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Is should be noted that it is not appropriate to determine the obligation by regarding the highest money claim as the principle one. Further, the principle obligation is the most important obligation. Commercial importance should carry greater weight than formal legal distinctions. Both of the qualitative factors and quantative factors should not be ignored.
II-III. THE EQUAL OBLIGATION AND THE Leathertex
The Shenavai criterion works in the case where the obligations relied on by the plaintiff are more than one and there is a principle obligation among them. If, however, the obligations supporting to the action of the plaintiff are of equal standing and the places of performance of those obligations are in two different jurisdictions, then both the De Bloos and the Shenavai could not give the answer to determine the jurisdiction. The situation of equal obligation can be seen in the case Leathertex .
Bodetex, whose registered office is in Belgium, is a commercial agent for Leathertex in the Belgian and Netherlands markets under a long-term arrangement. Leathertex’s registered office is in Italy. After asking Leathertex to no avail for payment of commission which it considered to be owing to it, Bodetex regarded its commercial agency agreement as terminated and, took formal note of the termination and demanded from Leathertex payment of arrears of commission and compensation in lieu of notice by letter. Since Leathertex did not reply to that letter, Bodetex sued it for payment in Belgium.
There are two separate obligations formed the basis of the action. It held that the first, namely the obligation to give a reasonable period of notice on termination of a commercial agency agreement and, in the event of failure to give such notice, to pay compensation in lieu, was to be performed in Belgium, whereas the second, namely the obligation to pay commission, was to be performed in Italy under the principle that debts are payable where the debtor is resident. Both these two obligations could be regard as the principle obligation. The problem is which court should have the jurisdiction and whether or not this court could hear the whole of action founded on these two equal obligations. To solve this problem, the Court said in the judgment that the same court does not therefore have jurisdiction to hear the whole of an action founded on two obligations of equal rank arising from the same contract when, according to the conflict rules of the State where that court is situated, one of those obligations is to be performed in that State and the other in another Contracting State. This means that neither of the courts have the jurisdiction to hear the whole dispute and the plaintiff has to sue the defendant separately corresponding to each obligation. This might not be a good way to solve the problem because this will bring a very inconvenience to the plaintiff and on the other hand, it is difficult to separate the whole dispute in parts to hear for the court. Thus, the Court remind the plaintiff if there are difficulties in raising two separate actions in different courts, it still has the option to bring his entire claim before the courts for the place where the defendant is domiciled according to the Article 2 of the Brussels Convention.
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