Haji-Ioannou & Ors v Frangos

For registration under Council Regulation (EC) 44/2001, an applicant must have the necessary interest in the foreign judgment when the registration order is made. The status of heir does not itself establish that interest where acceptance of the inheritance remains possible. Retrospective effect given to a later acceptance does not validate an earlier order made when the applicant lacked standing. A foreign judgment may be registered only to the extent that it is enforceable in the Member State of origin. A registration order obtained without disclosure of the judgment creditor’s death, and therefore without establishing the successor’s standing, is a nullity.

Loucas Haji-Ioannou obtained a judgment in the Greek Court of Appeal against Ioannis Frangos, including declarations concerning substantial sums and an order for €700,000 costs. An application was made in England under Council Regulation (EC) 44/2001 to register the Greek judgment for enforcement. Loucas died after the application but before the registration order. The Master registered the judgment and later substituted his widow and children as applicants.

Frangos appealed. The central issues were whether the applicants had acquired a registrable interest in the judgment, when that interest arose under the applicable succession law, whether the whole Greek judgment was enforceable, and whether non-disclosure invalidated the orders.

1. Appeal against Registration Order allowed. The Registration Order was set aside. The appeal against the Substitution Order was dismissed, so that order remained in place.
2. The succession to the judgment, as a moveable asset, was governed by the law applicable through Loucas’s domicile. The evidence established that he retained his Monegasque domicile. His residence in Athens was for medical treatment and did not show an intention to abandon Monaco and acquire a Greek domicile.
3. Under Monegasque law, the applicants acquired the status of heirs immediately on Loucas’s death. That status was distinct from acceptance of the inheritance. An heir might decline the inheritance, so heirship alone did not confer the necessary interest in the judgment for Article 38 registration.
4. The applicants did not establish acceptance of the inheritance before 13 January 2009. Their formal acceptance occurred on 18 May 2009. Although acceptance operated retrospectively under Article 658 of the Monegasque Civil Code, that retrospective effect did not validate a registration order which required the applicant to have an interest when the order was made.
5. The Greek judgment was registrable only to the extent that it was enforceable in Greece. The declarations concerning the principal debt and interest were not enforceable judgments. Only the order for €700,000 costs could be registered under Articles 38 and 48.
6. The original Registration Order, made after Loucas’s death without disclosure of that fact, was a nullity because the applicants lacked standing at the relevant date. The court would alternatively have set it aside for material non-disclosure. The Substitution Order was not set aside, although the failure to disclose the pending appeal was serious.

The judgment records an earlier jurisdictional decision in the same litigation: the Court of Appeal judgment is reported as [1999] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 337. The Greek Court of Appeal later gave judgment for Loucas Haji-Ioannou, and the Greek Supreme Court dismissed Frangos’s appeal on 16 February 2009.

At this stage, the High Court allowed the appeal against the Registration Order but dismissed the appeal against the Substitution Order.