The High Court has held that it has no discretion to extend the time for appealing the registration of a Cypriot judgment for enforcement in England.
Cypriot proceedings against the appellant had been compromised by a consent order made by the Cypriot Court holding that the appellant should pay certain sums to the respondent bank. The appellant claimed that she first learned of the proceedings when she was served with notice of registration of the order for enforcement in England. She appealled the registration of the order, contending that the English court should not have recognised it pursuant to Article 34(2) of the Judgments Regulation (44/2001). She served the appeal 22 days outside the two-month limit in Article 43(5) of the Judgments Regulation and CPR 74.8(4)(a)(ii).
Andrews J held as follows:
- The court could not extend the two-month limit for appealing, which, according to the language of the Judgments Regulation, was intended to be mandatory. The Regulation “established an autonomous and complete system for the recognition and enforcement of judgments, including for appeals, which excludes the possibility of any separate challenges to an enforcement order under domestic law”. For defendants domiciled in an EU state outside the state of enforcement (as the appellant was) the time limit was two months (as opposed to one month for those domiciled in the state of enforcement). Moreover, time did not start to run until there had been actual service of the order for enforcement. The extended time limit and the service rule struck the balance between giving the appellant fair opportunity to prepare the appeal and the need for uniformity and expeditious enforcement.
- Whether CPR 74.8 gave the court power to extend time otherwise than on account of distance did not have to be decided here, as that rule only applied to persons domiciled in a non-EU state. Citibank v Rafidian Bank and another [2003] EWHC 1950 (QB) was not authority for the proposition that the time limits for EU defendants in the Regulation were not mandatory, as this question did not have to be decided in the case.
- Even if the court had power to extend the two-month limit, it would not have exercised it here. The delay was serious, and there was no good excuse for it. The justice of the case did not require an extension. Guidance given in cases concerning the normal rules pertaining to appeals in English law could not be applied in the context of a complex international treaty or directly effective EU regulation, which involved policy considerations going beyond case management.
Christofi v National Bank of Greece (Cyprus) Ltd [2015] EWHC 986 (QB), 14 April 2015
