additional court order in order to enforce a foreign judgment. Under the current rules of the Brussels I Regulation (on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters), a judgment given in one Member State does not automatically take effect in another Member State. In order to be enforced in another country, a court in that country first had to validate the decision by registering it and declaring it enforceable. Defendants will still have the possibility to contest the judgment if for example they were not given proper notice of the proceedings.

Reclaim your taxation of inheritance in Spain

The European Court of Justice ruled on 3th of September 2014 against Spain in a case that gives non-residents the possibility to reclaim the tax they paid.  While Spain's regional governments (comunidades) reduced or even eliminated the inheritance tax rate for those who lived in Spain, they collected the tax without any reduction in the case of people living mostly outside Spain in other European countries like England.  

This is a very serious discrimination. Now we are able to reclaim the tax paid in the last 4 years for all the European non-residents and even for the cases before it would be possible to reclaim the amounts directly from the Spanish government.

Contact our office for more information. We will claim your rights together with our cooperation partner Schomerus in Spain.