EU

Despite the EP and French EU Presidency’s calls in late 2008 for rapid consideration of a legislative measure on the recognition and enforcement of authentic acts, the Commission has said that it will not issue a consultation before early 2010. When it does, the scope of the paper will likely extend to equivalent, non-notarial acts. That said, reference is made in the Brussels I review, so a watchful eye is on that. 

In 2008 the Commission issued a proposal for a directive applying criminal sanctions to reinforce the already-existing administrative and other penalties that can be applied to polluters. The European Parliament has backed the proposal.
See: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A6-20090080+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN 

The Commission has adopted a largely positive report on the first 5 years of operation of Regulation 1/2003, which overhauled the procedural rules supporting the application of the EU’s antitrust Articles 81 and 82 TEC. See:
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/legislation/report_regulation_1_2003_en.pdf 

The judgment reconfirms the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC as a maximum harmonisation directive, holding that Member States may not adopt measures that are more restrictive, even in order to ensure a higher level of consumer protection. http://curia.europa.eu/en/actu/communiques/cp09/aff/cp090031en.pdf 

Following on from its White Paper of this time last year, DG Competition has been working on a proposal for a directive on antitrust damages, covering the range of issues consulted on, including collective redress. The proposal was expected to be adopted in May, but it seems that its premature leak in draft form may have affected that. However, the political and substantive debate is already underway. 

The replies to the Commission consultation on this subject are now available on the Commission’s website: 

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/consulting_public/news_consulting_public_en.htm   

Meanwhile, the Legal Affairs Committee “JURI” of the EP adopted its own-initiative report on the file on 31 March, picking up on, inter alia, the Bar Council’s suggestion that consideration be given to the idea of introducing a form of Community provisional measure additional to those of national courts. 

The EP is calling on the other institutions to create an EU criminal justice area. See: 

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A6-2009-0262&language=EN 

The Bar Council is to register its Brussels-based lobbying activities with the European Commission’s European Transparency Initiative (ETI). Established in 2008, the ETI is designed to promote transparency and ethical conduct in the representation of interests to the European Commission and other institutions of the European Union. 

Under the ETI the Bar Council will disclose details of its representational activity in Brussels and, through its consultant director, will abide by a code of conduct. The Bar Council maintains a representative office in Brussels in premises which are shared with other European professional bodies representing other bar associations and law societies. The Bar’s Brussels office monitors developments at the EU institutions and makes representations to them regularly on behalf of the Bar of England and Wales and in the public interest. While registration under the ETI register is currently voluntary, the European Commission has made it clear that it expects representative organisations to register and, if they do not, it will treat their representations with the same weight as any individual contribution. The activities of the Bar’s Specialist Bar Associations may also be covered by the ETI and the Bar Council has drawn the attention of those organisations to the desirability of registration. 

The JHA Council has recently adopted the Council decision (proposed last September) on the signing on behalf of the EC of this 2005 Convention, ensuring that choice-of-court agreements included in international trading contracts entered into by EU companies are respected; and judgments issued by the courts designated in such agreements, are eligible for recognition in the other States party to the Convention. 

The new EU regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and cooperation in matters relating to maintenance obligations ( Regulation (EC) No. 4/2009) was published in the Official Journal (L7/2009) and entered into force in January 2009. The UK government has formally applied to opt-in.
See: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:007:0001:0079:EN:PDF