Judgement of the Court; 15 February 2007; in Case C-292/05; Irini Lechouritou, Vasilios Karkoulias, Georgios Pavlopoulos, Panagiotis Bratsikas, Dimitrios Sotiropoulos, Georgios Dimopoulos v Dimosio tis Omospondiakis Dimokratias tis Germanias

On a proper construction of the first sentence of the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, by the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of the Hellenic Republic and by the Convention of 26 May 1989 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic, ‘civil matters’ within the meaning of that provision does not cover a legal action brought by natural persons in a Contracting State against another Contracting State for compensation in respect of the loss or damage suffered by the successors of the victims of acts perpetrated by armed forces in the course of warfare in the territory of the first State.