The Supreme Court has dismissed appeals by online travel companies Billigfluege.de GmbH/Ticket Point Reisebüro GmbH and On the Beach Limited, upholding High Court decisions that disputes with Ryanair Limited could be heard in Ireland.
The appeals concerned Ryanair’s claim that the companies accepted a clause in its website terms giving Irish courts exclusive jurisdiction over disputes connected with use of the site. Ryanair said the companies used its website to obtain flight information for their own booking services. The travel companies argued that customers, rather than the companies, used Ryanair’s site and accepted its terms.
In a judgment delivered on 19 February 2015, Charleton J said the Supreme Court found no basis to interfere with the High Court judges’ assessments of the affidavit evidence. The Court held that the findings of jurisdiction were factual evaluations, not exercises of judicial discretion, and that the appellants had not shown an error that made the decisions untenable.
The Court said the Brussels I Regulation generally requires a defendant to be sued in the courts of the state where it is domiciled. An exception can apply where the parties have agreed on another jurisdiction. The Court described the required agreement as a clear consensus, assessed under EU law, and said the ordinary civil standard of proof is the balance of probabilities.
For On the Beach, the High Court had found that click or tick-box acceptance of website terms was a regular practice in the airline and online travel sectors, and that the company was aware of that practice. The Supreme Court said that conclusion was open on the evidence. In the Billigfluege case, it likewise upheld the High Court’s conclusion that the company’s use of Ryanair’s site amounted to assent to its terms for the purpose of jurisdiction.
The ruling was limited to where the disputes may be heard. The Supreme Court expressly made no decision on whether a binding contract was formed, what its terms were, or whether Ryanair’s asserted intellectual property rights were protected. Those matters, along with the substantive claims and related injunction applications, remained for the High Court proceedings. The Court also affirmed the On the Beach decision only insofar as it established a consensus on jurisdiction, not any wider defence based on agency.