Language of document :

Request for a preliminary ruling from the Sąd Apelacyjny w Warszawie (Poland) lodged on 30 October 2019 — SM v Mittelbayerischer Verlag KG

(Case C-800/19)

Language of the case: Polish

Referring court

Sąd Apelacyjny w Warszawie

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: SM

Defendant: Mittelbayerischer Verlag KG

Questions referred

Should Article 7(2) of 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 1 be interpreted as meaning that jurisdiction based on the centre-of-interests connecting factor is applicable to an action brought by a natural person for the protection of his personality rights in a case where the online publication cited as infringing those rights does n contain information relating directly or indirectly to that particular natural person, but contains, rather, information or statements suggesting reprehensible actions by the community to which the applicant belongs (in the circumstances of the case at hand: his nation), which the applicant regards as amounting to an infringement of his personality rights?

In a case concerning the protection of material and non-material personality rights against online infringement, is it necessary, when assessing the grounds of jurisdiction set out in Article 7(2) of Regulation [[…] No 1215/2012 […]], that is to say, when assessing whether a national court is the court for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur, to take account of circumstances such as:

- the public to whom the website on which the infringement occurred is principally addressed;

- the language of the website and in which the publication in question is written;

- the period during which the online information in question remained accessible to the public;

- the individual circumstances of the applicant, such as the applicant’s wartime experiences and his current social activism, which are invoked in the present case as justification for the applicant’s special right to oppose, by way of judicial proceedings, the dissemination of allegations made against the community to which the applicant belongs?

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1 OJ 2012 L 351, p. 1.