Jurisdiction and Authors’ Moral Rights in the Spanish “Farola Latina” Case

In February 2025, the Spanish Supreme Court brought lengthy judicial proceedings to an end concerning a claim for infringement of authors’ moral rights in relation to a streetlamp known as the Farola Latina.

The case had already attracted significant interest in 2020, when the Barcelona Court of Appeal addressed the originality of the lamp and found that it qualified for copyright protection as a “work”, and not merely as a design. The case was subsequently brought before the Spanish Supreme Court. In its judgment of 22 February 2025 (ECLI:ES:TS:2025:735), the Court set aside the entire proceedings on the ground that the Spanish courts lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate a claim concerning an infringement that had occurred in Qatar. Interestingly, both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court engaged extensively with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on jurisdiction but arrived at different interpretations.

Factual background

The claimant is an architect who designed the Latina streetlamp, which was commissioned by the company Santa & Cole Ediciones de Diseño, SA (“Santa & Cole”). Santa & Cole has commercially exploited the lamp internationally through its reproduction, manufacture, exhibition and sale.

ASHGAL is a Qatari public entity responsible for managing public works on behalf of the State of Qatar. Santa & Cole entered into negotiations with ASHGAL concerning the lighting of Al Waab Avenue in Doha through the installation of Latina streetlamps and presented the lamp designs to ASHGAL. The negotiations ultimately failed, and Santa & Cole later became aware that essentially identical streetlamps had been installed in Doha without its authorisation. Attempts to reach an amicable settlement were unsuccessful.

The architect brought an action in Barcelona, her place of domicile, against ASHGAL and the State of Qatar in 2012, claiming EUR 100,000 in damages for infringement of her moral rights of attribution, disclosure and integrity. She did not assert any economic rights, as these had been assigned to Santa & Cole. The Barcelona Commercial Court initially held that it lacked jurisdiction. However, that decision was reversed by an interlocutory decision of the Court of Appeal of 12 March 2015 (ECLI:ES:APB:2015:1256A), which affirmed the jurisdiction of the Spanish courts and instructed the Commercial Court to proceed with the case.

The Commercial Court eventually ruled on the merits in 2018. It found an infringement of the moral rights of disclosure, integrity and attribution, and awarded damages in the amount of EUR 50,000. The judgment was appealed to the Court of Appeal, which delivered its ruling on 6 March 2020 (ECLI:ES:APB:2020:2644). It dismissed the action against the State of Qatar but upheld ASHGAL’s liability for infringement of the rights of integrity and attribution (though not the right of disclosure), and increased the compensation to EUR 100,000.

In that judgment, the Court of Appeal concluded that the design of the streetlamp was sufficiently original to qualify for copyright protection, in addition to any protection it might enjoy as a design, although two of the five judges dissented. In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on the Cofemel judgment (C-683/17), which had been handed down shortly before by the CJEU. As regards jurisdiction, the Court of Appeal referred back to the reasoning already set out in its 2015 interlocutory decision.

Applying eDate to authors’ moral rights

The relevant domestic rule governing jurisdiction is Article 22(3) of the Organic Law on the Judiciary (now Article 22 quinquies(b)), which provides that, in matters relating to non-contractual obligations, Spanish courts have jurisdiction “where the event giving rise to the damage occurred in Spanish territory”. This provision is equivalent to Article 5(3) of the Brussels I Regulation (now Article 7(2) of the Brussels I bis Regulation), which confers jurisdiction on “the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur”.

In its 2015 interlocutory decision, the Court of Appeal held that, even though the defendants were not domiciled in an EU Member State, it was appropriate to draw on the interpretative guidance developed by the CJEU in relation to Article 5(3) of the Brussels I Regulation. It argued that the interpretative difficulties raised by the domestic provision were essentially the same, and in any event the provision to be applied would remain one of Spanish law. At the same time, the court cautioned that, since the jurisdictional dispute did not arise between EU Member States, not all the principles underlying the CJEU’s case law would necessarily be transferable to the case at hand.

The Court of Appeal recalled that the “place where the harmful event occurred or may occur” may correspond either to the place where the harmful conduct was committed or to the place where its effects materialise, noting that the latter varies depending on the nature of the allegedly infringed right. In this respect, the court noted that, in cases of infringements committed via the internet, the CJEU has drawn a distinction between: (i) infringements of personality rights, in respect of which the victim may bring an action before the courts of the place where his or her centre of interests is located and claim compensation for the entirety of the damage suffered (eDate Advertising, C-509/09 and C-161/10); and (ii) infringements of intellectual property rights: either those protected only in the country in which they are registered, such as national trade marks, where jurisdiction lies with the courts of the place of registration and with those of the defendant’s establishment (Wintersteiger, C-523/10), or copyright infringements, where the court seised by the author will have jurisdiction, but only in respect of the damage caused within the territory of the Member State in which that court is situated (Pinckney, C-170/12, para. 47).

The Court of Appeal accepted the claimant’s argument that authors’ moral rights may be assimilated to personality rights, while acknowledging that they cannot be fully equated with them. On the basis of this “assimilation”, the court applied the criteria developed in eDate Advertising and held that the courts of the claimant’s centre of interests should have full jurisdiction. It considered that the place where the damage materialised could be located at the claimant’s domicile, since (i) the infringed rights enjoy protection there, and (ii) the creative process giving rise to the work had taken place there.

Supreme Court denies jurisdiction

The judgment of the Court of Appeal was challenged before the Spanish Supreme Court, where the issue of jurisdiction once again came to the fore. In its judgment of 22 February 2025, the Supreme Court accepted that the case law of the CJEU interpreting Article 5(3) of the Brussels I Regulation constitutes a useful interpretative reference for the Spanish legal provision. However, it considered that the Court of Appeal had misapplied that case law.

According to the Supreme Court, the reason why the CJEU, starting with its judgment in eDate Advertising of 25 October 2011, recognised jurisdiction at the place of the victim’s centre of interests under Article 5(3) of the Brussels I Regulation was not the nature of the rights allegedly infringed (personality rights), but rather the fact that the infringement had been committed through publications on the internet and, consequently, the ubiquitous nature of the harmful content, which may be accessed from anywhere in the world. It was for this reason that the courts of the place of the victim’s centre of interests were granted jurisdiction to hear claims relating to the entirety of the damage suffered. That centre of interests will normally — though not always, the Court noted referring to Bolagsupplysningen, C-194/16 — coincide with the claimant’s domicile, since that is where harm to reputation is most keenly felt.

In this regard, the Supreme Court referred to the Shevill judgment (C-68/93) to recall that, where the harmful content was not published on the internet but in a printed magazine, the CJEU applied the criterion of the forum loci delicti commissi: jurisdiction lies with the courts of the place where the harmful event occurred, as well as with the courts of the places where the damage materialised, the latter having jurisdiction only in respect of the damage suffered within their respective territories.

In the Farola Latina case, the infringement of the author’s moral rights did not arise from the reproduction or communication of the work on the internet, but from its reproduction in a traditional medium, namely the streetlamps installed in a public space, where the public communication of the work also took place. Accordingly, both the causal event and the materialisation of the damage occurred outside Spain. The fact that the claimant’s main centre of interests, and the place where her creative activity was carried out, were in Spain was not sufficient, in the Supreme Court’s view, to confer jurisdiction on the Spanish courts.

While the Supreme Court’s approach may better reflect the CJEU’s case law, it remains to be seen whether this criterion will endure, given that the ubiquity of the internet means that many “traditional” infringements will also have an online dimension.