GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: John Kyriakides, Vicky Kriketou, Angeliki Stryftou and Konstantinos Lygkonis, Kyriakides Georgopoulos Law Firm
8. Settlement 8.1 Court Approval
9. Damages and Judgment 9.1 Awards Available to the Successful Litigant The forms of award available to a successful litigant may vary depending on the nature of the claim. Under Greek civil procedure, three main types of judg- ments are recognised: • performance judgment, whereby the court orders the defendant to perform, omit or tolerate a spe- cific act; • constitutive judgment, through which the court creates, modifies or terminates a legal relationship; and • declaratory judgment, by which the court recognis- es the existence (or non-existence) of a legal right or relationship. 9.2 Rules Regarding Damages Under the principles of the Civil Code, the court is required to award only the actual loss proven by the claimant. Greek law does not recognise punitive damages, and there are no statutory rules limiting the maximum amount of damages that may be awarded. In cases of non-pecuniary loss or moral harm, the court must grant reasonable compensation, consid- ering the principle of proportionality and the circum- stances of each case. 9.3 Pre-Judgment and Post-Judgment Interest Pre-judgment interest concerns the period before a court judgment is issued and compensates the credi- tor for the time during which payment has been with- held. An obligation to pay interest may arise either from a contract (contractual interest) or directly under statutory provisions (statutory interest), and is calcu- lated from the time the claim arises until full payment. The most common form of statutory interest is default interest, which accrues when the debtor delays pay- ment of a monetary obligation. Even if the debtor is not in default, once the lawsuit is served, they become liable to pay legal (litigation)
Parties are generally free to dispose of their civil claims, which may be resolved through settlement, subject to limited exceptions. A settlement may be concluded before the court where the case is pending or before a notary public. A settlement concluded outside the pending proceedings, or without compliance with the formalities of Article 293 of the Code of Civil Proce- dure, constitutes an out-of-court settlement, which does not automatically terminate the proceedings. If one of the parties submits an out-of-court settlement before the court where the case is pending, the court must nevertheless issue a judgment reflecting and regulating the parties’ legal relationship in accordance with the terms of the settlement. 8.2 Settlement of Lawsuits and Confidentiality The terms of a settlement may remain confidential by mutual agreement of the parties. 8.3 Enforcement of Settlement Agreements Settlement Agreements concluded before the court are recorded in the official court minutes, which con- stitute an enforceable judicial title. In the case of out-of-court settlements, the parties may, if they wish to secure enforceability, submit their agreement to the court for approval so that it acquires executory force. 8.4 Setting Aside Settlement Agreements A court settlement may be set aside only if one of the parties considers that it suffers from a substantive or procedural defect. In such a case, the party alleg- ing the invalidity of the settlement schedules a new hearing and brings the case back before the court to resume the proceedings from the point at which they were discontinued. The validity of the court settlement is then examined incidentally within the resumed pro- ceedings.
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