Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 26 September 2013 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Verwaltungsgerichtshof – Austria) – Proceedings brought by ÖBB-Personenverkehr AG
(Case C-509/11) 1
(Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 – Rail passengers’ rights and obligations – Article 17 – Compensation in the event of a delay – Excluded in the event of force majeure – Whether permissible – First subparagraph of Article 30(1) – Powers of the national body responsible for the enforcement of the regulation – Whether it is possible to require the rail carrier to amend its conditions governing passenger compensation)
Language of the case: German
Referring court
Verwaltungsgerichtshof
Parties to the main proceedings
ÖBB-Personenverkehr AG
Intervening parties: Schienen-Control Kommission, Bundesministerin für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie
Re:
Request for a preliminary ruling – Verwaltungsgerichtshof – Interpretation of Article 17 and the first subparagraph of Article 30(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations (OJ 2007 L 315, p. 14) – Conditions governing compensation – Whether exclusion of compensation is permissible in cases of force majeure – Whether the body responsible for the enforcement of that regulation may replace the contractual terms which do not meet the criteria set out in that regulation with terms which are consistent with those criteria
Operative part of the judgment
The first subparagraph of Article 30(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations must be interpreted as meaning that the national body responsible for the enforcement of that regulation may not, in the absence of any national provision to that effect, impose upon a railway undertaking whose compensation terms do not meet the criteria set out at Article 17 of that regulation the specific content of those terms.
Article 17 of Regulation No 1371/2007 must be interpreted as meaning that a railway undertaking is not entitled to include in its general terms and conditions of carriage a clause under which it is exempt from its obligation to pay compensation in the event of a delay where the delay is attributable to force majeure or to one of the reasons set out at Article 32(2) of the Uniform Rules concerning the Contract for International Carriage of Passengers and Luggage by Rail of the Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail of 9 May 1980, as amended by the Vilnius Protocol of 3 June 1999.
________________________1 OJ C 13, 14.1.2012.