Judges E Levits, A Borg Barthet, M Berger, F Biltgen (Rapporteur)
Advocate General M Wathelet
A Czech company applied to a Czech court for a European order for payment against a company in Germany. The court allowed the application, and issued and served the order. After the period for opposition in article 16(2) of Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 had expired, the German company applied for a review of the order under article 20(2) of that Regulation. In support, the German company submitted that, in breach of article 8(1) of Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007 (on service of judicial and extrajudicial documents), it had not been informed by means of the standard form in Annex II to that Regulation of its right to refuse to accept the document where that document was not written in or accompanied by a translation into one of the languages mentioned in that provision. After the application and appeal were dismissed, the German company appealed to the Supreme Court, Czech Republic, which stayed the proceedings and referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling the questions whether: (1) Regulation Nos 1896/2006 and 1393/2007 meant that, where a European order for payment was served on the defendant without the application for the order being written in or accompanied by a translation into a language he was deemed to understand, as required by article 8(1) of Regulation No 1393/2007, the defendant had to be duly informed, by means of the standard form in Annex II to Regulation No 1393/2007, of his right to refuse to accept the document in question; and (2) the consequences of the absence of that information was capable of justifying an application for review of the European order for payment on the basis of article 20(2) of Regulation No 1896/2006.
On the reference—
Held, the right to refuse to accept a document to be served stemmed from the need to protect the rights of defence of the addressee of that document, in accordance with the requirements of a fair hearing. While the main aim of Regulation No 1393/2007 was to improve the efficiency and speed of judicial procedures and to ensure the proper administration of justice, those objectives could not be attained by undermining in any way the rights of defence of the addressees of the documents. The requirements of article 8(1) of Regulation No 1393/2007 were applicable not only to service of the order itself but also to service of the application for the order. Consequently, both those documents had to be served on the addressee in a language he was deemed to understand within the meaning of article 8(1). To that end, service had to be accompanied by the standard form in Annex II to that Regulation, which informed the addressee of his right to refuse to accept the document. The same rules had to apply by analogy for service of documents in connection with Regulation No 1896/2006 (judgment, paras 33, 43, 51, operative part, para 1).
M Laipold for the Czech company.
V Karra, A Dimitrakopoulou, M Tassopoulou and E Tsaousi, agents, for the Greek Government.
G Palmieri, agent, and G Rocchitta, for the Italian Government.
C Pesendorfer, agent, for the Austrian Government.
M Šimerdová and M Heller, agents, for the European Commission.