Hello, and welcome to this part in which we will focus on private international law. My name is Amber Zwanenburg member and I am a lecturer of labor law at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In this series of video lectures, I will explain how you can determine which court has jurisdiction in cross-border employment situations using the Brussels Regulation. In this first lecture, I will introduce this regulation. In the next video clip, I will discuss in which situations the Brussels Regulation applies. In the third, fourth and fifth video lecture, I will deal with the contents of the regulation. How do we determine which court has jurisdiction in a specific employment situation. But for now, what will the content of this particular video clip bring you? First, I will explain the relevance of today's topic. After that, I will provide you with some legal context and information about the legal instruments that apply. We will end this video lecture with the summary. Let's start with the relevance of the topic. Every once in a while, you might like to get on a plane and go on a well-deserved holiday. If you are looking for tickets, Ryanair might pop up. Ryanair is an Irish airplane company known for its low budget offers. At the same time, Ryanair is also estimated to employ either directly or through other companies, some 12,000 pilots, cabin crew and other workers, operating from 87 bases throughout Europe. Ryanair concludes employment contracts containing a clause that typically provides that since the aircrafts are registered in Ireland and the employees perform their duties on board these aircrafts, the employment is based in Ireland. The contracts also state that Irish courts have jurisdiction in case of any disputes and that Irish law applies. From the perspective of Ryanair, you can understand why they drafted these clauses. Ryanair has 87 bases throughout Europe, their employees cross borders all the time and it will put quite some administrative burden on Ryanair if it had to conclude different contracts with its employees based on their individual situation. Furthermore, Ryanair or at least their lawyers are familiar with Irish law and legal procedures in Irish courts. But now, let me introduce you to Mr. Moreno Osacar. He is a Spanish man who used to work as a steward for Ryanair. His employment contract nominated Charleroi airport in Belgium as his home base. The contract required Mr. Moreno Osacar to live within one hours journey of that base. For this reason, Mr. Moreno Osacar moved to Belgium. He has never been either residents or domiciled in Ireland. Mr. Moreno Osacar always started his working day at Charleroi airport and ended it there. Also, he sometimes had to stay there on standby to replace absent members of staff. After resigning from Ryanair, he summons his former employer to pay various heads of compensation with respect to Belgian law. When Ryanair refused, Mr. Moreno Osacar decided to bring his claim before the Belgian court. This court is close to the place where he lives, communication will be in a language that he understands while he is asking for compensation based on Belgian law. Ryanair challenged a competency of the Belgian court. Not only had parties chosen Irish law to apply and assign jurisdictions to Irish court in the employment contracts, but Mr. Moreno Osacar was subject to Irish law for tax and social security as well. Now, can you think of reasons why a party might favor bringing a claim in a court of a specific country? First of all, there are practical reasons, like language and distance. Furthermore, it is easier to excise a lawyer in your own country, but there are legal reasons as well. Should a court outside the European Union have competency, that court may very well assess which law applies to the disputes on fully different private international law rules then will be the case if EU court will do so. That may have an enormous impact on the outcome of the case. But also, within the EU, there are differences between the various courts. A court will apply its own national procedural rules regardless of the law that applies to the employment agreement. Certain national procedural rules may make it harder to bring a claim against certain parties than other national procedural rules. For example, in some member states, trade unions may provide assistance to their members or act on behalf and in place of their members. This could be an advantage from the employee's perspective. Also, deadlines for taking legal proceedings might vary considerably from one member state to another. Finally, we will see later on this course that the answer to the question, "Which court has jurisdiction?" Can also be important for the answer to the question, "Which law is applicable?" In the example of Ryanair, which was an actual claim that made its way to the European Court of Justice, some media reported that the consequences of this ruling might cause Ryanair about €100 million due to the applicable law. Given this reasons why it is important to determine which court has jurisdiction, how should we do this? In case of Ryanair and Mr. Moreno Osacar, is it the Belgian or the Irish court that has jurisdiction? Let's find out. But first, let's start with some legal context. You might ask, "Why do member states even bother to arrange anything at all on the topic of competency of the court?" The reason is that, should each member state have its own national rules on private law and international proceedings, this may hamper the sound operation of the internal market in the European Union. To prevent this, it is essential that there are uniform provisions in the European Union in order to determine the competent court. The first jurisdiction rules can be found in the Brussels Convention from 1968. The original version of this convention did not contain specific rules for international employment situations. The contracting parties were awaiting EU legislation on applicable law in transnational contracts. They wanted to align the rules on jurisdiction and law applicable to employment contracts based on that legislation. In other words, they wanted glyclov. The competent court and applicable law should ideally be the same. This EU legislation did not come. In response, specific case law arranged how to establish jurisdiction under the Brussels Convention in case of employment contracts. This case law, ultimately led to an amendment of the convention where provision was added that apply to employment matters particularly. Eventually, the Brussels Regulation entered into force on 1st of March, 2002. This regulation was revised and a new recast version of the regulation was adopted in 2012. This recast version arranges for continuity as regard to the interpretation by the European Court of Justice of the Brussels Convention and for the Brussels law on the Regulation replacing it. The Brussels law recast Regulation is what we'll focus on from now on. From now on, I will refer to the latest version of the regulation as the Brussels Regulation or simply regulation. Now, let's wrap things up. We discussed the importance of determining the jurisdiction of the court, the legal context and the relevant legal instruments. In the next clip, we'll discuss the Brussels regulation more in-depth. Have a great day and see you soon.
