Judgment_paragraph 58 · Herbert Weber v Universal Ogden Services Ltd (C-37/00)

58In light of all of the foregoing considerations, the answer to the second question must be that Article 5(1) of the Brussels Convention must be interpreted as meaning that where an employee performs the obligations arising under his contract of employment in several Contracting States the place where he habitually works, within the meaning of that provision, is the place where, or from which, taking account of all the circumstances of the case, he in fact performs the essential part of his duties vis-à-vis his employer.In the case of a contract of employment under which an employee performs for his employer the same activities in more than one Contracting State, it is necessary, in principle, to take account of the whole of the duration of the employment relationship in order to identify the place where the employee habitually works, within the meaning of Article 5(1).Failing other criteria, that will be the place where the employee has worked the longest.It will only be otherwise if, in light of the facts of the case, the subject-matter of the dispute is more closely connected with a different place of work, which would, in that case, be the relevant place for the purposes of applying Article 5(1) of the Brussels Convention.In the event that the criteria laid down by the Court of Justice do not enable the national court to identify the habitual place of work, as referred to in Article 5(1) of the Brussels Convention, the employee will have the choice of suing his employer either in the courts for the place where the business which engaged him is situated, or in the courts of the Contracting State in whose territory the employer is domiciled.