{"id":4221,"date":"2017-08-29T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T07:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/?p=4221\/"},"modified":"2022-06-13T21:55:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T19:55:56","slug":"commercial-agents-outside-eea-no-goodwill-indemnity-ingmar-reloaded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/2017\/08\/commercial-agents-outside-eea-no-goodwill-indemnity-ingmar-reloaded\/","title":{"rendered":"Commercial Agents outside the EEA \u2013 No Goodwill Indemnity \u00a0(Ingmar reloaded)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Court of Justice of the European Union<\/a> (\u201cCJEU<\/u>\u201d) has issued a new ruling on the international scope of the <\/strong>Commercial Agency Directive<\/strong><\/a> (86\/653\/EEC of 18\u00a0December\u00a01986). The new decision is in line with the rulings of<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. the CJEU<\/a> in the Ingmar<\/strong> case (decision of 9\u00a0November 2000, C-381\/98, goodwill indemnity mandatory where the agent acts within the EU) and Unamar<\/strong> (decision of 17 October 2013, C-184\/12, as to whether national agency law is mandatory where exceeding the Commercial Agency Directive\u2019s minimum protection) and<\/li>\n
  2. the German Federal Supreme Court of 5\u00a0September\u00a02012 (German agency law as mandatory law vis-\u00e0-vis suppliers in third countries with choice-of-court clause).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The question<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Now, the CJEU<\/a> had to decide whether a commercial agent acting in Turkey for a supplier based in Belgium could claim goodwill indemnity on the basis of the Commercial Agency Directive<\/a>. More specifically, the question was whether the territorial scope of the Commercial Agency Directive<\/a> was given where the commercial agent acts in a third country and the supplier within the EU \u2013 hence opposite to the Ingmar case.<\/p>\n

    The facts<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    According to the agency contract, Belgian law applied and the courts in Gent (Belgium) should be competent. Belgian law, transposing the Commercial Agency Directive<\/a>, provides for a goodwill indemnity claim at termination of the contract (and, additionally, compensation for damages). However, the referring court considered that the Belgian Law on Commercial Agents of 1995 was self-restraining and would apply, in accordance with its Art.\u00a027, only if the commercial agent acted in Belgium. Otherwise, general Belgian law would apply.<\/p>\n

    The decision<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    The CJEU<\/a> decided that the parties may derogate<\/strong> from the Commercial Agency Directive<\/a> if<\/strong> the agent acts in a third<\/strong> country<\/strong> (i.e. outside the EU). This has here been the case since the agent acted in Turkey.<\/p>\n

    The decision is particularly noteworthy<\/strong> because it \u2013 rather by the way \u2013 continues the CJEU<\/a>\u2019s Ingmar ruling under the Rome\u00a0I Regulation<\/a> (I.)<\/strong>. In addition, it indirectly confirms sec.\u00a092c of the German Commercial Code (II.)<\/strong> \u2013 which allows the parties to a commercial agent agreement governed by German law to deviate from the generally mandatory agency law if the commercial agent is acting outside the European Economic Area<\/a> (\u201cEEA<\/u>\u201d). Finally, it provides legal certainty for distribution outside the EEA and illustrates what may change after a Brexit as regards commercial agents acting in the United Kingdom (III.)<\/strong> \u2013 if the EU and the United Kingdom do not set up intertemporal arrangements for transition.<\/p>\n

    For details<\/strong>, please see the article by Benedikt<\/em> Rohr\u00dfen<\/em>, Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Vertriebsrecht 2017, 186 et seq. (\u201cIngmar reloaded \u2013 Handelsvertreter-Ausgleich bei umgekehrter Ingmar-Konstellation nicht international zwingend<\/em>\u201d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Court of Justice of the European Union (\u201cCJEU\u201d) has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[202,245],"tags":[220],"class_list":["post-4221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-distribution-agreements","category-ecommerce","tag-germany"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4221"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20534,"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221\/revisions\/20534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.legalmondo.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}