eco cosmetics GmbH & Co. KG and Raiffeisenbank St. Georgen reg. Gen. mbH v Virginie Laetitia Barbara Dupuy and Tetyana Bonchyk.
Date: 2014-09-04
32. As a preliminary point, it must be observed that, under the procedure laid down by Article 267 TFEU, providing for cooperation between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the latter to provide the national court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it. To that end, the Court may have to reformulate the questions referred to it. The Court has a duty to interpret all provisions of EU law which national courts require in order to decide the actions pending before them, even if those provisions are not expressly indicated in the questions referred to the Court of Justice by those courts (judgment in Worten , C‑342/12, EU:C:2013:355, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited).
33. Consequently, even if, formally, the questions referred concern principally the interpretation of Article 20 of Regulation No 1896/2006, that does not prevent this Court from providing the referring court with all the elements of interpretation of EU law that may be of assistance in adjudicating in the cases in the main proceedings. It is, in this regard, for the Court to extract from all the information provided by the national court, in particular from the grounds of the decisions to make the reference, the points of EU law which require interpretation in view of the subject-matter of the disputes ( Worten , EU:2013:355, paragraph 31 and the case-law cited).
39. Since the method of challenging in respect of claims which underly a European order for payment is that of opposition, the special procedure governed by Regulation No 1896/2006 no longer applies, since, in accordance with Article 1(1)(a) of that regulation, its purpose is ‘to simplify, speed up and reduce the costs of litigation in cross-border cases concerning uncontested pecuniary claims’.
41. If the European order for payment is not served in a manner consistent with the minimum standards laid down in Articles 13 to 15 of Regulation No 1896/2006, the defendant does not receive the forms mentioned in paragraph 40 of this judgment and, as a result, is not properly informed of the existence and basis of the European order for payment issued against him. In such a case, the defendant does not necessarily have all the information necessary to enable him to decide whether or not to oppose that order.
42. Such a situation cannot be compatible with the rights of the defence, so that an application of the opposition procedure laid down by Articles 16 and 17 of Regulation No 1896/2006 cannot be appropriate in circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings.
43. In the second place, it must be stated that, if there is no service in accordance with the minimum standards laid down in Articles 13 to 15 of Regulation No 1896/2006, the period within which to send a statement of opposition in Article 16(2) thereof does not start to run, so that the validity of the procedures which depend on the expiry of that period, such as the declaration of enforceability referred to in Article 18 or the application for review in Article 20, even if they have already been initiated, is affected.
45. In any event, it must be pointed out that, under Article 26 of Regulation No 1896/2006, any procedural issues not specifically dealt with in the regulation ‘shall be governed by national law’. Where that is the case, an application by analogy of the regulation is accordingly precluded.