## Facts

- Athanasios Kalfelis, a Greek national residing in Germany, sued a German banking house and additional defendants domiciled in other Contracting States.
- The dispute arose from cross-border financial transactions (including securities and foreign-exchange operations) in which Kalfelis alleged he suffered substantial losses.
- Kalfelis pleaded multiple bases of liability against the defendants, including contractual liability and non-contractual liability (tort/delict-type allegations), and asserted joint and several liability.
- Because several defendants were foreign-domiciled, the German courts had to determine whether they could be sued in Germany under special jurisdiction provisions of the Brussels Convention.
- The Bundesgerichtshof referred questions for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Articles 5(3) (tort/delict) and 6(1) (multiple defendants).

## Issues

1. Under Article 6(1) of the Brussels Convention, what connection is required between actions against multiple defendants to permit foreign-domiciled defendants to be sued in the forum where one defendant is domiciled?
2. Under Article 5(3), what is meant by “matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict,” and is the meaning governed by an autonomous Convention concept?
3. If an action pleads both contractual and non-contractual bases of liability, does jurisdiction under Article 5(3) extend to the non-tort portions of the action?

## Decision

- Article 6(1) applies only when there is a sufficient connection between the claims against different defendants such that trying them together is expedient to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments from separate proceedings.
- “Matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict” in Article 5(3) is an autonomous Convention concept covering actions seeking to establish a defendant’s liability that are not related to “contract” within Article 5(1).
- A court having jurisdiction under Article 5(3) over the tort/delict basis of an action does not, on that basis alone, have jurisdiction over the same action insofar as it is not based on tort/delict.

## Legal Principles

- Special heads of jurisdiction under the Brussels Convention are exceptions to the general rule of jurisdiction based on the defendant’s domicile and must be interpreted strictly.
- Article 6(1) requires a close connection between claims against multiple defendants; joinder is justified to prevent irreconcilable judgments, not merely to create a procedural “anchor” in the forum.
- Article 5(3) is defined autonomously: it covers non-contractual liability claims (those not related to a contract under Article 5(1)).
- Jurisdiction under Article 5(3) is claim-limited: it extends only to the tort/delict components, not to contractual or other non-tort components pleaded in the same action.

## Conclusion

The court held that multi-defendant jurisdiction requires a close connection aimed at avoiding irreconcilable judgments and that tort jurisdiction is an autonomous, claim-specific basis that does not extend to non-tort claims merely because they are joined in the same proceedings.


Kalfelis v. Bankhaus Schröder, Münchmeyer, Hengst & Co. (Case 189/87), [1988] E.C.R. 5565 (C.J.E.C. 1988)