EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Amr A. Abbas, Ahmed Abdel Hakeem, Khaled Abou El Wafa and Adham Ahmed Saied, Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy
must inform the relevant banks of their debt and the intended attachment via a document procured from a court bailiff. The applicant must then submit an appli - cation to the competent judicial authority to obtain an order obliging the banks to disclose the financial position of the defendant. The banks must disclose the financial position of the defendant within 15 days of receipt of the document from the court bailiff and the disclosure order. The banks cannot then pay the amounts under their cus - tody to the defendant. COVID-19 It should be noted that the COVID-19 outbreak led the government to temporarily close and suspend the operation of the Real Estate Register’s Office to curb the spread of the virus. This office has since resumed its operation with a limited capacity. On 29 June 2020, the prime minister issued Decree No 1295 of 2020, stating that the period of lock - down – from 17 March until 27 June 2020 – would be treated as a suspension period for all limitation periods, including those pertaining to enforcement proceedings. As such, the non-commencement of enforcement proceedings within that timeframe does not impact any limitation periods related to enforce - ment proceedings. Recently, the Court of Cassation invoked the above-mentioned decision to justify the suspension of procedural periods regulating the con - testation of judgments. 2.5 Challenging Enforcement of Domestic Judgments The Civil and Commercial Procedures Law No 13 of 1968 includes the legal options available for the defendant to challenge the enforcement of domestic judgments. These options include: • filing an appeal before the highest courts, such as the Court of Cassation; • seeking the cancellation of the judgment; and • a stay of enforcement until the final decision on merits is rendered by the court. Additionally, in order to ensure a balance between the creditor’s right to obtain compulsory enforcement and
the debtor’s right to avoid invalid enforcement, Egyp - tian law regulates the initiation of certain lawsuits to: • suspend the enforcement automatically; or • grant the competent judge the discretion to sus - pend the enforcement. Egyptian law further regulates the legal requirements and procedures for the initiation of these lawsuits. By way of example, the defendant can challenge the enforcement if the creditor’s right is extinguished for any reason. The defendant can also challenge the enforcement if the applicant is seeking enforcement against an asset that cannot be subject to enforce - ment or attachment. This includes property owned by the state or public juridical persons and allocated for a public purpose, as well as any amount more than a quarter of a person’s salary. Another option is to file a contestation against the enforcement of the judgment. The first contestation automatically suspends the enforcement of the judg - ment until the court’s determination on the merits of the contestation itself. 2.6 Unenforceable Domestic Judgments Any judgment that does not impose an obligation on its parties cannot be subject to enforcement. By way of example, a declaratory judgment cannot be sub - ject to enforcement. In addition, the judgment should be final and not subject to an appeal (other than a challenge before the Court of Cassation), unless it is issued in a summary matter or accompanied by an expeditious execution. 2.7 Register of Domestic Judgments There is no central register that includes all judgments rendered by the Egyptian courts. However, each court has a documentary record of all the judgments that it has issued. This record only includes the parties’ names, the number of judicial proceedings, and the date of the judgment. The Ministry of Justice is currently preparing docu - mentary records for all judgments issued by the Egyp - tian courts.
137 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook