DENMARK Law and Practice Contributed by: Thomas Norvold, Søren Locher, Anne Mie Lund and Pawel Weigel, Fabritius Tengnagel & Heine
or imprisonment for up to four months, and may also be ordered to pay compensation.
After the final hearing, the court will render a judgment. In civil cases, the judgment is nor- mally rendered within four weeks. 7.2 Case Management Hearings See 7.1 Trial Proceedings . 7.3 Jury Trials in Civil Cases Jury trials are not available in civil cases in Den- mark. 7.4 Rules That Govern Admission of Evidence The parties involved in a court case are respon- sible for submitting the evidence in support of their claims, which will form the basis for the court’s assessment of the case. However, if a party’s claim, arguments or state- ments about the case are unclear or incomplete, the court may seek to remedy this through pos- ing questions to the party. The court may encour- age a party to state their position on both factual and legal issues that appear to be relevant to the case. The court may request a party to sub- mit documents, provide inspections or expert assessments, or otherwise present evidence when the factual circumstances of the case would remain uncertain without such evidence. Evidence that is considered to be irrelevant to the case cannot be presented. The stage of preparation of the case is normally concluded eight weeks before the final hearing in district court. A party must notify the court and the opposing party if it wishes to: • expand the claims made during the case preparation stage; • introduce arguments that were not presented during the preparation stage; or
7. Trials and Hearings 7.1 Trial Proceedings
A civil lawsuit is initiated by submitting a writ of summons to the court (see 3.4 Initial Com- plaint ). The court will then perform the service of the submitted writ of summons (see 3.5 Rules of Service ). Once the defendant submits a response to the court, the court will schedule a short hearing, which is usually conducted as a conference call. The parties’ attorneys will attend this hearing, the purpose of which is mainly to organise the preparation of the case, including discussing relevant procedural steps (eg, the appointment of expert witnesses), agreeing on relevant dead- lines and scheduling a final hearing in the case (if possible at the time). After the initial preparatory hearing, the parties may submit additional writs to the court. The preparation mainly takes place in writing. The court may schedule additional preparatory hearings (if relevant). The final part is a final hearing in the court, which is structured in the following manner: • the parties state their claims; • the plaintiff makes a chronological and objec- tive presentation of evidence and factual circumstances; • the parties provide testimony to the court; • the witness hearing is conducted; and • the attorneys present their arguments orally.
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