Originally from Enforcement of Money Judgments

Preview Page

I. PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARD ENFORCEMENT OF FOREIGN MONEY JUDGMENTS

A. Describe the receptiveness of your government (including courts) toward enforcement of foreign money judgments. 

Foreign enforceable instruments (whether money judgments, notarial deeds, arbitration decisions etc.) are granted by the Greek Law the same power as the domestic ones. Greek Civil Procedure Code (“CPC”), which has been implemented since some decades, explicitly includes in the group of enforceable instruments the foreign ones under the condition that they have been declared enforceable as per Greek law (article 904 para. 2 section f). 

As soon as a foreign money judgment is declared enforceable by the competent Greek courts, then it can be used to initiate the enforcement procedure in Greece. There is no difference in the enforcement procedure (including any party’s rights, remedies etc.) with regards to whether it is based on a foreign or a Greek money judgment. They are treated the same way by the Greek authorities (courts and governmental authorities). 

 A foreign money judgment is declared enforceable in Greece through a quite easy procedure set by the CPC under the basic prerequisite that it is enforceable under the laws of the country where it was issued; however, no res judicata is needed to be produced by the foreign money judgment. The rest conditions are analyzed hereinbelow. It should be underlined that the Greek court shall not revise the case or change, interpret or otherwise affect the contents of the foreign money judgment; it is restricted to rendering (or not) the money judgment enforceable in Greece. 

For the sake of completeness hereof reference is made to the adjacent European framework regulating specific judicial instruments. More specifically, in order to overcome the incompatibility or complexity of legal and administrative systems in the EU member states, the European Commission has made steps towards the reduction of the intermediate measures required for pursuing claims within the area of the member states, such as, inter alia, the European enforcement order for uncontested claims (Regulation EC 805/2004), the European order for payment procedure (Regulation EC 1896/2006) and the European small claims procedure (Regulation EC 861/2007). The said Regulations do not fall under the scope of the present article.