Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts must be interpreted as meaning that a national court or tribunal hearing an action for enforcement of an arbitration award which has become final and was made in the absence of the consumer is required, where it has available to it the legal and factual elements necessary for that task, to assess of its own motion whether an arbitration clause in a contract concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer is unfair, in so far as, under national rules of procedure, it can carry out such an assessment in similar actions of a domestic nature. If that is the case, it is for that court or tribunal to establish all the consequences thereby arising under national law, in order to ensure that the consumer is not bound by that clause.

It is incompatible with Regulation No 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters for a court of a Member State to make an order to restrain a person from commencing or continuing proceedings before the courts of another Member State on the ground that such proceedings would be contrary to an arbitration agreement.

If, because of the subject-matter of the dispute, that is, the nature of the rights to be protected in proceedings, such as a claim for damages, those proceedings come within the scope of Regulation No 44/2001, a preliminary issue concerning the applicability of an arbitration agreement, including in particular its validity, also comes within its scope of application.

It follows that the objection of lack of jurisdiction raised on the basis of the existence of an arbitration agreement, including the question of the validity of that agreement, comes within the scope of Regulation No 44/2001 and that it is therefore exclusively for the court to rule on that objection and on its own jurisdiction, pursuant to Articles 1(2)(d) and 5(3) of that regulation.

Accordingly, the use of an anti-suit injunction to prevent a court of a Member State, which normally has jurisdiction to resolve a dispute under Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001, from ruling, in accordance with Article 1(2)(d) of that regulation, on the very applicability of the regulation to the dispute brought before it necessarily amounts to stripping that court of the power to rule on its own jurisdiction under that regulation.

It follows, first, that an anti-suit injunction is contrary to the general principle that every court seised itself determines, under the rules applicable to it, whether it has jurisdiction to resolve the dispute before it. It should be borne in mind in that regard that Regulation No 44/2001, apart from a few limited exceptions, does not authorise the jurisdiction of a court of a Member State to be reviewed by a court in another Member State.

Secondly, in obstructing the court of another Member State in the exercise of the powers conferred on it by Regulation No 44/2001, namely to decide, on the basis of the rules defining the material scope of that regulation, including Article 1(2)(d) thereof, whether that regulation is applicable, such an anti-suit injunction also runs counter to the trust which the Member States accord to one another’s legal systems and judicial institutions and on which the system of jurisdiction under Regulation No 44/2001 is based.

Lastly, if, by means of an anti-suit injunction, the national court were prevented from examining itself the preliminary issue of the validity or the applicability of the arbitration agreement, a party could avoid the proceedings merely by relying on that agreement and the applicant, which considers that the agreement is void, inoperative or incapable of being performed, would thus be barred from access to the court before which it brought proceedings under Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001 and would therefore be deprived of a form of judicial protection to which it is entitled.

This finding is supported by Article II(3) of The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, signed in New York on 10 June 1958, according to which it is the court of a Contracting State, when seised of an action in a matter in respect of which the parties have made an arbitration agreement, that will, at the request of one of the parties, refer the parties to arbitration, unless it finds that the said agreement is null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed.

Council Directive 93/13 on unfair terms in consumer contracts must be interpreted as meaning that a national court seised of an action for annulment of an arbitration award must determine whether the arbitration agreement is void and annul that award where that agreement contains an unfair term, even though the consumer has not pleaded that invalidity in the course of the arbitration proceedings, but only in that of the action for annulment.

1. Where domestic rules of procedure require a national court to grant an application for annulment of an arbitration award where such an application is founded on failure to observe national rules of public policy, it must also grant such an application where it is founded on failure to comply with the prohibition laid down in Article 85 of the Treaty (now Article 81 EC). That provision constitutes a fundamental provision which is essential for the accomplishment of the tasks entrusted to the Community and, in particular, for the functioning of the internal market. Also, Community law requires that questions concerning the interpretation of the prohibition laid down in Article 85 should be open to examination by national courts when they are asked to determine the validity of an arbitration award and that it should be possible for those questions to be referred, if necessary, to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling.

2. Community law does not require a national court to refrain from applying domestic rules of procedure according to which an interim arbitration award which is in the nature of a final award and in respect of which no application for annulment has been made within the prescribed time-limit acquires the force of res judicata and may no longer be called in question by a subsequent arbitration award, even if this is necessary in order to examine, in proceedings for annulment of a subsequent arbitration award, whether an agreement which the interim award held to be valid in law is nevertheless void under Article 85 of the Treaty (now Article 81 EC), where the time-limit prescribed does not render excessively difficult or virtually impossible the exercise of rights conferred by Community law.

A national court which, in a case provided for by law, determines an appeal against an arbitration award must be regarded as a court or tribunal within the meaning of Article 177 of the Treaty, even if under the terms of the arbitration agreement made between the parties that court must give judgment according to what appears fair and reasonable.

1. By excluding arbitration from the scope of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, by virtue of Article 1(4) thereof, on the ground that it was already covered by international conventions, the Contracting Parties intended to exclude arbitration in its entirety, including proceedings brought before national courts.

2. Consequently, the abovementioned provision must be interpreted as meaning that the exclusion provided for therein extends to litigation pending before a national court concerning the appointment of an arbitrator, even if the existence or validity of an arbitration agreement is a preliminary issue in that litigation.

1. An arbitrator who is called upon to decide a dispute between the parties to a contract under a clause inserted in that contract is not to be considered as a “court or tribunal of a member state” within the meaning of Article 177 of the Treaty where the contracting parties are under no obligation, in law or in fact, to refer their disputes to arbitration and where the public authorities in the Member State concerned are not involved in the decision to opt for arbitration and are not called upon to intervene automatically in the proceedings before the arbitrator.

2. If in the course of arbitration resorted to by agreement between the parties questions of community law are raised which the ordinary courts may be called upon to examine either in the context of their collaboration with arbitration tribunals or in the course of a review of an arbitration award, it is for those courts to ascertain whether it is necessary for them to make a reference to the court of justice under Article 177 of the treaty in order to obtain the interpretation or assessment of the validity of provisions of community law which they may need to apply in exercising such functions.