EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Muhammad Ussama and Adam El Shalakany, Shalakany Law Office
For instance, the Egyptian Civil Code requires a credi- tor to serve a notice on the debtor of the debt and of the creditor’s intention to pursue a claim in front of the appropriate forum. However, failure to abide by such a requirement does not lead to the inadmissibility of the case. It rather leads to certain consequences, such as the inability to claim interest except from the date on which the claim is properly filed before the relevant forum. Another example can be found in the law regulating the State Council (ie, the administrative courts). In certain cases, this law requires the party intending to pursue a dispute before administrative courts to first file a petition either to the authority that issued the relevant decree or to a higher administrative authority. The intended purpose is to reduce administrative dis- putes that make it to court by allowing administrative authorities the opportunity to swiftly act in a manner that leads to the conclusion of the dispute. However, in practice, this pre-action requirement only leads to some delay as it is rare in practice that petitions lead to any positive resolution of administrative disputes. 2.4 Stages of Court Proceedings The main stages of court proceedings in Egypt are first instance, appeal and cassation stages. First instance and appeal proceedings are to a large extent similar in terms of the time that is exhausted until a ruling is issued. This is simply because appeals in Egypt lead to de novo proceedings and, hence, disputing parties get a chance to re-argue their respective positions, as well as to raise new arguments and/or submit new evidence. In general, first instance and appeal pro- ceedings can each take anywhere between six and 14 months in matters that do not require the involve- ment of court-appointed experts. In technically heavy matters that require the appointment of experts by court, proceedings in each of the first instance and appeal levels could take anywhere between 16 and 24 months. The cassation stage is the last stage available to dis- puting parties and stage is limited to arguing issues of law; hence, the disputing parties are not free to re-argue issues of fact and evidence. To succeed, the challenging party must establish that the challenged ruling has erred in the application of the law. To do
so, the challenging party can cite facts and evidence only to the extent necessary to formulate the error-in- application-of-law argument(s). Cassation challenges could take anywhere between four and 24 months for the issuance of a ruling on the merits. This wide window of time makes it less attractive for parties to pursue cassation challenges unless there is a strong incentive for doing so, especially considering that the filing of a cassation challenge does not automatically lead to the suspension of the enforcement of the chal- In Egypt, court proceedings are, pursuant to the gen- eral norms, public. However, Egyptian law allows Egyptian courts to exercise discretionary power in deciding whether to deviate from the general norm and to rather opt for closed, confidential hearings. In practice, courts do not opt for closed, confidential hearings unless some serious considerations justify such a decision. 2.6 Interim Relief Interim relief is available for disputing parties fighting a case in front of Egyptian courts. There is no exhaustive list of interim measures/relief that could be granted by courts. Instead, Egyptian law provides for: lenged appeal ruling. 2.5 Confidentiality • the principle that courts could grant interim relief that aims at, for example, maintaining the status quo, protecting evidence; and • examples, and not an exhaustive list, of interim relief that could be granted by Egyptian courts. The authors find the above approach to be a positive, practical one as it allows courts in Egypt to remain open to considering applications for interim relief, the circumstances surrounding the application, and whether, if new, the sought-after interim relief is justi- fied. While commonly sought, interim relief is rarely granted by Egyptian courts and this forms a real, consider- able disadvantage to resorting to Egyptian courts, as parties, especially commercial ones, are often strate- gic and wish to secure some sort of interim relief to occupy some ground and/or create an incentive for the other party to compromise and settle.
197 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook