Provisional text

4 October 2024 (*1)

( Reference for a preliminary ruling – Judicial cooperation in civil matters – Jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters – Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 – Article 1(1) – Scope – Civil and commercial matters – Concept – Proceedings seeking to substitute the defendant’s consent to the release of property seized by the law enforcement authorities from the custody of the court – Article 8(2) – Application to intervene – Concept of ‘third party’ )

In Case C‑494/23 [Mahá], (i)

REQUEST for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU from the Nejvyšší soud (Supreme Court, Czech Republic), made by decision of 7 June 2023, received at the Court on 3 August 2023, in the proceedings

QE,

DP,

EB,

THE COURT (Seventh Chamber),

composed of F. Biltgen (Rapporteur), President of the Chamber, N. Wahl and M.L. Arastey Sahún, Judges,

Advocate General: M. Campos Sánchez-Bordona,

Registrar: A. Calot Escobar,

having regard to the written procedure,

after considering the observations submitted on behalf of:

–the German Government, by J. Möller, M. Hellmann and J. Simon, acting as Agents,

–the European Commission, by S. Noë and K. Walkerová, acting as Agents,

having decided, after hearing the Advocate General, to proceed to judgment without an Opinion,

gives the following

1This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 1(1) and Article 8(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (OJ 2012 L 351, p. 1).

2The request for a preliminary ruling has been made in proceedings between, on the one hand QE and IJ, two Czech residents, and, on the other, DP and EB, two French residents, concerning the release of a vehicle purchased by QE and IJ from the custody of the court.

Legal context

European Union law

Directive 2011/92

Recitals 7 to 9 of Directive 2011/92 state:

‘(7) Development consent for public and private projects which are likely to have significant effects on the environment should be granted only after an assessment of the likely significant environmental effects of those projects has been carried out. …

(8) Projects belonging to certain types have significant effects on the environment and those projects should, as a rule, be subject to a systematic assessment.

ECLI:EU:C:2025:140

(9) Projects of other types may not have significant effects on the environment in every case and those projects should be assessed where the Member States consider that they are likely to have significant effects on the environment.’

Article 2(1) of that directive provides:

‘Member States shall adopt all measures necessary to ensure that, before development consent is given, projects likely to have significant effects on the environment by virtue, inter alia, of their nature, size or location are made subject to a requirement for development consent and an assessment with regard to their effects on the environment. Those projects are defined in Article 4.’

Under Article 3(1) of that directive:

‘The environmental impact assessment shall identify, describe and assess in an appropriate manner, in the light of each individual case, the direct and indirect significant effects of a project on the following factors:

…

(b) biodiversity, with particular attention to species and habitats protected under [Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (OJ 1992 L 206, p. 7), as amended by Council Directive 2013/17/EU of 13 May 2013 (OJ 2013 L 158, p. 193) (“Directive 92/43”)] and Directive 2009/147/EC [of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on the conservation of wild birds (OJ 2010 L 20, p. 7)];

…’

Article 4 of Directive 2011/92 provides:

‘1. Subject to Article 2(4), projects listed in Annex I shall be made subject to an assessment in accordance with Articles 5 to 10.

(a) a case-by-case examination;

(b) thresholds or criteria set by the Member State.

Member States may decide to apply both procedures referred to in points (a) and (b).

Where a case-by-case examination is carried out or thresholds or criteria are set for the purpose of paragraph 2, the relevant selection criteria set out in Annex III shall be taken into account. Member States may set thresholds or criteria to determine when projects need not undergo either the determination under paragraphs 4 and 5 or an environmental impact assessment, and/or thresholds or criteria to determine when projects shall in any case be made subject to an environmental impact assessment without undergoing a determination set out under paragraphs 4 and 5.

Where Member States decide to require a determination for projects listed in Annex II, the developer shall provide information on the characteristics of the project and its likely significant effects on the environment. The detailed list of information to be provided is specified in Annex IIA. The developer shall take into account, where relevant, the available results of other relevant assessments of the effects on the environment carried out pursuant to Union legislation other than this Directive. The developer may also provide a description of any features of the project and/or measures envisaged to avoid or prevent what might otherwise have been significant adverse effects on the environment.

The competent authority shall make its determination, on the basis of the information provided by the developer in accordance with paragraph 4 taking into account, where relevant, the results of preliminary verifications or assessments of the effects on the environment carried out pursuant to Union legislation other than this Directive. The determination shall made available to the public and:

(a) where it is decided that an environmental impact assessment is required, state the main reasons for requiring such assessment with reference to the relevant criteria listed in Annex III; or

(b) where it is decided that an environmental impact assessment is not required, state the main reasons for not requiring such assessment with reference to the relevant criteria listed in Annex III, and, where proposed by the developer, state any features of the project and/or measures envisaged to avoid or prevent what might otherwise have been significant adverse effects on the environment.

Member States shall ensure that the competent authority makes its determination as soon as possible and within a period of time not exceeding 90 days from the date on which the developer has submitted all the information required pursuant to paragraph 4. In exceptional cases, for instance relating to the nature, complexity, location or size of the project, the competent authority may extend that deadline to make its determination; in that event, the competent authority shall inform the developer in writing of the reasons justifying the extension and of the date when its determination is expected.’

Annex II.A of that directive contains the list of ‘information to be provided by the developer on the projects listed in Annex II’. That list reads as follows:

‘1. A description of the project, including in particular:

(a) a description of the physical characteristics of the whole project and, where relevant, of demolition works;

(b) a description of the location of the project, with particular regard to the environmental sensitivity of geographical areas likely to be affected.

(a) the expected residues and emissions and the production of waste, where relevant;

(b) the use of natural resources, in particular soil, land, water and biodiversity.

Annex III to that directive sets out the ‘criteria to determine whether the projects listed in Annex II should be subject to an environmental impact assessment’.

Directive 2014/52

Recitals 11 and 29 of Directive 2014/52 state:

‘(11) The measures taken to avoid, prevent, reduce and, if possible, offset significant adverse effects on the environment, in particular on species and habitats protected under [Directive 92/43] and Directive 2009/147 …, should contribute to avoiding any deterioration in the quality of the environment and any net loss of biodiversity, in accordance with the [European] Union’s commitments in the context of the [United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, signed in Rio de Janeiro on 5 June 1992,] and the objectives and actions of the Union Biodiversity Strategy up to 2020 laid down in the [Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions] of 3 May 2011 entitled ‘Our life insurance, our natural capital: an EU biodiversity strategy to 2020’ [(COM(2011) 244 final)]

…

(29) When determining whether significant effects on the environment are likely to be caused by a project, the competent authorities should identify the most relevant criteria to be considered and should take into account information that could be available following other assessments required by Union legislation in order to apply the screening procedure effectively and transparently. In this regard, it is appropriate to specify the content of the screening determination, in particular where no environmental impact assessment is required. Moreover, taking into account unsolicited comments that might have been received from other sources, such as members of the public or public authorities, even though no formal consultation is required at the screening stage, constitutes good administrative practice.’

Directive 92/43

Article 6(3) of Directive 92/43 provides:

‘Any plan or project not directly connected with or necessary to the management of the site but likely to have a significant effect thereon, either individually or in combination with other plans or projects, shall be subject to appropriate assessment of its implications for the site in view of the site’s conservation objectives. In the light of the conclusions of the assessment of the implications for the site and subject to the provisions of paragraph 4, the competent national authorities shall agree to the plan or project only after having ascertained that it will not adversely affect the integrity of the site concerned and, if appropriate, after having obtained the opinion of the general public.’

Article 12(1) of that directive provides:

‘Member States shall take the requisite measures to establish a system of strict protection for the animal species listed in Annex IV(a) in their natural range, prohibiting:

(a) all forms of deliberate capture or killing of specimens of these species in the wild;

(b) deliberate disturbance of these species, particularly during the period of breeding, rearing, hibernation and migration;

(c) deliberate destruction or taking of eggs from the wild;

(d) deterioration or destruction of breeding sites or resting places.’

Point (a) of Annex IV to that directive mentions ‘all species’ of bats belonging to the suborder of ‘microchiroptera’.

Irish law

must be interpreted as meaning that where, in the context of a screening procedure carried out under that provision, a third party has provided the competent authority with objective evidence as regards the potential significant effects of that project on the environment, in particular on a species protected under Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, as amended by Council Directive 2013/17/EU of 13 May 2013, that authority must ask the developer to provide it with additional information and take that information into account before deciding whether or not an environmental impact assessment is necessary for that project. However, where, despite the observations submitted to that authority by a third party, the competent authority is able to rule out, on the basis of objective evidence, the possibility that the project in question is likely to have significant effects on the environment, that authority may decide that an environmental impact assessment is not necessary, without being required to ask the developer to provide it with additional information.

Gratsias

Passer

Smulders

Delivered in open court in Luxembourg on 6 March 2025.

Registrar

President of the Chamber

ECLI:EU:C:2025:140

If the answer to the question of whether proceedings to substitute consent to release from court custody come within the concept of ‘civil and commercial matters’ within the meaning of Article 1(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012 is in the affirmative, the referring court therefore asks whether it is possible to interpret Article 8(2) of that regulation as applying to those proceedings.

25In those circumstances, the Nejvyšší soud (Supreme Court) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling:

‘(1) Must Article 1(1) of [Regulation No 1215/2012] be interpreted as meaning that the proceedings concerning the substitution of the defendant’s consent to the release of an item from judicial custody, which are proceedings incidental to proceedings on judicial custody commenced with the deposit in such custody of an item seized by law enforcement authorities, fall under the concept of “civil and commercial matters” within the meaning of that provision?

(2) Should the first question be answered in the affirmative, must Article 8[(2)] of [Regulation No 1215/2012] be interpreted as meaning that an application for the substitution of consent to the release of an item from judicial custody filed by one of the parties to the judicial custody proceedings concerning that item, against another party to those judicial custody proceedings, constitutes an application [in proceedings] as provided for in the provision concerned?’

Consideration of the questions referred

The first question

26By its first question, the referring court asks, in essence, whether Article 1(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of ‘civil and commercial matters’, within the meaning of that provision, includes an action seeking to substitute the defendant’s consent in the context of an application to release an item from the custody of the court, whereas that action constitutes proceedings that are incidental to the proceedings to place the item seized by the law enforcement authorities into the custody of the court.

27As a preliminary point, it should be noted that, in so far as Regulation No 1215/2012 repeals and replaces Regulation No 44/2001, which itself replaced the Brussels Convention, the Court’s interpretation of the provisions of the latter legal instruments also applies to Regulation No 1215/2012 whenever those provisions may be regarded as ‘equivalent’ (judgment of 30 June 2022, Allianz Elementar Versicherung, C‑652/20, EU:C:2022:514, paragraph 20 and the case-law cited).

28That is the case with Article 1(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012, which states that that regulation ‘shall apply in civil and commercial matters whatever the nature of the court or tribunal. …’, in so far as that provision is equivalent to Article 1(1) of Regulation No 44/2001 and the first sentence of the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Brussels Convention.

29In accordance with settled case-law, in order to ensure, as far as possible, that the rights and obligations which derive from Regulation No 1215/2012 for the Member States and the persons to whom it applies are equal and uniform, the concept of ‘civil and commercial matters’ should not be interpreted as a mere reference to the internal law of one or other of the States concerned. That concept must be regarded as being an autonomous concept to be interpreted by reference, first, to the objectives and scheme of that regulation and, second, to the general principles which stem from the corpus of the national legal systems (see, to that effect, judgments of 7 May 2020, Rina, C‑641/18, EU:C:2020:349, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited, and of 16 July 2020, Movic and Others, C‑73/19, EU:C:2020:568, paragraph 33).

30In that regard, it is apparent from the case-law of the Court that although certain actions, where the opposing parties are a public authority and a person governed by private law, may come within the scope of Regulation No 1215/2012 where the legal proceedings relate to acts performed iure gestionis, it is otherwise where the public authority is acting in the exercise of its public powers (see, to that effect, judgments of 6 October 2021, TOTO and Vianini Lavori, C‑581/20, EU:C:2021:808, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited, and of 22 December 2022, Eurelec Trading, C‑98/22, EU:C:2022:1032, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited).

31The exercise of public powers by one of the parties to the action, because it exercises powers falling outside the scope of the ordinary legal rules applicable to relationships between private individuals, excludes such an action from ‘civil and commercial matters’ within the meaning of Article 1(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012 (judgments of 6 October 2021, TOTO and Vianini Lavori, C‑581/20, EU:C:2021:808, paragraph 38 and the case-law cited, and of 22 December 2022, Eurelec Trading, C‑98/22, EU:C:2022:1032, paragraph 22 and the case-law cited).

32In order to determine whether or not a matter falls within the scope of the concept of ‘civil and commercial matters’ within the meaning of Article 1(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012, and, consequently, whether it comes within the scope of that regulation, it is necessary to determine the nature of the legal relationships between the parties to the action and the subject matter of the action or, alternatively, the basis of the action and the detailed rules applicable to it (judgments of 6 October 2021, TOTO and Vianini Lavori, C‑581/20, EU:C:2021:808, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited, and of 22 December 2022, Eurelec Trading, C‑98/22, EU:C:2022:1032, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).

33Although it is for the referring court to carry out that assessment, it is nevertheless helpful for the Court to provide, in the light of the observations lodged before it, some clarification as to the factors which may be taken into consideration.

34Accordingly, the Court has previously held that the concept of ‘civil and commercial matters’ covers a dispute between two undertakings in proceedings to lift a garnishee order relating to the supply of fuel for a military operation, where the public purpose of certain activities does not, in itself, constitute sufficient evidence to classify them as being carried out iure imperii (see, to that effect, judgment of 3 September 2020, Supreme Site Services and Others, C‑186/19, EU:C:2020:638, paragraphs 65 and 66). The Court considered that that is not so, however, in the case of an application to be granted the power to determine future infringements simply by means of a report issued by an official of the public authority in question, since such an application relates in actual fact to special powers that go beyond those arising from the ordinary legal rules applicable to relationships between private individuals (judgment of 22 December 2022, Eurelec Trading, C‑98/22, EU:C:2022:1032, paragraph 25 and the case-law cited).

35In the present case, it is apparent from the order for reference that the action seeking to substitute the consent for the release from the custody of the court constitutes proceedings whereby the defendant’s lack of consent to the application to release the item from court custody may be substituted by a judicial decision, with a view to establishing to whom the property in custody is to be returned by the judicial authority.

36As stated by the referring court, that action, which is based on the seizure proceedings ordered by the law enforcement authorities and the placing of the property in question in the custody of the court, is an essential prerequisite for the release of the property from the custody of the court and the restoration of the property.

37It follows that, in the light of both its subject matter and its basis, since proceedings to substitute consent are inextricably linked to the seizure of the property at issue by the law enforcement authorities and to the subsequent placing of the property in the custody of the court, they cannot be examined without having regard to those proceedings.

38The seizure of property in the course of criminal proceedings and the subsequent placing in the custody of the court typically come from public authorities, in particular since they are decided unilaterally by the law enforcement authorities and are binding on the parties to the dispute.

39A dispute of that nature results from the exercise of public powers by one of the parties to the case, as it exercises powers falling outside the scope of the ordinary legal rules applicable to relationships between private individuals (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 February 2007, Lechouritou and Others, C‑292/05, EU:C:2007:102, paragraph 34).

40It follows that an action to substitute consent, in so far as it constitutes proceedings that are incidental to placing the property seized by the law enforcement authorities into the custody of the court and prior to the release of that property from court custody, must also be regarded as an exercise of public powers.

41In that regard, the Court has previously held that if, by virtue of its subject matter, a dispute falls outside the scope of Regulation No 1215/2012, the existence of a preliminary issue which the court must resolve in order to determine the dispute cannot, whatever that issue may be, justify application of that regulation (see, to that effect, judgment of 25 July 1991, Rich, C‑190/89, EU:C:1991:319, paragraph 26).

42It would indeed be contrary to the principle of legal certainty, which is one of the objectives of Regulation No 1215/2012, for the applicability of that regulation to be able to vary according to the existence of a preliminary issue (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 May 2003, Préservatrice foncière TIARD, C‑266/01, EU:C:2003:282, paragraph 42).

43In addition, that interpretation cannot be called into question by the fact that those preliminary proceedings take place between individuals not involving law enforcement authorities, that the procedure is inter partes and that the detailed rules for its exercise are governed by rules of civil procedure.

44The fact that the applicant seeking the release from the custody of the court is acting on the basis of an action which arises from an act in the exercise of public powers is sufficient for those proceedings, whatever the nature of the procedural rules followed, to be treated as being outside the scope of Regulation No 1215/2012. The fact that the proceedings brought before the referring court are presented as being of a civil nature in so far as they seek to determine to whom the item seized, and in the custody of the court, should be returned is consequently irrelevant (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 February 2007, Lechouritou and Others, C‑292/05, EU:C:2007:102, paragraph 41 and the case-law cited).

45In the light of the foregoing, the answer to the question referred is that Article 1(1) of Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of ‘civil and commercial matters’, within the meaning of that provision, does not include an action seeking to substitute the defendant’s consent in the context of an application to release an item from the custody of the court; whereas that action constitutes proceedings that are incidental to the proceedings to place the item seized by the law enforcement authorities into the custody of the court.

The second question

46In the light of the answer to the first question, there is no need to answer the second question.

Costs

47Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the action pending before the referring court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. Costs incurred in submitting observations to the Court, other than the costs of those parties, are not recoverable.

On those grounds, the Court (Seventh Chamber) hereby rules:

Article 1(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters

must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of ‘civil and commercial matters’, within the meaning of that provision, does not include an action seeking to substitute the defendant’s consent in the context of an application to release an item from the custody of the court; whereas that action constitutes proceedings that are incidental to the proceedings to place the item seized by the law enforcement authorities into the custody of the court.

[Signatures]

*

Language of the case: Czech.

The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any of the parties to the proceedings.