Summary
Under Article 43(5) of Regulation (EC) No. 44/2001 of 22 December 2000, read in conjunction with Article 42(2) of the same Regulation, the opposition against the exequatur of a Belgian money judgment raised beyond the thirty-day term from the notification of the decree with which the judgment was declared enforceable in Italy is admissible if the party was not legally informed of the judgment for which recognition is being sought. In such case, to compute the day on which the time-limit begins to run, reference shall be made to the subsequent date on which the decree was notified together with the foreign judgment for which recognition is sought regardless of the fact that useful elements to that effect may be drawn from the application of the opposing party which was notified together with the decree. In fact, such latter notification does not appear to satisfy the needs underlying the mentioned Article 43(5) – stemming from the necessity to assess the opposition and the defences raised with it – that may only be fulfilled by the notification of the foreign judgment whose enforcement is sought.