Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Cour de cassation (France) lodged on 20 November 2006 — Glaxosmithkline et Laboratoires Glaxosmithkline v Jean-Pierre Rouard

(Case C-462/06)

(2006/C 326/92)

Language of the case: French

Referring court

Cour de cassation

Parties to the main proceedings

Appellants: Glaxosmithkline et Laboratoires Glaxosmithkline

Respondent: Jean-Pierre Rouard

Question referred

Does the rule of special jurisdiction stated in Article 6(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (1), by virtue of which a person domiciled in a Member State may be sued ‘where he is one of a number of defendants, in the courts for the place where any of them is domiciled, provided the claims are so closely connected that it is expedient to hear and determine them together to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments resulting from separate proceedings’, apply to proceedings brought by an employee before a court of a Member State against two companies belonging to the same group, one of which, being the one which engaged that employee for the group and refused to re-employ him, is domiciled in that Member State and the other, for which the employee last worked in non-Member States and which dismissed him, in another Member State, when that applicant relies on a clause in the employment contract to claim that the two defendants were his co-employers from whom he claims compensation for his dismissal or does the rule in Article 18(1) of the regulation, by virtue of which, in matters relating to individual contracts of employment, jurisdiction is to be determined by Section 5 of Chapter II, exclude the application of Article 6(1), so that each of the two companies must be sued before the courts of the Member State where it is domiciled?

(1)   OJ 2001 L 12, p. 1.