SERBIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Aleksandar Ristić and Stefan Šilobad, Law Office Miroslav Stojanović
• certified translations of these documents into the Serbian language, prepared by a court-sworn translator. Upon receipt, the court is not formally obligated to serve the motion for enforcement to the other party for response – ie, the enforcement decision may be adopted ex parte by the court. However, the court may serve the motion for enforcement to the other party if a recognition request is involved, and this is accepted as a common practice of Serbian courts. Once an enforcement decision is adopted, it is served to the other party, which may then lodge an appeal against it within eight days from receipt of such deci - sion. In addition to standard reasons for challeng - ing the enforcement decision, the appeal may also relate to the reasons concerning the (non-)existence of grounds for recognition of a foreign judgment. If an appeal is lodged, it will be served to the other par - ty, which may then file a formal response within the next eight days. Upon receipt of the response to the appeal, the first-instance court delivers the case file to the court of second instance, which decides on the appeal. If the enforcement decision is upheld (including the recognition element), further enforcement is per - formed in accordance with the procedure explained in 2.2 Enforcement of Domestic Judgments . 3.5 Costs and Time Taken to Enforce Foreign Judgments Depending on which of the two approaches for rec - ognition and enforcement of a foreign court decision (listed in 3.4 Process of Enforcing Foreign Judg- ments ) is chosen, the time needed to enforce such decision may vary. Specifically, due to the enforcement proceedings being considered urgent under Serbian law, request - ing that recognition of a foreign decision be assessed as a preliminary issue in such proceedings is gener - ally less time-consuming. This is due to the fact that the non-contentious proceedings for recognition and enforcement of a foreign judgment may last for many months, especially in more complex cases and when the other party challenges and appeals the recognition itself, with the average duration (including both first-
and second-instance stages) being between 12 and 18 months. That said, enforcement proceedings may also last a significant amount of time in practice – eg, due partly to the reasons related to the consideration of conditions for recognition of a foreign court judg - ment, which the court evaluates as a preliminary (ie, threshold) matter. As for the procedural costs involved, aside from law - yers’ fees, instigation of separate non-contentious proceedings for recognition of a foreign court judg - ment triggers only relatively minor court fees. Howev - er, in the case of enforcement of such decision, gen - eral rules on enforcement costs under Serbian law (as mentioned in 2.3 Costs and Time Taken to Enforce Domestic Judgments ) apply accordingly. 3.6 Challenging Enforcement of Foreign Judgments It is possible to challenge the recognition of a foreign court judgment by proving the existence of one or more grounds for refusal provided under the LRCL, as outlined in 3.3 Categories of Foreign Judgments Not Enforced , while its enforcement may be challenged on the same grounds as outlined in 2.5 Challenging Enforcement of Domestic Judgments . 4. Arbitral Awards 4.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Arbitral Awards As a general note, the procedure for recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Serbia is primarily regulated by the Serbian Law on Arbitration (LOA, Zakon o arbitraži ), which is aligned with the pro - visions of the New York Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (1958), originally signed and ratified by former SFR Yugosla - via and subsequently maintained by Serbia. Moreover, Serbia is also a party to the European Con - vention on International Commercial Arbitration (1961), as well as the ICSID Convention – ie, the Washington Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (1965).
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