{"id":3002,"date":"2026-10-08T23:57:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T21:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/example.invalid\/?p=3002"},"modified":"2026-11-13T00:12:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T23:12:44","slug":"rupture-brutale-clause-attributive-competence-cassation-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/rupture-brutale-clause-attributive-competence-cassation-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Abrupt termination: can a jurisdiction clause preclude special jurisdiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Commercial contracts often contain a clause identifying in advance the court with jurisdiction over a dispute.<\/p>\n<h2>Special jurisdiction rules in domestic law<\/h2>\n<p>Can such a clause displace the <a href=\"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/rupture-brutale-juridiction-competente-marseille\/\">specially designated courts<\/a> competent to hear a claim for abrupt termination of an established commercial relationship?<\/p>\n<p>In domestic cases, the French Court of Cassation says no.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courdecassation.fr\/decision\/6297029565ec7ea9d4f0dcd6\">judgment of 1 June 2022<\/a>, it reiterated that the rules allocating abrupt-termination disputes to specially designated courts cannot be displaced by a jurisdiction clause.<\/p>\n<p>Where a claim is based on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legifrance.gouv.fr\/codes\/article_lc\/LEGIARTI000044224525\">Article L. 442-1(II) of the French Commercial Code<\/a>, a clause naming another French court does not, by itself, displace the specialisation rules under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legifrance.gouv.fr\/codes\/article_lc\/LEGIARTI000038414263\">Article L. 442-4<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legifrance.gouv.fr\/codes\/article_lc\/LEGIARTI000043197499\">Article D. 442-2 of the French Commercial Code<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Arbitration and international relationships<\/h2>\n<p>This must, however, be distinguished from the position under an arbitration clause. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legifrance.gouv.fr\/juri\/id\/JURITEXT000034142740\/\">judgment of 1 March 2017<\/a>, the French Court of Cassation held that the abrupt-termination regime does not, in principle, preclude arbitration.<\/p>\n<p>A further distinction arises where the relationship is international.<\/p>\n<p>The French Court of Cassation held in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legifrance.gouv.fr\/juri\/id\/JURITEXT000033900955\/\">judgment of 18 January 2017<\/a>that a clause granting jurisdiction to the courts of another state could apply to an abrupt-termination claim where EU international jurisdiction rules governed the dispute.<\/p>\n<p>The approach adopted in domestic French law should therefore not be applied mechanically to an international relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Before proceedings are issued, reading the clause alone is not enough. The nature of the claim, the domestic or international character of the relationship and, where relevant, the precise scope of the dispute-resolution agreement must also be determined.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Does a clause that appears clearly to identify the competent court actually have that effect in the particular dispute?<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Court of Cassation has reiterated that a contractual clause cannot override the specialisation rules applicable to claims for sudden termination.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-droit-commercial"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3002"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3251,"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002\/revisions\/3251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abdennour-avocat.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}