1. Introduction

On 26 February 2025, the Spanish Supreme Court issued the Judgment No. 310/2025 (the “Judgment”), addressing the interpretation of Article 22.3 of the Spanish Organic Law of the Judicial Power (“LOPJ”) concerning international judicial jurisdiction in actions for protection of moral rights of authors. 

Similar to Article 7 (2) of the Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (“Brussels I bis Regulation”), Article 22.3 LOPJ provides that Spanish courts have international jurisdiction "in matters of non-contractual obligations, when the event from which they derive occurred in Spanish territory or the author of the damage and the victim have their common habitual residence in Spain". 

The Judgment clarifies that the criterion established by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in its judgment of 25 October 2011, C-509/09 and C-161/10, eDate (the “eDate decision”) for attributing universal jurisdiction, in respect of all the damage caused, to the courts of the State where the victim's centre of main interests is located applies only to cases involving infringements of moral rights of authors committed via means simultaneously accessible to multiple persons in various jurisdictions (e.g., the Internet) and cannot be extended to infringements committed through means which are accessible only in a limited territory (e.g. a physical exhibition of paintings in a museum).   

2. Background of the case 

The plaintiff, Beth Galí (the “Author”), is an architect who has developed various urban and architectural projects, including the remodelling of Patrick Street and Gran Parade in Cork, in the historic centre of Dublin, and other urban spaces such as Piet Smith in the port of Rotterdam.

On 25 November 1996, the plaintiff granted a worldwide exclusive assignment to Santa & Cole Ediciones de Diseño, S.A. (“Santa & Cole”) of the economic rights over the design of a lamp called “Latina”. Since that date, Santa & Cole has exploited the lamp through its reproduction, manufacture, exhibition and commercialisation.  

In 2005, initial contacts began between Santa & Cole and Ashgal with the purpose of carrying out a comprehensive lighting proposal for Al Waab Avenue in Doha, with the initial project aimed at installing the Latina model on the central platform of the avenue. Ashgal is a state commercial entity with its registered address in Doha whose purpose is to channel all public works of the State of Qatar. 

On 4 May 2006, Santa & Cole discovered that some streetlights identical to the Latina model had been installed in the Waab Avenue without authorization. The parties attempted to negotiate a resolution to the conflict between, but no agreement was reached.

The Author subsequently filed a lawsuit before the Commercial Court of Barcelona against Ashgal claiming infringement of her moral rights (rights of attribution, integrity and disclosure) for installing, without her authorisation, copies of the streetlight on Al Waab Avenue in the city of Doha. 

Both the first instance Court and the Court of Appeal upheld the Author’s claim and confirmed that Commercial Court of Barcelona had jurisdiction by applying the referred criteria used by the CJEU in the eDate decision. In essence, the Court of Appeal considered that the moral rights of authors could be treated in the same way as personality rights (e.g. right to honour) when assessing which Court has jurisdiction, as in both cases it is difficult to determine where the infringement has its effects. The Court of Appeal concluded that Spain was a competent jurisdiction as it was the state in which the creative process of the Latina lamp was carried out and where the moral rights were enforced. 

3. Legal reasoning

The Supreme Court reaches the following conclusions regarding the interpretation of Article 22.3 LOPJ and the determination of international judicial jurisdiction in actions for protection of moral rights of authors:

a) Applicable legal framework

Although the Brussels I bis Regulation is not directly applicable as the defendant has its address in a non-EU Member Sate, the Spanish Supreme Court takes as a reference the CJEU case law interpreting the Brussels I bis Regulation arguing that the rules on international jurisdiction contained in the LOPJ are inspired by the regulation of the Brussels Convention of 1968, whose regulation passed, with few modifications, to the current Brussels I bis Regulation.

Under such circumstances, before interpreting the conclusions of the eDate decision, the Supreme Court makes reference to the following CJEU judgments;  judgment of 3 October 2013, C-170/12, Pinckney, which concluded that the special rules on jurisdiction of Article 7 of the current Brussels I bis Regulation shall be interpreted in a narrow sense and that the concept “place where the harmful event occurred” refers at the same time to the place of materialisation of the damage and to the place of the causal event that originated that damage, so that the action may be exercised, at the plaintiff's choice, before the courts of either of those two places; the judgment of 19 September 1995, C-364/93, Marinari and judgment of 10 June 2004, C-168/02, Kronhofer, which concluded that the concept of “ place where the harmful event occurred” does not include the place where the plaintiff has its patrimony in a case where the plaintiff has suffered a loss in its patrimony due to a damage occurred in a different place. 

b) Interpretation of the eDate decision

The Supreme Court considers that the interpretation made by the Court of Appeal of the eDate decision is not correct because the reason why the CJEU in the eData decision recognised the forum of the victim's centre of main interests was not so much the nature of the rights for which protection was claimed as the ubiquity of the manifestation of damages, given that the violation of personality rights had been produced by publications on the Internet.

Internet publications differ fundamentally from traditional printed media because online content can be instantly accessed by unlimited users worldwide, beyond the publisher's intention or control. As a result, harm caused by infringing content online cannot be confined to a single territory, making it impossible to pinpoint where the damage occurs and justifying jurisdiction where the victim's reputation is most at stake. 

c) Application to the case

In the case, the infringement of the Author's moral rights is not caused by the reproduction and public communication without consent of her work on the Internet; it is caused by a reproduction of the work on a physical medium, specifically some lampposts installed on a public road, and such infringing works have only been communicated to the public in the State of Qatar. For these reasons, the Supreme Court overturns the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

Additionally, the Spanish Supreme Court does not consider moral rights to be fundamental rights. Instead, it classifies them as special property rights under Article 33 of the Spanish Constitution. Had the Court considered moral rights to be fundamental rights, it would have been obliged to accept the jurisdiction of Spanish courts pursuant to Article 52.1.6 of the Spanish Civil Procedure Act, which stipulates that in matters concerning the protection of fundamental rights —such as the right to honour, personal and family privacy, and one’s own image— the competent court shall be that of the plaintiff’s domicile.

4. Key takeaways

This Judgment establishes important guidance for determining international judicial jurisdiction in cross-border intellectual property disputes involving moral rights of authors: when the infringement of moral rights occurs through traditional mediums (such as physical installations) rather than via the Internet, Spanish courts lack international jurisdiction if both the causal event and the manifestation of damage occurred abroad, even if the plaintiff has her centre of main interests in Spain and developed her creative work there.

The full judgment can be accessed through the following link.