Judgment – Where proceedings are initiated against a person without his knowledge and a lawyer appears before the court first seised on his behalf but without his authority, such a person is quite powerless to defend himself and must be regarded as a defendant in default of appearance, within the meaning of Article 27(2) of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, even if the proceedings before the court first seised became, in point of form, proceedings inter partes. That conclusion is not affected by the fact that the defendant may apply to have the judgment in question annulled on the ground of lack of representation, since the proper time for a defendant to have an opportunity to defend himself is the time at which proceedings are commenced.
Article 27(2) of the Convention therefore applies to judgments given against a defendant who was not duly served with, or notified of, the document instituting proceedings in sufficient time and who was not validly represented during those proceedings, albeit the judgments given were not given in default of appearance because someone purporting to represent the defendant appeared before the court first seised.
C-78/95, [1996] ECR I-4943, [1996] EUECJ C-78/95
Bailii
European
Cited by:
Cited – Tavoulareas v Tsavliris and Others (No 2) CA 5-Jan-2007
The claimant sought to enforce here a judgment obtained by default in a Greek court.
Held: The proceedings in Greece had not required service of the proceedings on the defendant, and judgment had been entered by default. An English court was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 17 August 2021; Ref: scu.161543