Jurisdiccion Derecho Internacional Privado

A/ Is there a private international law situation?

The conflict between both parties is a clear international law situation due to the existence of various circumstances: 1)both companies can be considered as private parties who are domiciled in different countries.2) the material scope is of civil ambit .3)Private international law must always have an horizontal relation( all parties mustbe private).On the contrary public international law has vertical relations where countries can be above private parties. The fact that both parties are from different countries is what we can call “foreign element”. This circumstance , obliges the contact of different legal systems in order to perform the contract.
Even though it is a private international law situation, there are somehypothesis that relate the non-performance of the contract with by political reasons. the actual campaign against the regime of Iran could have perfectly been the reason why the European council could have ordered the non performance of the contract. Under these circumstances we could be talking about public international law as there would be a vertical relation of law (EU –company).Despite of thishypothesis we still think it is a private international law situation, as it is just an hypothesis surrounded with bare rumours.

B/ which court(s) has/have jurisdiction?

Regarding Jurisdiction we have agreed that the courts in charge of solving the possible conflict would be those of the member state where the realisation of the contract must be performed. This special jurisdiction is clearlyexplained in art 5.1 Section 1 of the Brussels convention. As subparagraph b can not be applied then subparagraph a is applied..

A person domiciled in a Member state may , in another member state ,be sued:

1. (a) in matters relating to a contract , in the courts for the place of performance of the obligation in question.
C/ What law(s) could be applied?
The problem we found when searchingthe laws applicable to this case, in which there is a dispute between the French company Eutelsat SA and the Iranian Press TV company, is that it can be interpreted from two legal ambits: private international law or public international law.
Referring to the issue of jurisdiction when private international law is applicable, we found that the legitimate tribunals to solve the case are thosethat appear in art.5 of the Treaty of Brussels of the EU in the Official Journal of the European Communities.
From the perspective of private international law,we see the conflict as a breach of contract between two companies with domiciliation on foreign countries which have private nature.One of these companies is domiciled in Europe. The private international law comes from illegalaction against Eutelsat for breach of contract. The applicable legal text from this point of view would be the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) which has a protocol on the settlement of disputes.
This Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes Relating to the Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union, to the Convention of the International TelecommunicationUnion and to the Administrative Regulations, The Members of the Union (both in this case) , parties to this Optional Protocol, have the desire to resort to compulsory arbitration, so far as they are concerned, for the settlement of any disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the Constitution, the Convention or of the Administrative Regulations. This protocol establish that theparties’s dispute would be solve in an arbitration tribunal regulated by the six Articles of this optional protocol contained in the ITU.
This case could also be considered from the public international law perspective, as the new refers to the international sanctions imposed by the U.S. and EU the Iranian government this past year by the tensions with its nuclear development plan.
In the...