Jurisdiction for Online Personality Rights Violations after the judgment ‘Bolagsupplysningen’

This paper analyses the Brussels I bis rule on establishing special jurisdiction for violations of the personality rights on the internet in the light of the recent CJEU’s judgment in Bolagsupplysningen. The existing CJEU’s case law on determining jurisdiction in cases on personality rights established a principle according to which the injured party may commence the proceedings for the entire damage sustained before courts of the Member State in which the publisher’s establishment is and the courts of the Member State in which the injured party’s centre of interest is located. He or she can also sue before courts of every Member State in which the violating content is accessible but only for the portion of damage sustained in that Member State. However, Bolagsupplysningen limited these jurisdictional options. The paper focuses on jurisdictional grounds of injured party’s centre of interest and accessibility criterion underlying the mosaic principle which have been tackled with these new developments