Enforcement must be refused where enforcing a judgment requiring a newspaper publishing house and one of its journalists to pay damages for non-material harm caused to a sports club and one member of its medical team by published information would manifestly breach freedom of the press under Article 11 of the Charter, and therefore the public policy of the Member State where enforcement is sought.

A court of a Member State may refuse to recognise and enforce a judgment from another Member State on public-policy grounds where that judgment impedes the continuation of proceedings pending before another court of the first Member State by awarding one party provisional damages for the costs of bringing those proceedings, on the grounds that the proceedings concern a matter covered by a settlement agreement lawfully concluded and ratified by the court of the Member State that gave the judgment, and that the first court lacks jurisdiction because of an exclusive-jurisdiction clause.

1. Article 34(3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters must be interpreted as meaning that a judgment entered by a court of a Member State in the terms of an arbitral award does not constitute a 'judgment', within the meaning of that provision, where a judicial decision resulting in an outcome equivalent to the outcome of that award could not have been adopted by a court of that Member State without infringing the provisions and the fundamental objectives of that regulation, in particular as regards the relative effect of an arbitration clause included in the insurance contract in question and the rules on lis pendens contained in Article 27 of that regulation, and that, in that situation, the judgment in question cannot prevent, in that Member State, the recognition of a judgment given by a court in another Member State.

2. Article 34(1) of Regulation No 44/2001 must be interpreted as meaning that, in the event that Article 34(3) of that regulation does not apply to a judgment entered in the terms of an arbitral award, the recognition or enforcement of a judgment from another Member State cannot be refused as being contrary to public policy on the ground that it would disregard the force of res judicata acquired by the judgment entered in the terms of an arbitral award.

Lenaerts

Bay Larsen

Jürimäe

Lycourgos

Regan

Jarukaitis

Jääskinen

Ilešič

Bonichot

Safjan

Kumin

Arastey Sahún

Gavalec

Csehi

Spineanu-Matei

Delivered in open court in Luxembourg on 20 June 2022.

A. Calot Escobar

Registrar

K. Lenaerts

President

In Article 34(2) of Regulation No 44/2001, "proceedings to challenge a judgment" also includes applications for relief brought after the time limit for an ordinary challenge has expired.

Recognition and enforcement in one Member State of an order made in another Member State, without first hearing a third person whose rights may be affected by that order, is not manifestly contrary to public policy or to the right to a fair trial, provided that the third person is entitled to assert his rights before that court.

In the Member State where recognition is sought, recognition and enforcement of a judgment from another Member State cannot be refused on public-policy grounds merely because of the method used to calculate the sums covered by provisional or protective measures, where the reasoning leading to those sums can be followed, even if legal remedies against that method were available and were used. Nor is the mere invocation of serious economic consequences enough.

Article 34(4) does not cover irreconcilable judgments given by courts of the same Member State.

The courts of the Member State in which enforcement is sought may refuse to enforce a default judgment that decides the substance of the dispute but contains no assessment of the subject matter or basis of the action and no reasoning on the merits. They may do so only if, after an overall assessment of the proceedings and in the light of all the relevant circumstances, that judgment appears to be a manifest and disproportionate breach of the defendant's right to a fair trial under the second paragraph of Article 47 of the Charter, because it is impossible to bring an appropriate and effective appeal against it.

Article 45 precludes a court hearing an appeal under Article 43 or Article 44 from refusing or revoking a declaration of enforceability on any ground other than those set out in Articles 34 and 35, including compliance with the judgment in the Member State of origin.

A judgment given by the courts of a Member State concerning land in an area of that State over which its government does not exercise effective control cannot be refused recognition or enforcement under Article 34(1) of Regulation No 44/2001 merely because, in practice, it cannot be enforced where the land is situated. That practical impossibility also does not mean that the judgment is unenforceable for the purposes of Article 38(1).

Recognition or enforcement of a default judgment cannot be refused under Article 34(2) of Regulation No 44/2001 where the defendant was able to bring proceedings to challenge the default judgment and, in those proceedings, argue that the document instituting the proceedings or an equivalent document had not been served in sufficient time and in such a way as to enable him to arrange for his defence.

Under Article 34(2), a defendant has the 'possibility' of challenging a default judgment only if he actually knew its contents because it was served on him in sufficient time to enable him to arrange for his defence before the courts of the State in which the judgment was given.