2.1 Claims against the parent company
It is a basic rule under the Brussels Regulation Regime that a person can always be sued where the person is domiciled. Today, this follows from article 4 (1) of the Brussels I Regulation(1) Regulation no. 1215/202, previously Regulation 44/2001/EC, which has the following wording: “Subject to the Regulation, persons domiciled in a member State shall, whatever their nationality, be sued in the courts of that member State”.(2) The provision is a successor to the former article 2 with the same wording A company is domiciled where it has its a) statutory seat, b) central administration, or c) principal place of business.(3) See article 63. For an interpretation of this rule under UK case law, see A. Sanger, Corporations and transnational litigation: Comparing KIOBEL with the jurisprudence of English Courts, Ajil Unbound (2014), e-23 ff, at e-25.
Thus, it follows from these provisions that parent companies based in an EU member state can be sued in this state by any plaintiff, regardless of where the plaintiff is domiciled. Thus, plaintiffs from the third world can – as a starting point – sue a parent company in the EU based on this provision.
As to the background to the rule, the following is stated in the preamble (para 15):
“The rules of jurisdiction should be highly predictable and founded on the principle that jurisdiction is generally based on the defendant’s domicile. Jurisdiction should always be available on this ground save in a few well- defined situations in which the subject-matter of the dispute or the autonomy of the parties warrants a different connecting factor… ”.
Thus, the aim of predictability is central with regard to the understanding and interpretation of the provision.