CoA, 13 October 2023, order of the court of appeal, UPC_CoA_320/2023

Only those exhibits that are essential for understanding the subject matter and the cause of action must be served on the defendant together with the statement of claim (and translated if necessary). Rule 270 RoP provides that the Regulation (EU) 2020/1784 applies to the service of the complaint within the Contracting States. A complaint that meets the requirements of the provisions of this Regulation in accordance with the case law of the CJEU, which does not always require the exhibits to be attached, is therefore deemed to be a “complete” compaint within the meaning of Rules 19.1 and 23 RoP.

Rule 13.2 RoP is intended to enable the defendant to respond to the entire submission contained in the statement of claim and all exhibits to which the claimant refers in support of his claim. This provision ensures that the principles of fairness and equity are sufficiently observed. In view thereof, a defendant’s request for a term extension for filing an objection and a statement of defense must be granted even if a claimant has not uploaded the exhibits to the CMS at the same time as the statement of claim and has thus failed to comply with Rule 13.2 of the Rules of Procedure, with the result that they are not available when the defendant’s representative accesses the CMS using the access code contained in the notification of a complaint.

Even if certain documents can be regarded as already known or generally accessible to the defendant, it is nevertheless important that it is established beyond doubt which specific document the claimant is relying on and what its exact content is. This can only be established if the documents are made available by uploading them to the CMS.