GREECE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Dimitris Emvalomenos, Bahas, Gramatidis & Partners
• the Mediation and Arbitration Organisation (in Greece, OMED) for collective labour disputes (Law 1876/1990 – however, following its amendment by Law 4635/2019, no sanction is provided for a mediation refusal); • the Labour Inspectorate (in Greece, SEPE) for the settlement of individual labour disputes (Laws 3996/2011 and 4808/2021); • the Committee dealing with infringements of IP and related rights on the internet (in Greece, EDPPI – Law 2121/1993); • the Hellenic Copyright Organization (in Greece, OPI) for a variety of disputes regard - ing IP and related rights (Law 2121/1993 – however, due to the Law’s ambiguous word - ing it is currently unclear whether the proce - dure for certain disputes will be mediation or another form of ADR); • the Committee for the extra-judicial settle - ment of taxation disputes (Law 4714/2020 and Ministerial Decision 127519/2020); and • the police and port mediators with duties related to public open-air assemblies (Law 4703/2020). The long-standing Committees for Friendly Set - tlement of consumer disputes, which were seat - ed in and managed by the regional authorities, were repealed by Law 5019/2023, with effect from 26 June 2023. At EU level, the following ADR authorities are worth mentioning: • the European Consumer Centre of Greece , supported by the Hellenic Consumers’ Ombudsman , regarding trans-boundary EU ADR; • SOLVIT, the free-of-charge and mainly online service provided by the national administra - tion in each EU country and in Iceland, Liech - tenstein and Norway, regarding the breach of
citizens’ and businesses’ EU rights by public authorities in another EU country and aiming to find a solution within ten weeks from the time the case is taken on by the SOLVIT cen - tre where the problem occurred, supervised in Greece by the Ministry of Finance; and • the European Ombudsman examining com - plaints by any EU citizen or legal person concerning alleged maladministration in the activities of EU organs, with the exception of the EU Court of Justice. Further, mediation plays a key role among the various ADR mechanisms and has been pro - moted by the Greek legislator in recent years. Among others, in civil litigation, it is a general duty of the court to encourage out-of-court set - tlements and it may propose to the litigants a recourse to mediation (Articles 116A and 214C of the Civil Procedural Rules). Law 4640/2019 (as in force following amendments) is the cur - rent law on mediation, and came into force on 30 November 2019, providing for a new set of mediation rules versus the previous legal regime. These rules include mandatory mediation for specified cases (effective from 30 November 2019, 15 January 2020 or 1 July 2020, depend - ing on the case) based on the type of litigation proceedings and also covering product liability claims. Mediation has also been promoted specifi - cally by Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 regarding online intermediation services and online search engines, applicable from 12 July 2020. Also, it should be noted that, among lawyers’ duties, mediation and ADR in general for out- of-court settlement of disputes are expressly recommended and provided for by the Lawyers’ Code (in particular, Articles 35, paragraph 3, 36,
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