GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Ioannis Charalampopoulos, Daphne Kasimati, Afroditi Kazani and Ioanna Exarchou, Machas & Partners
immunity in a contract. Greek courts would review such waivers carefully to ensure they do not violate any sovereign or any Greek public law principles. 6.3 Foreign Court Judgments Judgments issued in other EU Member States (oth- er than those issued in Denmark) are enforceable in Greece without retrial of the merits of the case. There are certain grounds for the refusal of the recognition of such an EU judgment, such as if the judgment is irreconcilable with an earlier judgment given in another Member State. A judgment by a foreign court can be recognised and enforced in Greece first and foremost if it is stipulated in EU Regulations or International Conventions. Sec- ondly, a foreign judgment against a company may be enforceable in Greece if certain conditions are met; the judgment should be final, not subject to appeal in the foreign jurisdiction and should not violate Greek public policy, and the foreign court had proper juris- diction in accordance with the Greek law. The Greek court will not retry the merits of the case; it will merely examine if the requirements for the recognition of the foreign decision are met. Greece is a contracting party to a significant num- ber of international conventions related to arbitra- tion, most notably the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (ratified by Law 4220/1961, the “NYC”). Traditionally, the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Greece has been primarily governed by the NYC. However, in cases where the Convention did not apply – due to the reciprocity and commerciality res- ervations adopted by Greece – foreign arbitral awards were, until recently, declared enforceable only upon the cumulative satisfaction of the requirements set out in Articles 903, 905 (1), and 906 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure (GCCP), thereby imposing a more onerous standard than that established by the NYC. This landscape has been fundamentally reshaped by Law 5016/2023 on International Commercial Arbitra- tion (the “Greek International Arbitration Law”), which is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law, including its 2006 amendments. The new law expressly incorpo-
rates NYC’s regime and introduces a unified legal framework for the recognition and enforcement of all foreign arbitral awards. Pursuant to Law 5016/2023, a foreign arbitral award is recognised as binding and can be declared enforce- able upon written application to the competent court, in line with international standards. The enactment of this law effectively displaces the previous reliance on the GCCP provisions and establishes a clear, stream- lined, and internationally aligned enforcement mecha- nism. Again, the Greek court will not re-examine the merits of the case but only assess whether the fulfil- ment of the above exists. 6.4 A Foreign Lender’s Ability to Enforce Its Rights A foreign lender’s ability to enforce its rights under a loan or security agreement could be impeded if it were to be ruled that the said enforcement action is inconsistent with the principles of good faith and pro- portionality. The Greek courts could interpret this as an abusive exercise of rights and consequently render the agreement void. The commencement of insolvency proceedings in Greece may influence a lender’s ability to enforce loans, security interests, or guarantees. Once a peti- tion is filed for the declaration of insolvency, the court may take preventive measures to protect the debtor’s estate and prevent actions that could harm its credi- tors. Such measures may include suspending indi- vidual enforcement actions by creditors or prohibiting any transfer of assets from or to the debtor. In this pre-insolvency stage, enforcement actions by unse- cured lenders may be suspended until the insolvency decision is published. In contrast, secured creditors are largely unaffected by preventive measures and may be enforced against the secured assets, except in cases where there is a valid request to sell the business as a going concern and thus realise more value. Finally, creditors secured with financial collateral maintain a privileged position, 7. Bankruptcy and Insolvency 7.1 Impact of Insolvency Processes
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