The decision of the Athens Single Judge Court of First Instance No. 12424/2023 has been published, which annulled a payment order under which an auction of our debtor’s property was accelerated. In the decision, a ground of appeal was accepted, which related to the procedural defect of the lack of written proof of the claim and, in particular, the lack of legal validation of the extracts from the commercial books.
In particular, in order for a photocopy of an extract from the bank’s books to constitute a certified copy of the original, there must be (a) in the photocopied document (extract) extracted by printing from a computer, a certificate of the bank employee who made the printout for the authenticity of the printout and this certificate must be imprinted on the photocopy; and (b) the photocopy must bear a certificate, issued by a competent authority or a lawyer, that it (photocopy) is accurate. In the present case, however, the movement cards produced for the issuance of the impugned payment order, as exact copies of the original, as certified by the opposing party’s counsel, did not bear the stamp and signature of the Servicer attesting to the authenticity of the printout.
The judgment thus held that: “[…] With regard, however, to: […] accounts […], however, the […] ], these are printouts from the bank’s computerised books, on which the words ‘Exact copy of the original in my own hand, which I certify, Athens, 27-5-2022, Attorney-at-law’ are written, followed by the signature of the defendant’s attorney-at-law, without the defendant’s official certifying the authenticity of the printout of the extracts from the commercial books. However, as stated above, in order for the printout of the extract from the bank’s commercial registers to have evidential value, it would have to be accompanied by a certificate from the defendant’s official attesting to the authenticity of the printout of the extract from its commercial registers, in which case it would constitute the original document so that it could be certified by a lawyer (or other competent authority). The copies of the accounts in question submitted by the defendant, which constituted a printout of extracts from its computerised commercial registers, did not bear either the certification of the authenticity of the printout by an official or his signature. For that reason, the copies of the extracts: […] from the defendant’s commercial registers which it produced in order to prove its claim against the opponent were not drawn up in the correct form and therefore do not satisfy the basic formal requirement for the issue of a payment order, which, as stated above, is proof of the claim by means of a public or private document. Therefore, the relevant plea in law should also be upheld as well as being well-founded in substance’.
