| PRACTICE — Documents — Service between EU member states — Service through agencies and other methods of service — Whether one method taking precedence — Date of service when two methods used — Council Regulation (EC) No 1348/2000
Plumex v Young Sports NV (Case C-473/04)
ECJ: President of Chamber Rosas, Judges Malenovský, La Pergola, von Bahr and Borg Barthet: 9 February 2006
There was no hierarchy between the methods of service provided for by Regulation 1348/2000 on service in member states of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters, and where two methods were used, the time of service, for the purpose of procedural time limits, was that of the first service validly effected.
The Third Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Communities so held on a reference for a preliminary ruling by the Hof van Cassatie, Belgium.
Art 1(1) of Regulation 1348/2000 provides that the Regulation is to apply where judicial or extrajudicial documents are transmitted from one member state to another for service there. Chapter II, providing for various means of transmission and service, is divided into two sections: Section 1 (arts 4–11), relating to service through agencies, and Section 2 (arts 12–15), dealing with service by other means, ie through consular or diplomatic channels, by post, and direct service.
Service of a judgment given by a Belgian court against the appellant, a Portuguese company, was affected first by post, and then, at a later date, through agencies. The appellant’s appeal was dismissed on the ground that the period for appeal provided for in Belgian law had expired, when calculated from the date of the first service of the judgment on the appellant validly effected (that by post). On appeal from that decision, the appellant argued that service through agencies took precedence over service by post, and that when calculated from the date of the former in the present case, the appeal was in time. The court sought guidance on the issues raised from the European Court.
THE COURT said that there was nothing in the wording of the Regulation to indicate that the method of service denoted in Section 2 of Chapter I ranked below the method of service through agencies. Moreover, in view of the Regulation’s purpose of ensuring effective service of judicial documents while respecting the legitimate interests of those served, it had to be possible to serve such a document by one or other or both of those methods. It followed that where service was effected more than once, account was to be taken of the service effected first, so that, in such a case, in order to determine, vis-a-vis the person on whom service was effected, the point from which time started to run for the purposes of a procedural time limit linked to effecting service, reference was to be made to the date of the first service validly effected.
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