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Success for Coris UK

Coris UK recently successfully defended a claim brought against Fidelidade by English Claimants following a road traffic accident in Portugal. Proceedings were issued in England following the European Court of Justice decision in FBTO Schadeverzekeringen v Odenbreit, which allows a UK based injured party to bring a claim in an English jurisdiction against an EU based insurer following an accident abroad.

Following the issue of proceedings the Claimants then went about serving the proceedings in Portugal on Fidelidade directly. Liability had been conceded by Fidelidade on behalf of their insured however the issue of damages payable to the Claimants was at issue.

Direct service is a method frequently adopted by Claimants when effecting service abroad as opposed to service through judicial channels. The reason for this is that direct service allows Claimants to adopt a more hands-on approach to ensuring that service of the English proceedings is effected correctly within the 6 month period permitted in English law. Service through judicial channels between England and the country where the defendant is domiciled can cause significant delays and in some jurisdictions service cannot be effected within the 6 month period allowed.

In order to serve directly a Claimant must ensure that service of the English proceedings is effected in a way that is permitted in the country where service is due to take effect, a requirement contained within EC Regulation 1393/2007. Unsurprisingly countries within the EU have vastly different requirements that need to be observed in order to effect service correctly and indeed some countries will not agree to direct service at all.

In the case brought against Fidelidade on behalf of the Claimants, Coris realised that there were significant breaches of the direct service requirements in a Portuguese jurisdiction in that the Claimants had failed to serve proceedings in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 1248/2000 in which Portugal had expressly confirmed that service of proceedings by a direct method was not permitted in Portugal.

Accordingly the Claimants claims were dismissed and their damages claims and significant legal costs were not recoverable from Fidelidade. In addition to this Fidelidade were also able to recover their costs of disputing service of the proceedings from the Claimants illustrating the point that it pays to be circumspect when considering proceedings served upon you from another jurisdiction.

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