EUPillar OLG Stuttgart, 1.12.2014

Summary

The parties argued about the declaration of enforceability of a decision concerning maintenance claims which had been given by an Austrian court. The court had to address the questions of the applicability of the Maintenance Regulation and the question of the extent to which the court of the appeal was allowed to examine the first decision. The court first stated with regard to the scope of application that the Regulation applied to decisions which were made before the Regulation came into force but whose recognition was claimed after that point of time, Art 75 (2) (a). Therefore, the Art 23 et seqq Maintenance Regulation were to be applied. The defendant’s objection saying that the original decision was materially wrong was addressed by the court by referring to the prohibition of a révision au fond, Art 42 Maintenance Regulation. The court further addressed but did not answer the question whether it could examine – additionally to the provisions of Art 24 Maintenance Regulation – the prerequisites that were subject to the examination of the first instance court (Art 30 sentence 1), namely the formal requirements applying to an application for a declaration of enforceability. The court stated that the issue could be left unanswered in view of the fact that the formal requirements in that case were given (see Art 28 Maintenance Regulation).