ECJ (Case no. C-533/08, TNT Express Nederland BV. v. AXA Versicherung AG: The changing status of private international law treaties of the Member States in relation to regulation no. 44/2001)

Case C-533/08, the so-called TNT case, is concerned with the interpretation of Article 71 of Regulation No. 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (hereinafter ‘Brussels Regulation’) and with the relation between this Regulation and the provisions for recognition and enforcement of judgments in the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR). It thus raises the broader issue of the deviations from the European Union (EU or hereinafter ‘Union’) system of recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters and the considerable number of special regimes in this field, which are included in international conventions to which the Union is not (yet) a party. This raises the question of maintaining a minimum of unity in the Union system of private international law. More generally, in the field of external relations, this case fits into the growing number of cases concerning the interpretation by the Court of agreements to which all Member States are a party, combined with the traditional case law that Member States cannot invoke the provisions of agreements with third states inter se in order to escape from the strictures of Union law.