Logistics and transport companies operate beyond the borders of their own country. They very often cooperate with foreign companies as well. Such partnerships do not always end in mutual satisfaction. Sometimes, mutual receivables are not settled in accordance with the contract – this is a major problem. How to deal with it?
Lucyna Łuczak-Noworolnik, Legal Counsel, Institute of Logistics and Warehousing: Increasingly, in the day-to-day operations of entrepreneurs, the problem of recovering monetary receivables from unreliable contractors even leads to a loss of financial liquidity. This issue is becoming even more significant as a vast majority of contracts in the TSL industry are concluded with foreign partners. The costs of conducting proceedings in such disputes are significantly higher, primarily due to different legal regulations. In such cases, one must count on the necessity of using the assistance of a professional legal representative who will be able to effectively and efficiently represent the entrepreneur, including before a foreign court.
Bearing in mind the above conditions – in my opinion – in the event of a cross-border dispute, it is worth using the institutions introduced into the Polish legal order by virtue of EU regulations, i.e., in particular, the European order for payment procedure and the European small claims procedure. Both of the above-mentioned procedures are in force in all Member States (except Denmark) and are characterized by a simplified form – the statement of claim is submitted on a form that is an annex to the regulation. Indicating the differences between these proceedings, the most important ones are: the undisputed nature of the claim in the case of the European order for payment and the value of the subject matter of the dispute, which currently amounts to a maximum of 2,000 euros on the date of filing the claim under the small claims procedure. This amount does not include interest and costs of proceedings. No threshold amount has been introduced for the European order for payment.
It is worth emphasizing that in some Member States, such a claim can be filed in electronic form, which obviously has a positive effect on accelerating the procedure. As part of the e-CODEX project implemented by the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing together with the Ministry of Justice, it is already possible to use the IT infrastructure to file a document initiating proceedings for a European order for payment to a court in Greece. In the near future, the possibility of filing claims to selected courts in Germany, Austria, and Italy will also be launched. The small claims procedure can currently be initiated this way in a court in Austria. For those of you who are interested in this subject, I invite you to visit the Polish-language website available at: http://www.e-codex.pl/pilotaz.html.