The High Court has refused Romanian online travel agent SC Vola.ro SRL’s motion to contest Irish jurisdiction over Ryanair DAC’s civil action, finding that the parties’ dispute falls within an Irish jurisdiction clause on Ryanair’s website terms.
The ruling was made at an interlocutory stage. Justice Ní Raifeartaigh stressed that the court was deciding jurisdiction, not whether Vola had committed the alleged wrongs. Ryanair claims Vola used flight information from its website to resell and book flights at higher prices, alleging breach of contract, intellectual property violations and other wrongs. Vola denies scraping Ryanair’s website and said it obtained data through third parties and distribution systems.
On the evidence for the motion, the judge found on the balance of probabilities that Vola did not typically make Ryanair bookings through third parties. Technical records from a test booking supported Ryanair’s position that Vola’s website interacted with Ryanair’s site. The court also noted that Vola had not produced agreements with the third-party providers it relied on, even in redacted form.
Vola argued that users could proceed through Ryanair’s booking process without manually ticking a box beside the terms. The judge found that the prominent “Let’s Go” button was accompanied by wording stating that clicking it meant agreement to the website terms, which were accessible through a hyperlink. She held that this amounted to click-wrapping and that the jurisdiction agreement met Article 25(1)(c) of the EU jurisdiction Regulation, as a form used in international trade or commerce.
The court reached a different conclusion under Article 25(1)(a): it said the interaction might involve an automatic tick, or no tick during a temporary technical issue, and clicking the button was conduct rather than a written record of agreement. The court therefore found that this route did not establish an agreement in writing or evidenced in writing.
It also held that Irish courts had jurisdiction under Article 7(1), relating to contractual obligations. The judge identified the relevant obligation as using Ryanair’s website and extracting data only for private, non-commercial purposes. She considered that any breach would occur where the data was extracted from Ryanair’s website, which the evidence placed in Ireland, and departed from the reasoning on that issue in an earlier High Court decision.
The judge did not decide whether Ireland was a place where the alleged harmful events occurred for the purposes of Article 7(2), saying the parties’ arguments were inadequate. She proposed to refuse Vola’s motion. The judgment does not determine the substantive claims.