Today (27 March 2025), the Court of Justice – asked by the Sofia District Court, Bulgaria (Sofiyski rayonen sad) to interpret Arts 1(1), 6 and 7 of Regulation (EC) No 4/2009 – delivered its judgment on the case No C-67/24, Amozov.
The request for preliminary ruling concerns several aspects of the Maintenance Regulation, ina case involving a third State, such as: (i) its material scope; (ii) the rule on subsidiary jurisdiction; and (iii) forum necessitatis.
In the decision, the Court of Justice stated that Art 1(1) of Regulation No 4/2009, read in the light of Recital 15, must be interpreted as meaning that “an application to modify a decision on maintenance obligations given by a court of a third State other than a State which is a contracting party to the Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, concluded in The Hague on 23 November 2007, falls within the scope of that regulation where it seeks, on the one hand, a reduction of the amount of a maintenance allowance and, on the other, termination of the obligations in question and is brought before a court of a Member State by the maintenance debtor, a national of that Member State and habitually residing in the territory of that Member State, against the maintenance creditors, who habitually reside in the territory of that third State, of whom one is a national only of that third State and the others are nationals of that State and of the Member State in question”. Moreover, Art 6 must be interpreted as meaning that “the rule whereby the courts of the Member State of the common nationality of the parties has subsidiary jurisdiction applies where, in addition to the nationality of the Member State of the court seised, the defendants hold the nationality of a third State”. Lastly, Art 7 must be interpreted as meaning that “a situation in which an application to modify a decision on maintenance obligations given by a court of a third State other than a State which is a contracting party to the Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, concluded in The Hague on 23 November 2007, seeking termination of the obligations concerned, is brought before a court of a Member State by the maintenance debtor, a national of that Member State and habitually resident in the territory of that Member State, against the maintenance creditor, a national of that third State and habitually resident in the territory of that third State, falls within the concept of ‘an exceptional basis’ for the purposes of that article, with the effect that a court of a Member State can hear a dispute pursuant to the rule on the jurisdiction of the forum necessitatis laid down in that article, provided that no such application could reasonably be brought, or the related procedure be conducted, or would be impossible before the courts of the third State concerned”.
On Regulation No 4/2009, the readers of RDIPP may refer to:
Ilaria Viarengo, 2022, No 2, 257 ff.;
Ilaria Viarengo, 2015, No 4, 823 ff.;
Fausto Pocar, Ilaria Viarengo, 2009, No 4, 805 ff.;
Fabrizio Marongiu Buonaiuti, 2005, No 3, 699 ff.
Moreover, see, in our Book Series:
Stefania Bariatti, Ilaria Viarengo, Francesca C. Villata (eds.), Book No 81;
Lenka Válková, Book No 87.
Lastly, on forum necessitatis, see Mariangela La Manna, 2019, 349 ff.; and Fausto Pocar, Ilaria Viarengo, Francesca C. Villata (eds.), Book No 76.