Plane tickets, music, office supplies–you name it, you can buy it on the web. In Europe and throughout the world, consumers frequently purchase goods and services based outside their home countries. But when a consumer or a company from different countries are unhappy with an online transaction and decide to sue, determining which litigant gets home court advantage may be confusing.
Until recently, Europe has relied on a vague section of the 2001 Brussels I Regulation to help figure it out. The law says a business has to sue a consumer in the consumer’s home country if the business “directs its activities [toward] that consumer’s state.” No one was sure, however, if merely operating a website constituted sufficient direction to compel jurisdiction in the consumer’s home country.
