GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Dimitris Babiniotis, Danae Papadatou and Emmanouil Mavrantonakis, Zepos & Yannopoulos
2.6 Unenforceable Domestic Judgments Please refer to 2.1 Types of Domestic Judgments (Relief Sought and Granted). As a general rule, only definite performance judgments are enforceable (see 2.1 Types of Domestic Judgments (Enforce - able Titles)). First-instance judgments that have been declared provisionally enforceable by the court may also be enforced. Constitutive and declaratory judg - ments are not enforceable. 2.7 Register of Domestic Judgments No central register of judgments exists. Case files are kept with the court and only the parties to the pro - ceedings are allowed access. In recent years, for judgments issued by the courts in Athens, Piraeus, Thessaloniki and several other large cities across Greece, any interested party to the pro - ceedings may apply for the receipt of a digitally certi - fied copy of a judgment. Using the filing number of a judicial document (eg, a lawsuit or an appeal), any interested party may receive information on the status of the proceedings on “Solon”, the official website of the Greek Judiciary. 3. Foreign Judgments 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Enforcing foreign judgments in Greece is a complex process entailing a large number of legal issues. The complexity lies in the fact that legal practitioners have to navigate a large set of potentially applicable provi - sions stemming from the GrCCP, the bilateral agree - ments concluded between Greece and third coun - tries (which have more than doubled in number since 1980), the multilateral conventions to which Greece is party (mainly deriving from the Hague International Conference on Private International Law), and – most importantly – a double-digit number of EU regulations. What is more, these instruments are regularly amend - ed, thereby introducing issues of a transitional nature. The aforementioned international instruments take precedence over the GrCCP provisions as per the clear letter of both the GrCCP (Article 905) and the Greek Constitution (Article 28). EU regulations take
of the attachment or the garnishment (Article 934 (1) (a) of the GrCCP). In cases of direct enforcement, the deadline is 30 days from the last act of enforcement (eg, the service of the writ of execution to the debtor), as per Article 934 (1)(b) of the GrCCP. Tiered approach The GrCCP mandates a tiered approach to addressing irregularities in enforcement acts. Each act of enforce - ment is deemed autonomous and must be separately challenged within a specific timeframe. Failure of the debtor to meet this requirement leads to the irregulari - ty in the act of enforcement being deemed waived and thus cured. The annulment of a single act of enforce - ment does not automatically affect subsequent acts of enforcement. These must be challenged separately. Suspension of Enforcement Proceedings (Article 938 of the GrCCP) Please refer to 2.3 Costs and Time Taken to Enforce Domestic Judgments (Timing Considerations). Fol - lowing the filing of an admissible objection against enforcement measures and its proper service upon the creditor, the debtor may seek stay of enforce - ment until a judgment on its objection is issued. If an appeal is filed against said judgment, enforcement may remain suspended until a judgment on the appeal is issued. The application for a stay of enforcement is tried by the court before which the objection is pending. The enforcement is suspended if the court is satisfied that: • there is an imminent risk that the enforcement may lead to the debtor’s interests being irreparably harmed; and • at least one of the grounds of the objection against enforcement appears to be prima facie valid. Pursuant to Article 938 (2) of the GrCCP, in enforce - ment proceedings against real property for the sat - isfaction of monetary claims, a stay of enforcement is not permitted. A stay may only be granted only at the appellate stage, if the judgment on the objection is appealed and the court of second instance orders the suspension.
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