In the Gtflix Tv judgment (C-251/20), the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) clarifies the circumstances in which national courts have jurisdiction to rule on actions for compensation relating to damages resulting from disparaging comments published on the internet.
The jurisdiction of national courts has become an increasingly difficult matter since the emergence of the internet and social media. Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (referred to as the Brussels Ibis Regulation) provides that, in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, persons may seek compensation before the courts of the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur. However, the concrete application of this provision is particularly difficult in an online environment where comments are, in principle, accessible worldwide. As a result, this has led to abundant case law of the CJEU.
The Gtflix Tv judgment follows from a preliminary question raised by the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) in a dispute opposing Gtflix Tv, a company established in the Czech Republic producing and distributing adult audiovisual content, and DR, a natural person domiciled in Hungary, also producing and distributing adult content. Gtflix Tv alleged that DR made disparaging comments about it online and brought an action before the French courts seeking (i) the removal and rectification of the comments, and (ii) compensation for the damage suffered.
In light of the ubiquitous nature of content published online, the CJEU has previously held that an application for the removal and rectification of content is a single and indivisible application. Consequently, such a claim can only be raised before the courts with jurisdiction to rule on an application for compensation of the entire damage suffered, which is either the courts of the Member State in which the publisher of the content is established or before the courts of the Member State in which the centre of interests of the claimant is located.
In line with the CJEU’s case law, the French courts declared that they had no jurisdiction to rule on the removal and the rectification of the disputed comments since France was neither the place of establishment of DR nor the centre of interests of Gtflix Tv. In this regard, however, the French Supreme Court asked whether the French courts have jurisdiction to rule on the claim for compensation with respect to damages incurred in France given the “necessary link of dependence” between the application for rectification and removal and the application for compensation.
The CJEU noted that, unlike an application for removal and rectification of content, which has a single and indivisible character, an application for compensation may relate to the entire damage or only to part of the damage suffered. A person may, instead of bringing an action seeking compensation for all the damage caused, bring an action before a court of a Member State for compensation of the damage suffered in that specific Member State. According to the CJEU, such courts are perfectly capable of assessing the existence and the extent of the alleged damage, even though they are not competent to rule on an application for removal and rectification. However, those courts have jurisdiction only in respect of the damage caused in the territory of that Member State. In addition, the harmful content must be accessible or have been accessible in that Member State.
The CJEU therefore concluded that a person who seeks not only the rectification and removal of disparaging comments online but also compensation for the damage resulting from these comments may claim, before the courts of each Member State in which those comments are or were accessible, compensation for the damage suffered in the Member State of the court seized, even though those courts do not have jurisdiction to rule on the application for rectification and removal.
Please contact Karel Janssens for further information about this case and/or for general legal advice relating to media law and online platforms.