PORTUGAL Law and Practice Contributed by: Rita Samoreno Gomes and Petra Carreira, PLMJ
5. Discovery 5.1 Discovery and Civil Cases
4.5 Applications for Security for Defendant’s Costs
It is not possible to apply for an order that the plaintiff/claimant must pay a sum of money as security for the defendant’s costs under Portu- guese law. 4.6 Costs of Interim Applications/ Motions Under Portuguese law, there are no interim applications/motions before trials or substantive hearings of a claim. 4.7 Application/Motion Timeframe Portuguese law does not provide a specific peri- od for courts to decide on applications/motions. It is very difficult to estimate the timeframe for a Portuguese court to decide an application or a motion, as this depends largely on the judge pre- siding over the case, the workload of the court and the complexity of the case or the applica- tion/motion. An application/motion usually takes up to a month to be dealt with. In cases of an urgent nature, such as injunctions or insolvency proceedings, the courts tend to deal with an application/motion more rapidly, sometimes within a few days. A party can request that the application/motion be dealt with on an urgent basis, even in cases that are not urgent in nature. The timeframe for the court’s decision will depend on factors such as the court’s workload and the need to grant the opposing party an opportunity to comment on the application/motion filed.
There is no discovery process in Portuguese law, but a party may ask the court to order the other party to disclose a specific document or set of documents. Requests for access to an excessively broad class of documents or infor- mation on a certain matter will not be granted by the court, nor will requests that will lead to non-specific searches. The requesting party must also indicate the facts it intends to prove with the documents request- ed. If such facts are relevant to the decision of the case, the court will grant the request for dis- closure. The request for disclosure of documents will only be granted by the court if the requesting party is unable to obtain the documents by any other means or has substantial difficulty in doing so. The court may also order the parties to disclose documents or other evidence of its own motion if necessary to clarify the truth. Confidentiality measures may be applied and implemented to safeguard confidential or sensi- tive documents and information. 5.2 Discovery and Third Parties The court may order third parties to the proceed- ings to disclose documents or other evidence to support the facts in dispute. This can be either of the court’s own motion or at the request of either party. Refusal to produce the documents ordered by the court or failure to provide justification for the impossibility of doing so may give rise to a pro- cedural fine for the third party.
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