Published on 23 June 2025
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 55059/22
M.A. EOOD
against Bulgaria
lodged on 22 November 2022
communicated on 3 June 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns litigation costs in civil proceedings.
The applicant company was involved in a legal dispute over the validity of a contract. In a judgment of 27 February 2019 the first-instance Sofia City Court declared the contract null and void based on some of the grounds raised by the plaintiffs.
The applicant company appealed, but failed to pay the required court fee for the appeal’s examination, amounting to 61,980 Bulgarian levs (BGN, equivalent of about 31,700 euros (EUR)). Eventually, the company requested that the time-limit to pay be restored, which the Sofia City Court granted in a decision of 20 July 2021. The applicant company thus paid the court fee, and the case was transferred to the Sofia Court of Appeal, where the original plaintiffs also deposited an appeal against the first-instance judgment, asking that the impugned contract be declared null and void on additional grounds.
In a decision dated 11 February 2022, the Sofia Court of Appeal held that the lower court had not had valid reasons to restore the time-limit for the applicant company to pay the court fee, and that the applicant’s appeal was not to be examined on the merits, seeing that the fee had not been paid in time. There was no need to examine the other party’s appeal either. These findings were upheld in a final decision of the Supreme Court of Cassation of 22 July 2022.
The Sofia Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Cassation held also that the applicant company was not entitled to a refund of the court fee for appeal. The applicant company was additionally ordered to cover the other party’s litigation costs, including BGN 61,980 (EUR 31,700) for a court fee for the examination of their own appeal, and BGN 40,518 (EUR 20,720) in lawyer’s fees.
The applicant company complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about the above litigation costs. It argues that these costs were too high and placed on it an excessive financial burden, given in particular that they were related to proceedings where its appeal was not examined on the merits.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was Article 6 § 1 of the Convention under its civil head applicable to the proceedings in the present case? If so, did the applicant company have access to a court for the determination of its civil rights and obligations in accordance with that Article’s requirements, seeing the high litigation costs payable by it in proceedings where its appeal against the first-instance judgment was not examined on the merits (see, mutatis mutandis, Cindrić and Bešlić v. Croatia, no. 72152/13, §§ 116-23, 6 September 2016, and Karahasanoğlu v. Turkey, nos. 21392/08 and 2 others, §§ 131-39, 16 March 2021)?
2. Has there been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in the case? In particular, were the litigation costs for the applicant company in the appeal proceedings too high, and has the applicant company been made to bear an excessive individual burden?