Airbus loses bid to use French blocking law in Qatar row

Floor injury seen on Qatar Airways’ airbus A350 parked at Qatar airways plane upkeep hangar in Doha, Qatar, June 20, 2022. REUTERS/Imad Creidi//File Photograph

LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) – A UK choose on Friday rejected an try by Airbus (AIR.PA) to invoke a De Gaulle-era legislation limiting the way in which it responds to international courts, as a high-profile dispute with Qatar Airways grew to become mired in a rising debate over cross-border authorized powers.

Qatar Airways is suing France-based Airbus for $1.4 billion over injury to the painted floor and anti-lightning system on A350 jets, saying security may very well be in danger from a design defect. Airbus acknowledges high quality flaws however insists the jets are secure.

Now, the 2 sides should present one another with hundreds of pages of paperwork as their dispute heads in direction of a uncommon London aerospace trial in mid-2023, barring an elusive settlement.

Airbus says it’s prevented from instantly handing over paperwork sought by Qatar Airways by a 1968 legislation that stops French firms from handing over delicate financial particulars to international courts, with no particular mechanism in place.

The planemaker utilized to a UK choose for permission to nominate a particular commissioner chargeable for transmitting the paperwork to Qatar Airways, one thing it had already finished to help UK authorities throughout a bribery investigation.

“Failing to arrange such a conduit would expose Airbus to legal fees in France,” the planemaker mentioned.

“This isn’t one thing completely novel, bizarre or wacky that we’re proposing,” its lawyer Rupert Allen advised a division of the Excessive Court docket in an internet listening to on Friday.

Decide David Waksman, nevertheless, rejected the request, awarding prices to Qatar Airways.

The 1968 legislation – extensively known as the “French blocking statute” – was designed to guard French firms from oppressive international courtroom calls for particularly from the US, with which Paris was locked in an financial Chilly Warfare.

“That in my judgment is one million miles away from what this case is all about,” Decide David Waksman mentioned.

“That is hardly the instance of an unwilling, weak French firm that has now discovered itself having to deal with a extremely intrusive and oppressive type of discovery,” he mentioned.

JURISDICTION DEBATE

He additionally criticised the planemaker for slowness over the request for a particular disclosure mechanism.

The jurisdictional row coincides with a simmering political debate within the UK over the rights of British and international courts following Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Tensions flared once more final month when the European Court docket of Human Rights, which is separate from the EU, blocked Britain’s transfer to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

A minimum of one of many candidates to switch Boris Johnson as UK prime minister has pledged to withdraw from the courtroom.

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, who is just not standing within the Conservative management race, has mentioned Britain will keep within the ECHR however that it’s “authentic to push again”. learn extra

In France, a corruption case that led to a file 3.6 billion euro $3.63 billion) high-quality in opposition to Airbus from Britain, France and the US in 2020 additionally fuelled a debate over the extra-territorial attain of U.S. prosecutors in opposition to French firms.

Airbus mentioned all through the four-year investigation that it was co-operating with all home and international businesses.

Friday’s ruling got here after Qatar Airways urged the choose to invoke the authority of English courts, which either side had chosen to settle any disputes of their jetliner contracts.

“Complying with a international legislation isn’t any defence in opposition to non-compliance” with English courts, Qatar’s lawyer Philip Shepherd mentioned. Airbus pledged its commissioner wouldn’t personally assessment paperwork, however Shepherd doubted he could be a “postbox”.

($1 = 0.9915 euros)

Reporting by Tim Hepher; modifying by Barbara Lewis

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