Introduction

Role of the parties

Role of judge

Contentious matters

Concept

Powers of the judge

Principle of adversarial proceedings

Non-contentious matters

Underlying principles of civil proceedings

Right to bring civil action

Abuse of the right to bring proceedings

Type of action

Concept of action

Interest in bringing proceedings

Standing

Rules governing action

Legal action

Initial claim

Counterclaim

Additional claim

Intervention

Incidental claim

Interruption of limitation period

Application to file suit (demande en justice)

Defense on the merits

Procedural objections (exceptions de procédure)

Procedural bars to admissibility (fins de non-recevoir)

Defenses

Nature of claim

Amount of the claim

Jurisdiction ratione materiae

Principles

Exceptional territorial jurisdiction

Extension of jurisdiction

Territorial jurisdiction

Competent court

Formal requirements

Substantive requirements

Presentation of the QPC (Question prioritaire de constitutionnalité)

Referral to Court of Cassation

Referral to Constitutional Council

Referral of the QPC

Investigation procedure

Conduct of hearing

Decision of the Constitutional Council

Proceedings before Constitutional Council

Priority question of constitutionality (QPC)

Simplified case preparation procedure

Participative procedure for case preparation purposes

Extra-judicial case preparation

Recourse to technical expert

Agreements on extra-judicial case preparation (mise en état)

Disclosure of exhibits

Production of documents

Exhibits

Common provisions for investigations

Rules specific to each investigation

Investigative measures

Disputes concerning private deeds (actes sous seing privé)

Forgery procedure against authentic instruments

Challenges to documentary evidence

Oath sworn as decisive evidence

Oath tendered by way of supplementation

Judicial oath

Administration of evidence

Hearings

Deliberations

Judgment

Formation

Judgment after adversarial proceedings

Judgment by default or judgment after trial

Contentious or non-contentious judgment

Judgment on the merits or provisional ruling (avant dire droit)

Combined judgment

Provisional judgment

Judgment in fast track proceedings

Types

Joinder and severance of proceedings

Interruption of proceedings

Suspension of proceedings

Discontinuance of proceedings (extinction)

Procedural incidents

Plea of lack of jurisdiction

Recusal/Dismissal for legitimate suspicion

Challenging the judge's competence

General rules

Voluntary intervention

Compulsory intervention

Joinder in proceedings (intervention)

Existence of a judgment

Same subject matter, cause, and parties

Authority of res judicata

General conditions of enforcement

Provisional enforcement

Grace period

Enforcement of the judgment

Bearing of costs

Order to pay non-recoverable costs

Verification/Recovery

Claims/Disputes

Costs and expenses

Ordinary remedies

Extraordinary remedies

Remedies

Judgments

Calculation of time-limits

Acts of judicial commissioners

Service of documents

Ordinary notification

Notification between lawyers

International notification

Place of notification

Notification

Communication by electronic means

Procedural acts

1. Ordinary Law of Civil Procedure

A party may not pursue, by way of compulsory enforcement, the recovery of costs advanced by it except upon presentation of a certificate of verification or an enforceable taxation order .
The possibility of requesting verification of the amount of costs is granted to the parties (Art. 704, para. 1, CPC) as well as to the legal assistant seeking to recover them (Art. 704, para. 2, CPC). A party may …

Conditions

A party may not pursue, by way of compulsory enforcement, the recovery of costs advanced by it except upon presentation of a certificate of verification or an enforceable taxation order .

The possibility of requesting verification of the amount of costs is granted to the parties (Art. 704, para. 1, CPC) as well as to the legal assistant seeking to recover them (Art. 704, para. 2, CPC). A party may only pursue, through compulsory enforcement, the recovery of costs advanced by them against the party ordered to pay them upon presentation of a verification certificate or an enforceable taxation order . The request for verification is submitted informally to the clerk of the competent court (Art. 704, para. 1, CPC). The legal assistant must accompany their request with the detailed account they are required to provide to the parties under the tariff regulations, including the mention of any advances received (Art. 704, para. 2, CPC).

Pursuant to Article 705 of the Code of Civil Procedure, “the court registry verifies the amount of costs after making any necessary adjustments to ensure the account complies with the tariffs” (para. 1) and “issues or sends a verification certificate to the interested party by simple letter” (para. 2). The pursuing party notifies the verified account to the adversary, who has a period of one month to contest it, and the notification implies acceptance by its author of the verified account (Art. 706, para. 1, CPC) . The notification of the verified costs account takes place in the forms provided for in Article 652 of the same code . It must mention the contestation period and the modalities for exercising it and specify that in the absence of contestation within the indicated period, the verification certificate may be rendered enforceable (Art. 706, para. 2, CPC). Article 707 of the same code specifies that in the absence of contestation by the adversary within the period, the pursuing party may request the verifying clerk to note it on the verification certificate. This notation constitutes a writ of execution , both against the party for whom, as the case may be, the lawyer represented, and against the party condemned to costs, provided the account has been duly notified to this party .

Verification may be contested through an application for a taxation order submitted orally or in writing to the registry of the court that verified the account, by the party or their representative, provided it is substantiated and accompanied by the verification certificate (Art. 708 CPC). According to Article 709 of the Code of Civil Procedure, “the president of the court or the judge delegated for this purpose rules by order based on the verified account and any other useful documents, after having gathered the observations of the defendant to the contestation or having requested them.” When implementing this provision, the court ensures compliance with the adversarial principle . However, the Court of Cassation qualifies this requirement by emphasizing that Article 709 only requires the summoning of the defendant to contest the verification certificate of accounts and not that the latter presents observations . When such an application is submitted, “the judge rules both on the taxation application and on other applications related to the recovery of costs” (Art. 710 CPC)  and proceeds, even ex officio, with all necessary adjustments to make the account conform to the tariffs, mentioning, if applicable, the sums already received as an advance (Art. 711 CPC) . The judge may also refer the application, as it stands, to a court hearing for which they set the date, provided that the parties are summoned at least fifteen days in advance by the court clerk (Art. 712 CPC). The taxation order may be appealed by submitting or sending to the registry of the court of appeal a note stating the grounds for the appeal, which must be sent simultaneously to all parties to the main dispute (Art. 715 CPC). Thus, an appeal filed within the time limits is inadmissible if copies of it were only sent to the parties six months after its filing . The Court of Cassation specifies that the bar to proceedings due to the absence of simultaneous sending to the interested parties of a note stating the grounds for the appeal against the order setting the expert's fees is a mandatory public policy provision . If the order is issued by the president of a first-instance court, it may be appealed by any interested party before the first president of the court of appeal within one month (Art. 714 CPC) . This option is independent of the amount of the application . When it is subject to appeal, the order must, on pain of invalidity, state that it will become enforceable if not appealed within the time limits and forms provided for in Articles 714 and 715 and the content of these provisions (Art. 713, para. 2, CPC). Once the conditions for admissibility of the appeal are met, the parties, summoned at least fifteen days in advance by the court of appeal clerk, are heard adversarially by the first president or their delegate, who conducts or has conducted, if necessary, all useful investigations (Art. 716 CPC) . Finally, they also have the option to refer the application as it stands to a court hearing for which they set the date (Art. 717 CPC).

Cass. 2e civ., 3 May 2007, LawLex202300011320JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 14 December 1992, LawLex202300014324JBJ; 17 March 2016, LawLex202300014328JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 30 March 2000, LawLex202300014334JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 20 November 2003, LawLex202300014341JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 22 June 1983, LawLex202300014342JBJ; Cass. 3e civ., 7 May 2014, LawLex202300011324JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 7 July 2005, LawLex202300014338JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 10 February 1993, LawLex202300014340JBJ; 21 February 2013, LawLex202300011321JBJ; Cass. com., 4 July 2018, LawLex202300011325JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 26 March 2015, LawLex202300011323JB.

Cass. 2e civ., 22 October 1980, LawLex202300014325JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 26 June 2008, LawLex202300014329JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 13 October 2005, LawLex202400003911JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 10 February 1982, LawLex202300014339JBJ; 29 May 1991, LawLex202300014333JBJ; 22 March 2001, LawLex202300014343JBJ; 4 January 2006, LawLex202200009768JBJ; 15 April 2010, LawLex202400003919JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 2 May 1989, LawLex202300014337JBJ.

Cass. 2e civ., 26 October 2006, LawLex202300014332JB.

Cass. 2e civ., 18 January 2007, LawLex202300014335JBJ.

1. Ordinary Law of Civil Procedure

254. Conditions

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Les notions juridiques connexes

254. Conditions

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