## Facts

- A German mail-order company sent advertising and prize-notification materials to consumers in Austria.
- An Austrian consumer received a personalized notice suggesting she had won a prize and sued in an Austrian district court to obtain it.
- The consumer invoked Austrian consumer law and the special consumer jurisdiction provisions of Regulation (EC) No. 44/2001 (Brussels I).
- The defendant contested international jurisdiction, arguing no consumer contract existed because the notice was only advertising and not contractual.
- The district court upheld its jurisdiction but dismissed the claim on the merits.
- The consumer appealed only the dismissal on the merits and did not appeal the jurisdiction ruling; under Austrian procedural law, the jurisdiction decision became final (res judicata).
- The appellate court doubted the compatibility of the unappealed jurisdiction ruling with EU law but was generally barred by national procedure from revisiting an unchallenged, final issue.
- The appellate court referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling.

## Issues

1. Whether the duty of sincere cooperation (Article 10 EC, now Article 4(3) TEU) and the primacy of EU law require a national court to disapply domestic procedural rules on finality to review and set aside a final judicial decision that may be contrary to EU law.
2. Whether EU law imposes a general obligation on Member States to provide mechanisms to reopen final civil judgments alleged to misapply EU law.

## Decision

- The Court of Justice held that EU law does not require a national court to disapply national procedural rules conferring res judicata in order to review and set aside a final judicial decision, even if the decision may conflict with EU law.
- The Court emphasized the importance of legal certainty and the sound administration of justice, which support the finality of definitive judicial decisions.
- The Court distinguished case law allowing reconsideration of certain final administrative decisions, noting that such cases depended on national law permitting reopening and did not extend to final judicial decisions.
- The Court reaffirmed national procedural autonomy, subject to the principles of equivalence and effectiveness, and found no EU-law requirement to reopen the final jurisdiction ruling in these circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- EU law generally respects the finality of national judicial decisions; res judicata may prevail even where a final judgment is alleged to breach EU law.
- The duty of sincere cooperation does not, by itself, require national courts to reopen final civil judgments or to create additional review mechanisms beyond those provided by national law.
- National procedural autonomy is constrained by equivalence (EU-based claims must not be treated less favorably than similar domestic claims) and effectiveness (procedural rules must not make EU rights practically impossible or excessively difficult to exercise); the mere existence of a possibly erroneous final judgment does not alone violate effectiveness.

## Conclusion

The Court of Justice ruled that EU law does not compel national courts to revisit or set aside civil judgments that have become final under national procedural rules solely because those judgments may be incompatible with EU law, reflecting a strong commitment to legal certainty and res judicata within the limits of equivalence and effectiveness.


Kapferer v. Schlank & Schick GmbH, Case C-234/04, 2006 E.C.R. I-2585 (C.J. 2006)