Visoki trgovački sud Republike Hrvatske; 2014-10-02; S. F. I. E. L.; U.-J. d.o.o.; Pž-7198/14-3
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:HR:VTS:2014:69
Date: 2014-10-02
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Croatia

82014HR1002(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
Visoki trgovački sud Republike Hrvatske (hereinafter: High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia) issued a decision in case number Pž-7198/2014 of 02 October 2014. In its decision, the High Commercial Court  of the Republic of Croatia accepted an appeal of the creditor S. F. I. E. L. from France, and reversed the decision of the Trgovački sud u Zagrebu (hereinafter: Commercial Court in Zagreb), the case number R1 286/2014 of 02 September 2014 issued in an extrajudicial procedure against the debtor U.-J. d.o.o., Z., who rejected the proposal to secure the claims of the creditor by adopting intermediate measures for a pre-registration of a lien against real property and registration of a lien against the business share and cash claims of the debtor.
The Commercial Court in Zagreb held that conditions to adopt intermediate measures under Article 332(1)(1) of the Ovršni zakon (Official Gazette 112/12 and 25/13, hereinafter: OZ) were not met, because the final decision on the recognition of a judgment of a foreign court on which basis the intermediate measures were proposed had not been made. Namely it was the decision of the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris (hereinafter: High Court of Paris) number 04/19239 of 06 May 2007, which was then confirmed by the decision of the Cour d´appel de Paris (hereinafter: Paris Court of Appeal) case number 07/16720 of 10 December 2008, based on the creditor’s claims of EUR 250, 269.21 from the debtor as damages and legal expenses. According to the provisions of Article 332(1) of the OZ, intermediate measures may be adopted to secure monetary claims based on a court’s judgement without a writ of execution, and in cases when the creditor considers it likely that without these measures it would be made impossible or much more difficult to collect the claim.
In the opinion of the High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia, the Court of First Instance erred in law when it rejected the proposal as unfounded, because such standpoint of the High Court of Paris is contrary to the provisions of Article 33 and Article 38(1) of the Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December  2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (OJ L 12, 16.1.2001, p. 1, “Brussels I Regulation”), which applies in this case.
According to the cited provisions of the Brussels I Regulation, a judgment given in a Member State shall be recognised in the other Member States without any special procedure being required (Article 33(1) of the Brussels I Regulation), and the consequence of it is that the foreign decision has simultaneous effects in both the state where the decision was taken and state where it was recognised. On the other hand, according to the provisions of Article 38(1) of the Brussels I Regulation, a decision given in a Member State and enforceable in that State shall be enforced in another Member State when, on the application of any interested party, it has been declared enforceable there, which was not applied for in this case by the creditor.
For these reasons, the High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia considers that the conditions of Article 332 of the OZ to accept a proposal to adopt intermediate measures are met. At the same time the court reversed the first instance decision and adopted the proposed intermediate measures, and ordered the debtor to compensate the legal expenses of the creditor proportionally.