Art. 73 Judgment Regulation (Council Regulation EC 44/2001) provides that the Commission shall present to the EU Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee a Report on the application of the JR. The Commission Report will be based on the Report on the Application of Regulation Brussels I in the Member States, presented by Prof. Hess, Prof. Pfeiffer and Prof. Schlosser.
This later Report (hereinafter Hess, Pfeiffer and Schlosser Report) made a highly interesting proposal by extending the scope of the Brussels Regime to ancillary measures. Consequently, a decision of a civil court appointing an arbitrator, fixing the seat of arbitration, extending time limits or appointing a court expert for the preservation of evidence destined for arbitration proceedings, would be covered by the Judgment Regulation. In the same sense, the Report expressly recognised that the preliminary issue related to the validity of an arbitration clause did not affect the applicability of the Judgment Regulation.
The Hess, Pfeiffer and Schlosser Report also proposes a specific instrument as to how the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards should be addressed. Based on the mutual trust in the court systems of the Member States, this instrument should harmonise the procedure for the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards rendered in a Member State. However, the most interesting proposal concerning this instrument is the exclusive competency of the civil courts where the arbitral award was given: their decision on the enforceability of the arbitral award should be binding and, thus, be recognised in other Member States without any additional formality.