Judgment No. 8751/2026 was recently handed down by the Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance. By that judgment, a payment order concerning lease payments allegedly due under a finance lease agreement was set aside in favour of our client, a real estate asset management company.
More specifically, the Court held that, for a payment order to be issued against the successor to the original debtor company following a corporate transformation—in the present case, a merger by absorption—at least the notarial deed of merger must be produced, thereby providing documentary evidence that the successor is the proper party against whom the application may be brought.
In the present case, the respondent to the application to set aside the payment order failed to produce any such deed or any other document establishing the relevant succession. It thereby infringed the requirement of documentary proof governing the ex parte procedure for the issuance of payment orders.
The opposing party’s contention that the debtor company had become aware of the succession when it was served with the notice terminating the relevant finance lease agreement and that, consequently, no further documents were required to be relied upon and produced pursuant to Article 925 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure was rejected as having no basis in law.
The material findings of the judgment read as follows:
“In any event, the respondent, which bears the relevant burden of proof, has failed to establish that, for the purposes of obtaining the payment order at issue, it produced documents proving that the Applicant was the universal successor to the original lessee company under the name {…..} and, consequently, that the Applicant had standing as the proper respondent to the application for the issuance of the payment order under challenge*. As stated above in the Court’s legal analysis, such evidence is required* in order to establish, by documentary proof, the identity of the debtor in respect of the claim for which the contested payment order was issued*.*
It is further noted that Article 925 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure is not applicable in the present case. That provision concerns the commencement or continuation of enforcement proceedings by a universal or singular successor to the original creditor, where that successor is not identified in the enforceable instrument, and not the issuance of a payment order against the successor to the original debtor.
In light of the foregoing, the payment order was issued in breach of the requirement that the standing of the respondent to the application for its issuance be established by documentary evidence. That breach renders the payment order invalid on grounds of procedural inadmissibility.”
