Jurisdiction over Defences and Connected Claims

There is a case note in the latest issue of the Lloyd's Maritime & Commercial Law Quarterly (L.M.C.L.Q. 2006, 4(Nov), 447-452) by Adrian Briggs (Oxford University) on "Jurisdiction over Defences and Connected Claims", which:

Criticises the interpretation by the European Court of Justice of the provisions of Council Regulation 44/2001 allowing similar cases to be heard together to avoid irreconcilable differences in precedent, where they refused to hear claims together in the cases of Gesellschaft fur Antriebstechnik mbH & Co KG (GAT) v Lamellen und Kupplungsbau Beteiligungs KG (LuK) (C-4/03) and Roche Nederland BV v Primus (C-539/03).