DENMARK Law and Practice Contributed by: Erik Kjær-Hansen, Josephine Alsing and Victoria Krebs Dissing, Gorrissen Federspiel
According to Section 168 of the Administration of Jus - tice Act, if a person is called as a witness, the person generally has a duty to appear and testify in court. As a main rule, a witness must give its statement orally before the court. The witness is initially questioned by the party who called the witness to testify. The legal counsel of both parties is, however, permitted to pose questions to the witness. If a witness summoned to testify before the court fails to appear, the witness may be ordered to pay a fixed penalty. In rare instances, a witness may be placed in detention until the witness can be questioned in court. 7.2 Expert Witness Role and Procedure In civil cases (including cases regarding competition law infringements), a party may request an expert opinion in accordance with the rules in Chapter 19 of the Danish Administration of Justice Act. The request should be submitted as early as possible in the pro - ceedings. The request must state the framework for the expert’s opinion (see Section 196 (2) of the Administration of Justice Act). This includes information on the subject and purpose of the expert opinion. After an expert’s opinion has been requested by one party, the other party must be given the opportunity to comment on the request before the court decides whether to grant it. In practice, the court generally accepts a request for an expert’s opinion. If the court decides that an expert’s opinion may be obtained, the requesting party must submit its ques - tions to the court if the questions were not included in the initial request (see Section 197 of the Administra - tion of Justice Act). The opposing party is also allowed to submit its own questions to the court. As a general rule, the parties do not have to agree on which questions to ask or how to phrase the ques - tions. However, the parties may dispute the wording of the questions and the court can also reject questions that are deemed irrelevant. In practice, the court does not generally interfere unless the parties disagree about, for example, the relevance of the questions.
The court will then proceed to appoint one or more experts. Depending on the nature of the case and the questions to be answered, the court may find it appro - priate to appoint multiple experts to address the same questions (see Section 198 (1) of the Administration of Justice Act). The expert will then have to answer the questions in writing based on an inspection of the relevant object (if relevant) and/or the exhibits submitted by the parties in the proceedings. The expert must submit its report to the court. Upon request by one of the parties, the expert can also be summoned as a witness at the oral hearing. In Denmark, expert opinions are generally given sig - nificant evidential weight by the courts. The parties are permitted to submit statements on technical, financial, or similar issues that were obtained from experts prior to the commencement of the proceeding as evidence. These statements may be admitted as evidence unless the content of the statement, the circumstances of its creation or other circumstances provide grounds to deviate. However, the courts are not obliged to take such expert evi - dence into account. If a party has submitted such a statement, the other party may submit a similar state - ment under the same conditions, even if it was not possible to obtain such a statement until after the proceedings were instituted. After the proceedings have been commenced, the court may – at the joint request of the parties – author - ise the parties, in addition to or instead of obtaining an expert opinion by a court-appointed expert, to sub - mit statements obtained by each party from experts on specific matters of a technical, financial or similar nature. The court’s authorisation shall also cover the proceedings in the appeal instance.
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