SUMMARY ENFORCEMENT PROCEDURE

This paper considers summary enforcement procedure, which was (again) included in enforcement procedure by the Law on the Amendments to the Law on Enforcement and Security Interest. The main goal is to outline this procedure through an analysis of legal provisions and thereby introduce interested parties to requirements for conducting a procedure that should allow business entities faster collection of monetary claims. Apart from the above-mentioned, this paper considers several debatable questions that may occur during the application of the law, as well as answers to these questions.

Summary enforcement procedure is a documentary procedure for collection of a monetary claim, where business entities often act as enforcement creditors or enforcement debtors and authentic documents which have high probative value are the basis on which enforcement can be allowed. These are: 1) bill of exchange or cheque issued by a citizen of Serbia or a foreign citizen, with protest if necessary for the establishment of a claim; 2) unconditional bank guarantee; 3) unconditional letter of credit and 4) enforcement debtor’s certified statement authorizing a bank to transfer money from his account to enforcement creditor’s account. A commercial court decides on a motion to enforce. Just as an enforcement creditor should file aforementioned authentic documents with a motion to enforce which proposes conducting a summary enforcement procedure, so an enforcement debtor filing an objection against a decision on enforcement should file written evidence established by law.

An objection is the only legal remedy against a decision on enforcement in a summary enforcement procedure. It can be filed within five days of delivery of the decision and it shall be decided upon by a panel of three judges of the court which issued the decision on enforcement. The objection has a suspensive effect, unless it concerns a bill of exchange.