24First of all, it must be remembered that, according to settled case-law, in order to ensure, as far as possible, that the rights and obligations which derive from Regulation No 44/2001 for the Member States and the persons to whom it applies are equal and uniform, ‘civil and commercial matters’ should not be interpreted as a mere reference to the internal law of one or other of the States concerned. That concept must be regarded as an independent concept to be interpreted by referring, first, to the objectives and scheme of that regulation and, second, to the general principles which stem from the corpus of the national legal systems (see, to that effect, judgments in Apostolides, C‑420/07, EU:C:2009:271, paragraph 41 and the case-law cited; Cartier parfums-lunettes and Axa Corporate Solutions Assurance, C‑1/13, EU:C:2014:109, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited; and Hi Hotel HCF, C‑387/12, EU:C:2014:215, paragraph 24 and the case-law cited).
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