GERMANY Law and Practice Contributed by: Christian Strasser, Thomas Wambach and Yannick Greimann, HEUKING
• the debtor has not satisfied the creditor′s claim in its entirety within one month of submitting the list of assets and has not agreed upon instalment pay - ments under Section 802b of the ZPO. Pursuant to Section 882b Subsections 2 and 3 of the ZPO, the debtor′s list contains the following informa - tion: • personal data of the debtor: (a) in the case of natural persons, surname, first name, date of birth, place of birth, place of resi - dence; (b) in the case of legal persons, the company name, registered office and the register sheet in the commercial register; • the legal grounds of the outstanding claims, the file number, and in the case of civil enforcement, the court, in the case of administrative enforcement, the enforcement authority; and • the date of the entry and the grounds on which the entry was made. The debtors register is accessible to a creditor in enforcement proceedings. Pursuant to Section 882f of the ZPO, anyone who demonstrates that they require the information for one of the permissible purposes regulated in Section 882f may request information from the register. Some of this information is also open to rating agencies and directly impacts the debtor’s creditworthiness. A minor fee of EUR4.50 is payable for each data set retrieved. The fee must also be paid if no entries regarding the requested debtor are found. 3. Foreign Judgments 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments German courts are experienced in the enforcement of titles from other countries and are well acquainted with the procedure. Therefore, the enforcement of such a foreign title does not cause any particular dif - ficulties for the German courts. The enforcement of foreign titles can be categorised into three groups:
titles from EU states, titles from states of the Lugano Convention and titles from all other countries. Titles from the EU Titles from the EU are recognised without the need for a special procedure and can therefore be enforced. A re-examination of the decision on the merits by a Ger - man court does not occur. This applies to titles under Regulation 805/2004 and titles in civil and commercial matters under Regulation 1215/2012. European Pay - ment Orders are treated as domestic titles. In order to enforce a judgment from another EU mem - ber state declared at least provisionally enforceable, the creditor must submit a copy of the judgment and a certificate issued in the country of origin to the competent authority in Germany. The enforcement process is then carried out directly based on the EU title and does not require a decision or judgment by a German court. The enforcement of such titles is governed by the same enforcement rules that would apply to a German title. The remaining difference is that the certificate must be served before or at least at the same time as the first enforcement measure. Titles from Lugano Member States Titles from member states of the Lugano Conven - tion (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland) can be declared enforceable in a simplified exequatur procedure. For this purpose, a German court renders an order, which is then enforced. In contrast to the enforcement of an EU title, the title from a Lugano member state is not enforceable itself, but instead, the order of the Ger - man court is the basis for enforcement. Within the scope of the exequatur procedure, only a minor formal review of the foreign title is conducted. A substantive review of the decision is not conducted or allowed due to the prohibition or revision au fond. The enforcement of the decision is again governed by the rules that would apply to a German title. Titles from the UK After the UK left the EU, judgments from UK courts were not seen as EU or Lugano titles. Fortunately, the
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