JUDGMENT OF 16. 12. 1980 — CASE 814/79 NETHERLANDS v RUFFER
In Case 814/79 REFERENCE to the Court under Article 3 of the Protocol of 3 June 1971 on the interpretation by the Court of Justice of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters by the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden [Supreme Court of the Netherlands] for a preliminary ruling in the action pending before that court between
THE COURT composed of: J. Menens de Wilmars, President, P. Pescatore and T. Koopmans (Presidents of Chambers), Lord Mackenzie Stuart, A. O'Keeffe, G. Bosco and A. Touffait, Judges, Advocate General : J.-P. Warner Registrar: A. Van Houtte
gives the following
JUDGMENT
Facts and Issues
I — Facts and procedure
1. On 26 October 1971 the motor vessel Otrate owned by Mr Reinhold Rüffer, residing in the district of Hameln/Pyrmont in the Federal Republic of Germany collided in the Bight of Watum with the Dutch motor vessel, Vechtborg and there sank. The Bight of Watum is a public waterway located in an area over which both the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany claim sovereign rights. By the Ems-Dollard Treaty of 8 April 1960 these two States instituted a working arrangement in this area without prejudice to the issue of sovereignty. Amongst other things that Treaty provides that the Netherlands shall be responsible for the administration of the waterways in the Bight of Watum, which involves inter alia the removal of wrecks. It also stipulates that in regard to the administration of the waterways each signatory to the Treaty shall apply its own law. On the basis of the provisions of the Dutch Law on Wrecks (Wrakkenwet) of 19 June 1934 the Netherlands State had the wreck of the Otrate removed and it was brought alongside the floating port of Delfzijl. By public notice the mayor of that town sold what was left of the boat and its cargo and subsequently remitted the proceeds of the sale to the Netherlands State. On finding that deduction from the proceeds of sale of the cost of removing the wreck left a debit balance of about HFL 107000, the Netherlands State claimed this balance from Mr Rüff er under Article 10 of the Wrakkenwet which gives the agent responsible for administering the waterways who has removed a wreck a right of recourse against the party responsible for the shipwreck which, according to the Netherlands State, was in this case the Otrate. Mr Rüffer was summoned before the Rechtsbank ([District] Court) of The Hague which, he claimed, did not have jurisdiction to entertain the matter, and in this connexion he referred to Article 3 of the Brussels Convention of 27 September 1968 (hereinafter referred to as “the Convention”). He also alleged, in the alternative, that if the rules of the Convention on special jurisdiction had application in this case, the competent court had to be that at Groningen, pursuant to Article 5 (3) of the Convention. The Rechtsbank said that it did not have jurisdiction to entertain the application by the Netherlands State. This ruling was upheld on appeal by the Gerechtshof [Regional Court of Appeal] of The Hague. After the Netherlands State had made an appeal in cassation against that judgment the Hoge Raad of the Netherlands decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling:
“(a) Does the concept ‘civil and commercial matters’ in Article 1 of the Convention include a claim such as that brought by the State against Rüffer? If so:
b) Does the term ‘matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict’ in Article 5 (3) include such a claim? If so:
c) What is the effect of Article 5 (3) in a situation where the harmful event occured in the territory which, in view of the Ems-Dollard Treaty, is regarded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands as belonging to the territory of the Netherlands and by the Federal Republic of Germany as belonging to the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany? Does Article 5 (3) mean that for the Netherlands courts that place must be regarded as (also) being situated in the Netherlands? Having regard to the nature of the present claim is it in this respect relevant that the place lies in the territory in which, pursuant to the Ems-Dollard Treaty, the Kingdom of the Netherlands is responsible for river-police functions and is therefore obliged to remove a wreck lying in the said territory?
d) Can the ‘place where the harmful event occurred’ be the place where the damage as alleged by the State occurred, namely either The Hague, where the State has its seat of government, of Delfzijl (in the Arrondissement [legal district] of Groningen) where the goods salvaged from the wreck were sold by the State revealing to what extent the costs incurred by the State in removing the wreck were not covered?
e) If the Ems-Dollard Treaty is to be understood as giving the Netherlands courts jurisdiction over a claim such as the present one (which question is not referred to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling) does Article 57 of the Brussels Convention leave scope for the application of the opening words and paragraph (3) of Article 5 regarding jurisdiction?”
2. The judgment making the reference was registered at the Court on 17 December 1979. In accordance with Article 20 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Economic Community written observations were lodged by the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, represented by E. Korthals Altes, acting as Agent, by Mr Rüffer, represented by Mr E. von Waldstein of the Karlsruhe Bar, by the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, represented by R. D. Munrow of the Treasury Solicitor's Office, acting as Agent, and by the Commission of the European Communities, represented by its Legal Adviser A. McClellan, acting as Agent, assisted by J. L. M. Sillevis Smitt, Advocate at the Hoge Raad of the Netherlands. On hearing the report of the Judge-Rapporteur and the views of the Advocate General, the Court decided to open the oral procedure without any preliminary inquiry.
II — Written observations submitted to the Court
Question (a)
1. The Netherlands State points out that the Wrakkenwet authorizes the agent responsible for administering a public waterway to remove any wreck constituting a danger or an obstacle to maritime navigation without having to do this with the agreement of the owner of the wreck or of the person having possession of it. The agent responsible for the administration of the public waterway is not always necessarily a public authority. When removing a wreck the agent does not therefore act by virtue of a power of a public character. The Wrakkenwet gives the agent, first, the right to recover the costs of removing the wreck from what remains of the vessel which has been removed. It further authorizes recourse against the person responsible for the sinking of the vessel but in this regard it refers to the basic provisions on restitution and liability which are those contained in the Civil Code. Consequently the legal relationship between the parties and the subject-matter of the dispute — the making good of damage — is one of a typically civil character.
2. Mr Kuffer thinks that Question (a) as well as Questions (b) and (c) may remain open since the Convention has no application in this case.
3. The Commission of the European Communities observes that there is no doubt that, under Netherlands law, when a wreck is removed the agent administering a public waterway acts by virtue of a specific public power which is conferred upon him in the public interest. However that does not necessarily mean that the bringing of a claim for redress as provided by the Wrakkenwet is also based on a specific public power. The bringing of that action may not be very much in the public interest but it still enables the burden of any untoward consequences of administration in the public interest to be passed on to the person liable in law. The liability in question comes under civil law. It follows that the claim for redress comes under private law and in particular under the law of property. This argument is borne out by certain of the observations in the Jenard Report and the Schlosser Report on the exception provided by subparagraph 3 of the second paragraph of Article 1 of the Brussels Convention on 1968 in the matter of social security. According to those observations the exception referred to does not include claims for redress which social security institutions may bring by virtue of an assignment or a legal provision against those who are liable in civil law for the injury suffered by a person entitled to social insurance benefits. Since a claim for redress brought by an agent administering a public waterway is analogous to such claims it too must therefore come under “civil and commercial matters” within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Convention.
Question (b)
1. The Netherlands State observes that the liability of the person, by whose fault or act a vessel has sunk, to indemnify the agent administering the public waterway against the costs incurred in removing the wreck is governed by Articles 1401 and 1403 of the Dutch Civil Code which deal with tort, delict and quasi-delict. There is therefore no doubt that, in Netherlands law, it must be classified as a liability in tort, delict or quasi-delict.
2. The Government of the United Kingdom wishes to submit observations only on the definition of the term “matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict” which is the subject-matter of Question (b). Recalling that the Court has not yet generally dealt with the issue whether the terms and concepts appearing in the Convention must be regarded as independent and therefore common to all the Member States, or whether they must be interpreted according to the laws, including the rules of conflict laws, of the first court before which a matter is brought, this Government says that it favours the second method of resolving the issue in regard to the interpretation of all the special jurisdictions set out in Article 5 of the Convention, unless there are special reasons to the contrary. To support its view it says that nearly all of the jurisdictional criteria found in the Convention relate to concepts which are also found in the national law of the Member States for a variety of other purposes than the founding of jurisdiction and that unless, therefore, in interpreting these criteria the court before which a matter is brought applies its own law, inconsistencies will inevitably result between the meaning attributed to a term in the Convention and in the other law administered by the court. It sets out further grounds which point to the application of the lex fori. First, Article 5, which confers special jurisdictions, is intended to confer jurisdictions on courts which have a particularly close connexion with the circumstances of the dispute. A close connexion requires links not only with the law of the country of the court on which jurisdiction is conferred. The most telling reason for conferring a tort jurisdiction on the court for the place where a harmful event occurs is that, by causing an event to occur in a given place, the person concerned subjects himself to the law operating at that place for all the legal consequences which may flow from the occurrence. The assumption of jurisdiction on the grounds specified in Article 5 (3) is therefore justified if the circumstances which give rise to the assumption of jurisdiction by a court also constitute a “tort, delict or quasi-delict” under the lex fori, it is difficult to see any justification for that assumption of jurisdiction if they do not. Secondly, if there were a common Community concept of what constitutes “tort, delict or quasi-delict”, it might not be the same as the corresponding concepts in national law which differ considerably according to the legal systems of the Member States. As a result it would cover some matters which are not actionable in certain countries and exclude others which are actionable in other countries. Such a situation would not be satisfactory. For example, courts could be given jurisdiction in respect of certain claims which they could not entertain, or, conversely, courts could be deprived of jurisdiction over claims which should necessarily be brought before those courts. The likelihood of discrimination occurring between litigants is obvious. Finally, the United Kingdom submits that even if it were acceptable to have a definition of the concept of a tort, delict or quasi-delict common to all the Member States, the difficulties of formulating a satisfactory definition would prove insuperable in view of the different sets of circumstances under the legal systems of the nine Member States which would need to be taken into consideration. It adds that it would be equally unsatisfactory if the Court of Justice were to rule case by case on the interpretation of Article 5 (3) because for a long time to come this would leave the application of the article unpredictable and uncertain and would never enable ultimate finality to be achieved in a precise definition of the concept contained in that provision.
3. The Commission points out that even if under Netherlands law the liability in question is treated as a tortious liability, that does not necessarily mean that that liability also falls under the concept used in Article 5 (3) of the Convention. The Court of Justice has not as yet ruled on whether the concept is to be regarded as an independent one or whether it draws its meaning from the corresponding concepts used in the different systems of national law. There is however a certain number of judgments of the Court regarding other concepts which appear in Article 5 of the Convention. It is apparent from those judgments that it is desirable to give an unequivocal and consistent meaning to the different concepts used in Article 5 of the Convention so that it is clear when a departure from the general rule laid down in Article 2 is permissible and so that equality of treatment may be ensured in this respect for all litigants in the different Member States; a concept may acquire a consistent character by being given an independent meaning: this is worth while if a concept has different meanings in each system of. national law; however, it is not always possible if those differences are too great because attaching an independent meaning to a concept in the Convention then involves too great an interference in the legal orders of the Member States, particularly in regard to concepts drawn from substantive law. In view of these criteria it can be seen that the concept in Article 5 (3) does not always have the same meaning in all the Member States. In principle therefore it should be given an independent meaning. A comparison of the different language versions shows that the concept of “tort, delict or quasi-delict” must be interpreted in a broad sense and not limited to a few types of unlawful acts. The concept consists at any rate of a culpable or intentional act or omission, contrary to the law or to unwritten standards of care which causes injury to a third party. The liability which is the subject-matter of the main action has all these characteristics and therefore falls within the concept of “matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict” within the meaning of Article 5 (3) of the Convention.
Question (c)
1. The Netherhnds State points out that this question presupposes that jurisdiction to entertain a claim such as is the subject-matter of the main action is not determined by the Ems-Dollard Treaty. The converse hypothesis is advanced by the Hoge Raad in Question (e) in which it mentions that the Court is not asked to interpret the Ems-Dollard Treaty. Question (c) is actually three questions; the first is not important in itself but serves only to introduce the other two, namely:
(1). Does Article 5 (3) mean that the Netherlands courts may assume that the place where the harmful event occurred is (also) in the Netherlands?
(2). Is it necessary to take account of the fact that that place lies in the territory in which, pursuant to the Ems-Dollard Treaty, the Kingdom of the Netherlands is responsible for river-police functions? In regard to Question (c) (1) the Netherlands State thinks that it would be inconceivable for a court not to be bound by the legal opinion of its own State that a specific area belongs to that State. Since the harmful event occurred in an area claimed by both the Kingdom of the Netherlands and by the Federal Republic of Germany, it follows that both the Netherlands courts and the German courts must declare that they can exercise their territorial jurisdictions. Since the Convention does not contain any provision as to areas which are the subject of a dispute between the Contracting States and that such a dispute cannot be settled in a civil action, there are only two possibilites : (a) The place where the harmful event occurred must be considered as being located neither in the Netherlands nor in the Federal Republic of Germany, or (b) it must be considered as being located in both the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany. The first hypothesis can be excluded since there is no other State which claims this area or claims that it is “terra nullius” or “high seas”. That only leaves the second hypothesis which recognizes the jurisdiction of both the Netherlands courts and the German courts. Question (c) (2) implies that Question (c) (1) has been answered in the negative and that therefore only one court may have territorial jurisdiction. In that case it must be taken that Article 5 (3) of the Convention clearly assumes that a certain place is always linked to a specific State by virtue of the location of that place in the territory of that State. This connective criterion may not be applied in this case and another must be found which could be done with the aid of the Ems-Dollard Treaty. Under that Treaty the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany have not arranged a division of territorial sovereignty but a division of what one may call administrative sovereignty in relation to a certain number of matters. One can therefore say that a certain place is linked to a specific State if it is part of an area in which that State exercises its administrative sovereignty in a specific matter. As far as the administration of the waterways is concerned, the Bight of Watum falls in the area in which the Ems-Dollard Treaty has conferred administrative sovereignty on the Netherlands. There are therefore grounds for saying that the Netherlands courts have jurisdiction. Such a conclusion is furthermore in accordance with “good administration of justice” since it means that the German courts have jurisdiction to entertain actions to recover the costs of removing wrecks which are located in the area the administration of which the Ems-Dollard Treaty has conferred on the Federal Republic of Germany.
2. The Commission first states that it is beyond doubt that the Convention also has application in the area covered by the Ems-Dollard Treaty since the area is indisputably part of the European territory of the Contracting States within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 60 of the Convention and of the first paragraph of Article 6 of the Protocol of 1971 on the interpretation of that Convention. The question is therefore only whether the courts of a Member State which claims sovereign rights over the region in question may, for the purpose of applying the Convention, regard that area as forming part of the territory of its State in spite of the opposing claims of another Member State. Since neither the Convention nor the EEC Treaty from which that Convention originates dealt with the problem of some Member States having opposing territorial claims it must be assumed that the attitude adopted in this respect by the Member States was one of neutrality. Therefore, in order to keep within such neutrality, the method of resolving the issue must affect the rights of each of the Member States concerned as little as possible. Such a solution could consist in assuming, as far as the appalication of the Convention is concerned, that the area claimed by both Member States is part of the territory of each of the Member States which claim to have sovereign rights over it.
Question (d)
1. The Netherlands State says that the place where the event capable of giving rise to tortious liability occurred and the place where this event caused damage are not the same in the present dispute. If the injury consisted of damage caused to something belonging to the State it. could justifiably be argued that the injury occurred at the place where the thing is situated but in this case the injury to the State is solely and exclusively attributable to the fact that it had to pay a certain sum for the removal of the wreck which meant a reduction in its assets which have their locality at The Hague. It cannot be argued that the injury suffered by the State must have its locality in the Bight of Watum on the grounds that the Bight of Watum is an area in which the State was obliged to take action in regard to the removal of the wreck of the Otrate. Notwithstanding the question whether a legal concept such as an “obligation” may actually attach to a specific area, it is in any case wrong to rely on this in order to fix the costs, which the State had to pay to the undertaking commissioned to remove the wreck, as arising in that same area. In the alternative the Netherlands State argues that the injury was suffered only at Delfzijil where it became apparent that the proceeds of sale of the wreck were not sufficient to cover the expenses of removing it. Only then is it possible to speak of injury. In answer to the objection that the argument of the Netherlands State would leave an agent administering a public waterway free to select any court, it can be pointed out that specific provisions in the Wrakkenwet concerning the place at which the removed wreck must be sold prevent any “forum shopping”.
2. Mr Rüffer states that the “place where the harmful event occurred” can only be determined in this case in accordance with the Ems-Dollard Treaty.
3. Having referred back to the case-law of the Court on the definition of the term “place where the harmful event occurred”, the Commission asks whether it is conceivable in this case that the place where the damage occurred is not the same as the place of the causative occurrence. There are certainly circumstances such as the failure to remove the wreck on the part of the persons concerned themselves, the refusal or the impossibility on the part of the person liable to reimburse the expenses of removing it, or the insufficiency of the proceeds of sale of the wreck to cover those expenses, which would determine whether damage has been sustained and the extent of it. Those circumstances cannot however be regarded as determinative in regard to the place where the damage was sustained since in this case they are material only by reason of the wreck of the vessel and the place thereof can be precisely determined. If it were otherwise, the place where the damage was sustained would be determined by more or less arbitrary factors likely to be affected by considerations other than purely objective ones. It would then be necessary to indicate a whole number of places and this would prejudice certainty in legal relations and make the application of Article 5 (3) very complicated. It is essential to point out here that Article 5 (3) was written into the Convention because of the high number of road accidents and that in the view of the authors of the Convention (cf. the Jenard Report) the place of the accident was the place where the event causing damage occurred. A different interpretation would in effect involve taking into consideration, besides the forum of the place where the defendant is domiciled and the forum of the place of the accident, the forum of the place where the plaintiff is domiciled too, since some of the damage usually occurs at the place where the plaintiff is domiciled in the form of treatment which he must obtain if he has been injured in the accident. Because of the obvious analogy of road accidents to those on the water the same considerations which led to the solution of cases of the former case are also valid for cases of the latter.
Question (e)
1. The Netherlands State takes the view, if only on the basis of the wording of Article 57 of the Convention which states that “this Convention shall not affect any conventions... which, in relation to particular matters, govern jurisdiction...”, that the Convention does not cease to apply if another treaty creates certain types of jurisdiction. In other words, Article 57 does not preclude the alternative application of the rules of the Convention. The only exception would be where the other treaties in question intend to create an exclusive type of jurisdiction or make provision for rules which exclude any alternative application of those contained in the Convention.
2. Mr Ruffer replies to this question by saying that in his opinion the Ems-Dollard Treaty lays down rules of jurisdiction for claims brought pursuant to a collision in the mouth of the Ems and must therefore be regarded as a special convention within the meaning of Article 57 of the Convention which consequently has no application.
3. The Commission thinks that the Convention is superseded and may no longer be applied when a special convention within the meaning of Article 57 makes provision for rules of direct and exclusive jurisdiction. This view is confirmed by the authentic interpretation in the Convention of Accession of 1978 as well as by the Schlosser Report. If a particular convention does not contain any rules of jurisdiction of an exclusive nature the court before which a matter is brought may derive its jurisdiction either from that particular convention or from the Convention of 1968.
III — Oral procedure
The Netherlands State, Mr Rüffer and the Commission of the European Communities presented oral argument at the hearing on 8 July 1980.
The Advocate General delivered his opinion at the sitting on 8 October 1980.
Decision
1. By judgment of 14 December 1979 which was received at the Court on 17 December 1979 the Hoge Raad [Supreme Court] applied to the Court in proceedings based on Article 1 of the Protocol on the interpretation by the Court of Justice of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters.
2. That application was ordered in the course of a dispute concerning a claim for redress brought by the Netherlands State against a waterman, the owner of a German river motor vessel, the Otrate which on 26 October 1971 collided with the Dutch motor vessel Vechtborg in the Bight of Watum and as a result of that collision sank on the spot.
3. The Bight of Watum is a public waterway in the mouth of the Ems located in an area over which both the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany claim sovereign rights. Cooperation in that waterway between the two bordering States is governed by the Ems-Dollard Treaty of 8 April 1960. Article 19 (1) (a) of that Treaty provides that the Kingdom of the Netherlands shall be responsible, in the Bight of Watum and other places, for river-police functions which, under Article 20 (2) (d), include “removal of wrecks”. Article 21 of the same Treaty stipulates further that “in carrying out river-police functions, each Contracting Party Commission shall be notified”.
4. In accordance with that Treaty and on the basis of the provisions of the Netherlands Law on Wrecks of 19 June 1934 (hereinafter referred to as the “Wrakkenwet”) the Kingdom of the Netherlands had the wreck of the German boat which had sunk in the Bight of Watum removed by a Netherlands firm. The remains of the boat recovered in that way together with its cargo were sold pursuant to Article 6 of the Wrakkenwet by public auction in order that the Netherlands State might recover the costs involved in the removal of the wreck. After the proceeds of that sale were deducted from those costs a debit balance remained which the Netherlands State sought to recover from the waterman and owner of the boat in question by the claim for redress referred to above.
5. The District Court of the Hague before which the matter was brought at first instance declared that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the application. Its ground was the finding that owing to the German flag of the boat which sunk the place where the harmful event occurred, namely the wreck of the Otrate, must be regarded as the Federal Republic of Germany in this case so that jurisdiction to entertain the application lay with German courts by virtue of Article 5 (3) of the Brussels Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (hereinafter referred to as “the Brussels Convention”). The decision by that court was upheld by the Gerechtshof [Regional Court of Appeal] of The Hague and the Netherlands State appealed in cassation to the Hoge Raad of the Netherlands. Before ruling on the substance of the matter that court decided to submit several questions to the Court of Justice on the interpretation of the Brussels Convention.
The first question
6. In its first question the Hoge Raad asks the Court to state first of all whether the concept “civil and commercial matters” in Article 1 of the Convention must be construed as including a claim for redress such as that brought in the instant case by the Netherlands State.
7. It is apparent from the case-law of the Court (judgment of 14 October 1976 in Case 29/76 LTU [1976] ECR 1541; judgment of 14 July 1977 in Cases 9 and 10/77 Bavaria-Germanair [1977] ECR 1517; judgment of 22 February 1979 in Case 133/78 Gourdain [1978] ECR 733) that the concept “civil and commercial matters' used in Article 1 of the Brussels Convention must be regarded as an independent concept which must be construed with reference first to the objectives and scheme of the Convention and secondly to the general principles which stem from the corpus of the national legal sytems.
8. In the light of those considerations the Court has specifically held in that same case-law that whilst certain judgments given in an action between a public authority and a person governed by private law may come within the area of application of the Convention that is not the case if the public authority is acting in the exercise of its public authority powers.
9. Such a case is an action for the recovery of the costs involved in the removal of a wreck in a public waterway, administered by the State responsible in performance of an international obligation and on the basis of provisions of national law which, in the administration of that waterway, confer on it the status of public authority in regard to private persons.
10. It is common ground that in this case the Netherlands State had the wreck of the Otrate removed in performance of an obligation which was assumed under Article 19 (1) (a) and 20 (2) (d) of the Ems-Dollard Treaty within the framework of the river-police functions conferred on it in that waterway by the said Treaty and that consequently it acted in this case as the body invested with public authority.
11. The granting of such status to the agent responsible for policing public waterways, for the purpose of removing wrecks located in those waterways, is furthermore in keeping with the general principles which stem from the corpus of the national legal systems of the Member States whose provisions on the administration of public waterways precisely show that the agent administering those waterways does so, when removing wrecks, in the exercise of public authority.
12. In view of those factors the action brought by the Netherlands State before the national court must be regarded as being outside the ambit of the Brussels Convention, as defined by the concept of “civil and commercial matters” within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 1 of that Convention, since it is established that the Netherlands State acted in the instant case in the exercise of public authority.
13. The fact that in this case the action pending before the national court does not concern the actual removal of the wreck but the costs involved in that removal and that the Netherlands State is seeking to recover those costs by means of a claim for redress and not by administrative process as provided for by the national law of other Member States cannot be sufficient to bring the matter in dispute within the ambit of the Brussels Convention.
14. As the Court has stated in the authorities cited above the Brussels Convention must be applied in such a way as to ensure, as far as possible, that the rights and obligations which derive from it for the Contracting States and the persons to whom it applies are equal and uniform. By that same case-law such a requirement rules out the possibility of the Convention's being interpreted solely in the light of the division of jurisdiction between the various types of courts existing in certain States: on the contrary it implies that the area of application of the Convention is essentially determined either by reason of the legal relationships between the parties to the action or of the subject-matter of the action.
15. The fact that in recovering those costs the administering agent acts pursuant to a debt which arises from an act of public authority is sufficient for its action, whatever the nature of the proceedings afforded by national law for that purpose, to be treated as being outside the ambit of the Brussels Convention.
16. For those reasons the answer to the first question must be that the concept of “civil and commercial matters” within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters does not include actions such as that referred to by the national court brought by the agent responsible for administering public waterways against a person having liability in law in order to recover the costs incurred in the removal of a wreck carried out by or at the instigation of the administering agent in the exercise of its public authority.
The other questions
17. The other questions were submitted by the national court in case the answer to the first question were in the affirmative. As the answer to that question is in the negative there is no further point in considering them.
Costs
The costs incurred by the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Commission of the European Communities which have submitted observations to the Court are not recoverable. As these proceedings are, in so far as the parties to the main action are concerned, in the nature of a step in the action pending before the national court the decision on costs is a matter for that court.
On those grounds, THE COURT, in answer to the questions referred to it by the Hoge Raad by judgment of 14 December 1979, hereby rules: