European Union

The referring court asked whether Art 5(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000 of 29 May 2000 on insolvency proceedings was applicable in the context of civil proceedings concerning the existence of a right in rem (in the instant case a security), in circumstances in which the property to which that right referred, such as a sum of money paid into court, was situated in a state which had not yet been a member state of the EU when the insolvency proceedings had been opened in a member state, but which had become one when the action which gave rise to the judicial proceedings had been brought. The Court ruled that Art 5(1) had to be interpreted as meaning that that provision was applicable, in circumstances such as those in the main proceedings, even to insolvency proceedings opened before the accession of the Republic of Hungary to the European Union where, on 1 May 2004, the debtor’s assets on which the