In a jugdgment dated 13/05/2024 (judgment No. 768/2024), the Thessaloniki Court of Appeal ruled that the Belgian rule on the effect of introducing a lawsuit on prescription was not contrary to Greek public policy. Facts The parties entered into a private agreement for commercial cooperation and the provision of consultancy services. The agreement was concluded […]
A commercial dispute between a Cypriot and a Greek company led to a series of judgments concerning the application of the Brussels Ibis Regulation on matters of enforceability, which demonstrate the problems of mixing EU with domestic enforcement procedures. A recent judgment refused enforcement of a Cypriot decision on the grounds of lacking subjective enforceability, […]
Intersentia has recently published a new book by Michael Stürner (University of Konstanz), titled European Contract Law. This volume provides a comprehensive presentation of European contract law. It analyses the growing body of private law rules on an EU level and their interplay with domestic law and legal methodology. This includes new features in contract […]
An employment dispute between a Greek stewardess and her employer offered the Supreme Court of Greece the opportunity to discuss the interpretation of Articles 20 and 21 of the Brussels I bis Regulation, on jurisdiction over individual employment contracts. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the matter (Ruling No 1453 of 2024) relies heavily on the […]
The Court of First Instance of Mytilene (Greece) ruled on 16 May 2024 on an application filed by the mother of child against the child’s father. Acting on behalf of the child, the mother requested injunctive relief for child support (judgment No 161/2024, published in the Thessaloniki Bar Rewiew ‘Armenopoulos’ 2025, pp. 1497 et seq.) […]
According to Article 12(1)(a) of Regulation 2020/1784 on the service in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters (the Recast Service Regulation), the addressee may refuse service if the document is not written in, or is not accompanied by a translation into, “a language which the addressee understands”. The […]
INTRODUCTION A UK third-party costs order [henceforth: TPCO] is a totally unknown procedural concept in Greece. In the course of exequatur proceedings, the Piraeus first instance court and the Piraeus court of appeal were called to examine the issue for the first time in Greece, both declaring that no obstacles, especially those intertwined with procedural […]
Ioannis Revolidis, Lecturer at the L-Università ta’ Malta (UM), has published an article titled Collective Redress in Environmental Matters – A Private International Law Perspective Through the Lens of the Dieselgate Scandal, which can be downloaded here. The Dieselgate emissions scandal, which surfaced in 2015, implicated several European car manufacturers found to have installed software […]
The Supreme Court of Greece (Areios Pagos) ruled on 22 March 2023 on the validity of a choice of forum agreement concluded between a bank and its clients (Areios Pagos, ruling No. 441/2023). The key issue in the dispute was whether the bank’s clients ought to be characterised as ‘consumers’ for the purposes of the […]
The latest issue of Lex & Forum, the Greek law review on Private International Law, has been published recently. Paris Arvanitakis, the scientific director of the review, has prepared the following editorial: Private International Law is fundamental in resolving environmental claims that cross national borders, offering vital legal mechanisms for determining jurisdiction, applicable law, and […]
The eighteenth annual bibliography of private international law, compiled by Symeon C. Symeonides, Willamette University, is now available. The bibliography lists 124 books and 288 journal articles on private international law or conflict of laws and related fields, such as prescriptive jurisdiction, extraterritoriality, federal-state conflicts, as well as certain aspects of arbitration, the law of foreign […]
While EU harmonization in matters of parenthood is approaching, following the Commission’s proposal of last year [COM (2022) 695 final], national courts are still examining applications for recognition of foreign court decisions in accordance with domestic legislation. Earlier this year, the Areios Pagos, i.e., the Hellenic Supreme Court, was asked to decide whether an Austrian […]
Following the abolition of exequatur by the Brussels I bis Regulation (Article 39), a new model (application for refusal of enforcement, Articles 46-51) has been introduced. So far, case law has been scarce in the vast majority of Member States. Greece was no exception to the rule. A dispute between a Cypriot and a Greek […]
In the context of the Vici project Affordable Access to Justice at Erasmus School of Law (financed by the Dutch Research Council – NWO), the project team has organised a series of seminars titled Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice. The concluding seminar in the series will take place on 22 […]
The Ravenna Campus of the Department of Juridical Sciences of the University of Bologna (Italy) has organised in Ravenna (and online), between 18-23 July 2022, a Summer School on Transnational litigation: between substance and procedure. The program of the School looks at cross-border litigation from a wide perspective, embracing not only civil and commercial matters […]
A web conference regarding the role of the internet and other technologies within the EU and the international legal order will take place on 13 May 2022, organised by the editorial team of Lex & Forum, a quarterly on Private International Law and International Civil and Commercial Litigation. Symeon Symeonides (Willamette University) will chair the […]
A series of online seminars has been in launched in December 2021, organised by the team of the Vici project Affordable Access to Justice at the Erasmus School of Law: the general topic is Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice. The next seminar in the series is scheduled for 20 April 2022 […]
On 5 April 2021, the Greek Supreme Court issued a judgment relating to a dispute between two German companies. The case revolved around the interpretation of Article 14 of the Service Regulation, according to which “Each Member State shall be free to effect service of judicial documents directly by postal services on persons residing in another […]
In a judgment of 9 November 2020, the Greek Supreme Court discussed a highly interesting issue, which is not often dealt with in practice. The question is whether foreign law (English law, in the circumstances) may apply to procedural acts due to take place in the forum (Greece), affecting directly the limitation of the action. Specifically, the […]
The creation of Lex & Forum has coincided with a groundbreaking legal and political development within the European family: the secession of the United Kingdom from the European Union after about 50 years of membership. The disruption of the judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters between the EU and the UK has caused a […]
On 20 July 2021, the University of Milan will host the (on-line) Annual Conference of the EU-funded project Jean Monnet Module on Multilevel, Multiparty and Multisector Cross-Border Litigation in Europe. This year’s topic, Incentives and Challenges to Transnational Access to Justice, will be discussed in the framework of two roundtables concerning, respectively, Third-party Funding in International Dispute Resolution and E-Justice in […]
On 25 June 2021, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom issued a ruling in General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd (Respondent) v State of Libya (Appellant) [2021] UKSC 22 on the right of the claimant to dispense service to a foreign State, by invoking exceptional circumstances. The court ruled that in proceedings to enforce an […]
A webinar titled 1981-2021: 40 Years Since the Accession of the Hellenic Republic to the EU – The Impact on the Domestic Procedural Legal Order will take place on 26 May 2021 at 5 pm CET, organised by the law review Lex & Forum and Sakkoulas Publications. The webinar, which will be held in Greek, will consist […]
For several years, Greek scholars and practitioners had no access to a periodical in Greek specialized in Private International Law and International Civil Litigation. Upon the initiative of Prof. Vrellis, a Private International Law Review [Κοινοδίκιον = Koinodikion] was published biannually between 1995-2003. Since then, conflict of laws issues were hosted in law reviews which […]
In a recent ruling (No 120 of 23 February 2021, unreported) the Court of Appeal of Piraeus was asked to determine whether, for the purposes of exequatur under Regulation No 44/2001 (Brussels I), a Maltese ship mortgage is considered an authentic instrument. The issue had the following practical ramifications. A classification of the mortgage as […]
On 5 March 2021, from 5 to 6.30 p.m. (CET), the European Association of Private International Law will host its third (Virtual) Seminar (see here and here for the previous events in the series). The Seminar will focus on the digitalization aspects of the revised Service of process and Taking of evidence Regulations. The speakers will […]
The Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki ruled on 24 June 2020 that an application by a psychological (non biological) mother to recognize and declare enforceable a UK custody order concerning a child born by the applicant’s partner contravenes Greek public policy (Ruling No. 6175, unreported). Facts The applicant [A] is a woman of Greek […]
For the first time since the entry into force of the 1968 Brussels Convention and the EU Regulations in the field of judicial cooperation in civil matters, the Greek Supreme Court was called recently to examine an application for recognition and enforcement of an English order awarding alimony to a wife, while at the same […]
A set of seven articles on the Project IC2BE have been published in the second issue of the Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft (ZVglRWiss 119 (2020), Heft 2), a German periodical, providing information in the area of comparative law with a focus on international business law. The articles cover a wide array of issues on cross-border […]
The Jean Monnet Chair in European Civil Procedure, hosted by the Madrid-based IE University, is the first Chair entirely devoted to the study and dissemination of the ELI-UNIDROIT Model Rules of European Civil Procedure. The Chair is held by Marco de Benito, Professor of Law at IE University, where he teaches comparative civil procedure and international […]
On 2 December 2020, following a lengthy procedure, the Recast Service Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/1784 of 25 November 2020 on the service in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters) was finally published in the Official Journal of the European Union (the Position of the Council at first reading in view of the adoption […]
A book titled International Commercial Arbitration in the European Union, by Chukwudi Ojiegbe, has recently been published by Edward Elgar. The blurb reads as follows: This illuminating book contributes to knowledge on the impact of Brexit on international commercial arbitration in the EU. Entering the fray at a critical watershed in the EU’s history, Chukwudi […]
The latest edition (October 2020) of the Thessaloniki Bar Review (Armenopoulos) includes a section devoted to the application of the Rome I Regulation in Greece. The judgments reported examined issues regarding the law applicable to insurance and sales contracts, as well as a post-contract choice of law relating to multiple sales contracts. Applicable Law in […]
On 21 May 2020, the Piraeus Court of Appeal ruled that a judgment on a family maintenance matter, issued by the Tribunal of Rotterdam in 2007, did not qualify for recognition in Greece (ruling No 383 of 2020, unreported). The Court reached this conclusion on the basis of Article 34(2) of Regulation 44/2001 (the Brussels I […]
A new commentary on the Brussels I bis Regulation, in Greek, has recently been published. The book is edited by Paris S. Arvanitakis and Evangelos Vassilakakis, and forms part of a series devoted to the ‘Interpretation of European Regulations on Private and Procedural International Law’. The previous volumes in the series cover the Brussels II […]
Serena Forlati (University of Ferrara) and Pietro Franzina (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan) are the editors of a collection of essays titled Universal Civil Jurisdiction – Which Way Forward? which has been just published by Brill. Enabling the victims of international crimes to obtain reparation is crucial to fighting impunity. In Universal Civil Jurisdiction – […]
Situations exist where a judicial document addressed to a person based abroad may be communicated to a lawyer representing that person in the forum State, instead of being served abroad on the addressee himself or herself. This usually applies to service occurring after the act instituting the proceedings has been served on the defendant in […]
Haris Meidanis’ new article on international mediation has just appeared at the current issue (2020/2) of the Journal of Private International Law under the title Enforcement of mediation settlement agreements in the EU and the need for reform. In this article he discusses the current status of EU law on cross-border enforcement of Mediated Settlement […]
Ioannis Revolidis, a lecturer at the University of Malta and a visiting lecturer at the Frederick University Cyprus, has recently published a book in Greek, based on his PhD thesis, on jurisdiction and the Internet. The author has provided the following summary: This monograph, which is the first of its kind to appear in Greek […]
Albert Henke (University of Milan) has been awarded the EU-funded Jean Monnet Module on ‘Multilevel, Mutiparty and Multisector Cross-Border Litigation in Europe’. The three-year teaching and research project will run from 2021 to 2023 and will focus on three main areas: relations and conflicts between national courts, European courts and international tribunals; cross-border collective redress; procedural […]
It is widely known that disputes related to sports are most of the times referred to arbitration. Football is of course in the forefront. Usually cases referred to either the CAS or the FIFA Dispute Boards lead to an award. Not so in the case at hand. As a result, the creditor was left with […]
Practice shows that we’re far away from a perfect world of cooperation between state authorities in the field of cross-border service of process. This post is not about a judgment dealing with the matter (yet). It is what we call a ‘true story’, and serves as a kind of case study, to understand the variety […]
Ilaria Viarengo and Pietro Franzina have edited The EU Regulations on the Property Regimes of International Couples – A Commentary, published by Edward Elgar in its Elgar Commentaries in Private International Law series. The publisher’s abstract reads as follows. This article-by-article Commentary on EU Regulations 2016/1103 and 2016/1104 critically examines the uniform rules adopted by the […]
By a decision of 13 March 2020, the Munich Court of Appeal, having regard to the expected delay in the processing of a request for service in China, allowed a resident of Germany to effect service by publication on a person of known residence in China, after sending an e-mail for information purposes. The Facts The claimant, […]
In a recently reported ruling (No 423/2018, in Chronicles of Private Law, 2019, p. 204), the Greek Supreme Court (Άρειος Πάγος) addressed the thorny issues of choice of forum and choice of law agreements relating to agency and distribution. The judgment basically follows the path paved by the CJEU. However, its analysis is noteworthy, allowing hopes […]
The latest edition of the Brussels Agenda, published by the Joint Brussels Office of the Law Societies, features three interesting contributions concerning the impact of Brexit on Private International Law: Will the UK rely more on private international law in the future?, by Michael Clancy; Cross Border Mediation in a Post Brexit World, by Peter Causton; […]
Anatol Dutta and Wolfgang Wurmnest edited a book on European Private International Law and its ramifications with treaties signed by EU-Member States with third countries. The publication focuses on inheritance matters, i.e. Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on matters of succession. The national reports prepared feature Austria, Belgium, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, France, Germany […]
On 27 February 2020 the Court of Justice rendered its ruling in Corporis (case C-25/19), a case regarding the interpretation of Solvency II Directive and the Service Regulation. The Court held that Article 152(1) of the Directive, read in conjunction with Article 151 of the same text and Recital 8 of the Service Regulation (pursuant to which the Regulation […]
On 21 March 2020 the Fellows of the European Law Institute (ELI) have approved a Report on the Protection of Adults in International Situations. The Report, prepared by Pietro Franzina and Richard Frimston based on the work of a team of academics and professionals, is the outcome of a project launched in 2017. The purpose of the […]
On 29 November 2019, the Council of the European Union adopted a general approach regarding the recast of Regulation 1393/2007 on the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents abroad. On 7 February a new Council document was published, featuring the Annexes of the future Recast Regulation. The new Regulation, which will likely be adopted in the Summer or Autumn […]
Symeon Symeonides posted on SSRN the Annual Survey of American Choice-of-Law Cases for 2019, now in its 33rd year. This is the Thirty-Third Survey of American Choice-of-Law Cases. It was written at the request of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Conflict of Laws. It is intended as a service to fellow teachers […]
Symeon Symeonides compiled a bibliography, available on SSRN, of books and articles in English in the field of private international law published 2019. This bibliography covers private international law or conflict of laws in a broad sense. In particular, it covers judicial or adjudicatory jurisdiction, prescriptive jurisdiction, choice of forum, choice of law, federal-state conflicts, […]
The 38th issue of the open access journal Revista Electrónica de Estudios Internacionales was released in December 2019. It includes four articles, in Spanish (but with a summary in English), on matters of private international law. María Ángeles Sánchez Jiménez wrote on multiple nationality and party autonomy concerning the law governing divorce; Javier Maseda Rodríguez […]
The Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law has published a new volume of The Judges’ Newsletter, a biannual publication aimed to guarantee circulation of information relating to judicial co-operation in the field of international protection of children. This volume’s special focus is on urgent measures of protection as provided for under Article 11 […]
The fourth edition of the IAPL-MPI Summer School, organised by the International Association of Procedural Law and the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg, will be held from 27 to 30 July 2020 in Luxembourg. The School aims to bring together young post-doc researchers dealing with European and comparative procedural law, as well as with other relevant dispute […]
Based on its Implementing Decision of 5 November 2019, on the financing of the Justice Programme, the Commission announced its Work Program for 2020, in line with Regulation (EU) No 1382/2013 establishing a Justice Programme for the period 2014 to 2020. The call contemplates three opportunities for projects in the field of judicial cooperation in civil matters. […]
By a ruling of 12 December 2019 in ML v Aktiva Finants OÜ (case C-433/18), the CJEU clarified the interpretation of Article 43(1) and (3) of Regulation No 44/2001 (Brussels I), concerning the exequatur of foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters. Specifically Article 43(1) provides that the decision on an application for exequatur “may be appealed against by either party”, […]
On 28 November 2019 the European Added Value Unit published a study accompanying the European Parliament’s legislative own-initiative report on Common minimum standards of civil procedure. The summary reads as follows: The European Added Value Assessment (EAVA) estimates whether and to what extent adoption of EU minimum standards of civil procedure could generate European added value. The European […]
By a ruling of 14 October 2019, the Munich Court of Appeal decided that an application for temporary relief against Facebook does not have to be translated into English for the purposes of Articles 5 and 8 of the Service Regulation. A dispute had arisen between a Facebook user living in Germany and the social […]