Debt Collection London Ltd & Anor v SK Slavia Praha- Fotbal AS

Failure to notify the European Commission of a bilateral service convention does not, without more, terminate or disapply that convention. The court must identify the legal consequence of non-notification from the relevant regulation.

For jurisdictional priority under Articles 27 and 28 of the Judgments Regulation, a court is not seised merely because proceedings have been lodged if the claimant has yet to take a step required for service. Where payment of a court fee is a condition precedent to service under national procedure, the court becomes seised when that fee is paid.

Proceedings may involve the same cause of action, or be related, even where one claim concerns only part of the overall contractual indebtedness. The claims should not be split where doing so creates a risk of irreconcilable judgments.

The claimants sought repayment in England of advances and sums said to be due under a discounted funding agreement and loan agreements. The defendant challenged jurisdiction, relying on proceedings lodged earlier in the Czech Republic concerning the discounted funding agreement.

The applications concerned the validity and timing of service, whether the Czech court was first seised for the purposes of Articles 27 and 28 of the Judgments Regulation, and whether defects in the acknowledgment of service should be remedied or time extended.

The central issues were whether service in June 2009 was valid under the 1924 Convention, when the Czech court became seised, and whether the English and Czech proceedings involved the same cause of action or related actions.

1. Service. Service on 29 June 2009 was valid under the 1924 Convention. The court rejected the submission that failure to notify the Commission under Article 20.3(a) of the 2000 Service Regulation necessarily meant that the Convention was no longer maintained. Article 20 contained no provision making non-notification terminate the convention. The evidence from the Czech lawyers and Ministry official did not resolve that question.
2. Seisin. Under Article 30 of the Judgments Regulation, the Czech court was not seised when the claim was lodged on 15 April 2009. Under Czech procedure, payment of the court fee was a step required before service. The fee was not paid until 6 August 2009. The English court was therefore first seised.
3. Same cause and related actions. Although the Czech proceedings concerned only the discounted funding agreement, the English and Czech proceedings involved the same cause of action in the autonomous EU-law sense. Alternatively, they were so closely connected that it was expedient to hear them together to avoid irreconcilable judgments. The claims should not be split because repayments had been made generally against the total indebtedness.
4. Acknowledgment of service. The court declined to declare that it lacked jurisdiction or should decline jurisdiction. In the circumstances, the just course under the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 was to extend time so that the acknowledgment of service filed on 19 August 2009 was effective. Further directions concerning the proposed summary judgment application were left for argument.

First-instance decision. No prior appellate decision is stated in the judgment.