Article 27(1) of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, by the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of the Hellenic Republic, by the Convention of 26 May 1989 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic, and by the Convention of 29 November 1996 on the Accession of the Republic of Austria, the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden, is to be interpreted as follows:

the court of the State in which enforcement is sought may take into account, with regard to the public policy clause referred to in that article, the fact that the court of the State of origin ruled on the applicant's claims without hearing the defendant, who entered appearance before it but who was excluded from the proceedings by order on the ground that he had not complied with the obligations imposed by an order made earlier in the same proceedings, if, following a comprehensive assessment of the proceedings and in the light of all the circumstances, it appears to it that that exclusion measure constituted a manifest and disproportionate infringement of the defendant's right to be heard.

Article 27 of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, by the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of the Hellenic Republic, by the Convention of 26 May 1989 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic and by the Convention of 29 November 1996 on the Accession of the Republic of Austria, the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden, and the first paragraph of Article IV of the Protocol annexed to that convention, must be interpreted as meaning that, where a relevant international convention is applicable between the State in which the judgment is given and the State in which recognition is sought, the question whether the document instituting the proceedings was duly served on a defendant in default of appearance must be determined in the light of the provisions of that convention, without prejudice to the use of direct transmission between public officers, where the State in which recognition is sought has not officially objected, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article IV of the Protocol.

3. A decision to establish a liability limitation fund, in the absence of prior service on the claimant concerned, and even where the latter has appealed against that decision in order to challenge the jurisdiction of the court which delivered it, cannot be refused recognition in another Contracting State pursuant to Article 27(2) of that Convention, on condition that it was duly served on or notified to the defendant in good time.

Signatures.

1\. On a proper construction of Article 27(3) of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, by the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of the Hellenic Republic and by the Convention of 26 May 1989 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic, a foreign decision on interim measures ordering an obligor not to carry out certain acts is irreconcilable with a decision on interim measures refusing to grant such an order in a dispute between the same parties in the State where recognition is sought.

2\. Where a court of the State in which recognition is sought finds that a judgment of a court of another Contracting State is irreconcilable with a judgment given by a court of the former State in a dispute between the same parties, it is required to refuse to recognise the foreign judgment.

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Article 27, point 1, of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and by the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of the Hellenic Republic, must be interpreted as meaning that a judgment of a court or tribunal of a Contracting State recognising the existence of an intellectual property right in body parts for cars, and conferring on the holder of that right protection by enabling him to prevent third parties trading in another Contracting State from manufacturing, selling, transporting, importing or exporting in that Contracting State such body parts, cannot be considered to be contrary to public policy.

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Article 27, point 1, of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and by the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of the Hellenic Republic, must be interpreted as follows:

(1) The court of the State in which enforcement is sought cannot, with respect to a defendant domiciled in that State, take account, for the purposes of the public-policy clause in Article 27, point 1, of that Convention, of the fact, without more, that the court of the State of origin based its jurisdiction on the nationality of the victim of an offence.

(2) The court of the State in which enforcement is sought can, with respect to a defendant domiciled in that State and prosecuted for an intentional offence, take account, in relation to the public-policy clause in Article 27, point 1, of that Convention, of the fact that the court of the State of origin refused to allow that person to have his defence presented unless he appeared in person.

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Article 27(2) of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 relating to the accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, applies to judgments given against a defendant who was not duly served with, or notified of, the document instituting proceedings in sufficient time and who was not validly represented during those proceedings, albeit the judgments given were not given in default of appearance because someone purporting to represent the defendant appeared before the court first seised.

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The decreto ingiuntivo within the meaning of Book IV of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure (Articles 633 to 656), together with the application instituting the proceedings, must be regarded as "the document which instituted proceedings or ... an equivalent document" within the meaning of Article 27(2) of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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Article 27(3) of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters is to be interpreted as meaning that an enforceable settlement reached before a court of the State in which recognition is sought in order to settle legal proceedings which are in progress does not constitute a "judgment", within the meaning of that provision, "given in a dispute between the same parties in the State in which recognition is sought" which, under the Convention, may preclude recognition and enforcement of a judgment given in another Contracting State.

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1\. "Civil matters" within the meaning of the first sentence of the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Convention cover an action for compensation for damage brought before a criminal court against a teacher in a State school who, during a school trip, caused injury to a pupil through a culpable and unlawful breach of his duties of supervision; this is so even where cover is provided under a social insurance scheme governed by public law.

2\. Article 37(2) of the Convention must be interpreted as precluding any appeal by interested third parties against a judgment given on an appeal under Article 36 of the Convention, even where the domestic law of the State in which enforcement is sought confers on such third parties a right of appeal.

3\. Non-recognition of a judgment for the reasons set out in Article 27(2) of the Convention is possible only where the defendant was in default of appearance in the original proceedings. Consequently, that provision may not be relied upon where the defendant appeared. A defendant is deemed to have appeared for the purposes of Article 27(2) of the Convention where, in connection with a claim for compensation joined to criminal proceedings, he answered at the trial, through counsel of his own choice, to the criminal charges but did not express a view on the civil claim, on which oral argument was also submitted in the presence of his counsel.

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Article 27(2) of the Brussels Convention must be interpreted as precluding a judgment given in default of appearance in one Contracting State from being recognized in another Contracting State where the defendant was not duly served with the document which instituted the proceedings, even if he subsequently became aware of the judgment which was given and did not avail himself of the legal remedies provided for under the procedure of the State where the judgment was delivered.

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( 1 ) Article 27(2 ) of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters is to be interpreted as meaning that a judgment given in default of appearance may not be recognized where the document instituting the proceedings was not served on the defendant in due form, even though it was served in sufficient time to enable him to arrange for his defence .

( 2 ) Article 27(2 ) of the Convention is to be interpreted as meaning that questions concerning the curing of defective service are governed by the law of the State in which judgment was given, including any relevant international agreements .

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A foreign judgment recognized under Article 26 must, in principle, have the same effects in the State where enforcement is sought as in the State where it was given. A foreign judgment whose enforcement was ordered under Article 31, and that remains enforceable in the State where it was given, must stop being enforced in the State where enforcement is sought when, under the law of that State, it ceases to be enforceable for reasons outside the scope of the Convention. A foreign judgment ordering a person to make maintenance payments to a spouse by virtue of conjugal support obligations is irreconcilable, within the meaning of Article 27(3), with a national judgment pronouncing the spouses' divorce. A party who did not appeal the enforcement order referred to in Article 36 cannot, at the execution stage, rely on a valid ground that could have been raised in that appeal. The courts of the State where enforcement is sought must apply that rule of their own motion. That rule does not apply when it would require the national court to make the effects of a national judgment outside the scope of the Convention conditional on its recognition in the State where the foreign judgment at issue was given.

ARTICLE 27 , POINT 2 , OF THE BRUSSELS CONVENTION OF 27 SEPTEMBER 1968 ON JURISDICTION AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF JUDGMENTS IN CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL MATTERS MUST BE INTERPRETED AS FOLLOWS :

1 . THE WORDS ' ' THE DOCUMENT WHICH INSTITUTED THE PROCEEDINGS ' ' COVER ANY DOCUMENT , SUCH AS THE ORDER FOR PAYMENT ( ZAHLUNGSBEFEHL ) IN GERMAN LAW , SERVICE OF WHICH ENABLES THE PLAINTIFF , UNDER THE LAW OF THE STATE OF THE COURT IN WHICH THE JUDGMENT WAS GIVEN TO OBTAIN , IN DEFAULT OF APPROPRIATE ACTION TAKEN BY THE DEFENDANT , A DECISION CAPABLE OF BEING RECOGNIZED AND ENFORCED UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THE CONVENTION .

2 . A DECISION SUCH AS THE ENFORCEMENT ORDER ( VOLLSTRECKUNGSBEFEHL ) IN GERMAN LAW , WHICH IS ISSUED AFTER SERVICE OF THE ORDER FOR PAYMENT HAS BEEN EFFECTED AND WHICH IS ENFORCEABLE UNDER THE CONVENTION , IS NOT COVERED BY THE WORDS ' ' THE DOCUMENT WHICH INSTITUTED THE PROCEEDINGS ' ' .

3 . IN ORDER TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE DEFENDANT HAS BEEN ENABLED TO ARRANGE FOR HIS DEFENCE AS REQUIRED BY ARTICLE 27 , POINT 2 , THE COURT IN WHICH ENFORCEMENT IS SOUGHT MUST TAKE ACCOUNT ONLY OF THE TIME , SUCH AS THAT ALLOWED UNDER GERMAN LAW FOR SUBMITTING AN OBJECTION ( WIDERSPRUCH ) TO THE ORDER FOR PAYMENT , AVAILABLE TO THE DEFENDANT FOR THE PURPOSES OF PREVENTING THE ISSUE OF A JUDGMENT IN DEFAULT WHICH IS ENFORCEABLE UNDER THE CONVENTION .

4 . ARTICLE 27 , POINT 2 , REMAINS APPLICABLE WHERE THE DEFENDANT HAS LODGED AN OBJECTION AGAINST THE DECISION GIVEN IN DEFAULT AND A COURT OF THE STATE IN WHICH THE JUDGMENT WAS GIVEN HAS HELD THE OBJECTION TO BE INADMISSIBLE ON THE GROUND THAT THE TIME FOR LODGING AN OBJECTION HAS EXPIRED .

5 . EVEN IF A COURT OF THE STATE IN WHICH THE JUDGMENT WAS GIVEN HAS HELD , IN SEPARATE ADVERSARY PROCEEDINGS , THAT SERVICE WAS DULY EFFECTED ARTICLE 27 , POINT 2 , STILL REQUIRES THE COURT IN WHICH ENFORCEMENT IS SOUGHT TO EXAMINE WHETHER SERVICE WAS EFFECTED IN SUFFICIENT TIME TO ENABLE THE DEFENDANT TO ARRANGE FOR HIS DEFENCE .

6 . THE COURT IN WHICH ENFORCEMENT IS SOUGHT MAY AS A GENERAL RULE CONFINE ITSELF TO EXAMINING WHETHER THE PERIOD , RECKONED FROM THE DATE ON WHICH SERVICE WAS DULY EFFECTED , ALLOWED THE DEFENDANT SUFFICIENT TIME FOR HIS DEFENCE . IT MUST , HOWEVER , CONSIDER WHETHER , IN A PARTICULAR CASE , THERE ARE EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES SUCH AS THE FACT THAT , ALTHOUGH SERVICE WAS DULY EFFECTED , IT WAS INADEQUATE FOR THE PURPOSES OF CAUSING THAT TIME TO BEGIN TO RUN .

7 . ARTICLE 52 OF THE CONVENTION AND THE FACT THAT THE COURT OF THE STATE IN WHICH ENFORCEMENT IS SOUGHT CONCLUDED THAT UNDER THE LAW OF THAT STATE THE DEFENDANT WAS HABITUALLY RESIDENT WITHIN ITS TERRITORY AT THE DATE OF SERVICE OF THE DOCUMENT WHICH INSTITUTED THE PROCEEDINGS DO NOT AFFECT THE REPLIES GIVEN ABOVE .

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