Case study on the functioning of enforcement proceedings relating to judicial decisions in Member States : Final report

The purpose of this study was to collect data on the functioning of the EU Member States’ national judicial systems when enforcing judicial decisions in civil and commercial matters. Data on the length of enforcement proceedings is difficult to collect as Member States seldom collect this information. Following a methodology where two scenarios were used, this research found a difference between Member States in terms of the length of enforcement proceedings; the start of the enforcing proceeding and the freezing of the defendant’s bank account vary from 2 to 196 days between Member States. The time between the freezing of the bank account and the recovery of the assets can vary from 5 to 533 days. However, these data must be taken with caution due to (i) the small sample of cases available, (ii) the differences in the judicial systems of the Member States.