Commercial Dispute Lawyers in Cyprus

Not safely. Suspending your own performance without a contractual or legal right to do so can itself amount to a breach, and in the worst case hands the other side a termination claim. The contract is read first, then the step is planned.

You can file, but expect the proceedings to be halted if the other side asks in time. For international commercial arbitration the referral is mandatory unless the arbitration agreement is invalid or inoperative; for domestic arbitration the court decides on settled conditions. The clause usually wins.

Generally six years from the breach. Fees of independent professionals are subject to a three-year period. Where the dates are close, take advice before assuming the claim is alive or dead.

The assessment is a fixed fee with a written outcome. Beyond it, nothing is spent without your decision, and fixed fees are used wherever the work is genuinely definable.

Legislated, but not the forum yet. Law 69(I)/2022 establishes a Commercial Court with first instance jurisdiction over a commercial dispute where the amount actually in dispute exceeds two million euro, and over competition damages actions, intellectual property matters and arbitration matters whatever the amount. A judge of that Court may also allow the proceedings, the documents and the judgment to be in English. Its jurisdiction does not begin with the Law, though: under section 32(2) the provisions that give it jurisdiction take effect only when the Supreme Court publishes a notice that the Court is constituted and ready to operate, and section 33(1)(a) keeps first instance jurisdiction over commercial disputes with the District Court until that notice is published. What the Law means for a particular case, including the notice on which its jurisdiction depends, is set out in the Commercial Court, and the case heard in English. The Civil Procedure Rules 2023 (13/2023) supply the procedure and the active case management that goes with it.

Sometimes. The rules allow summary judgment where there is no real issue to be tried on the claim, no real defence to it, and no other compelling reason for a trial. The threshold cuts both ways: a claimant has to show there is nothing genuinely in dispute, and a defendant defeats the application by showing an arguable defence rather than a good one. Where the documents settle the matter it is the fastest route there is.

It is a formal offer under the rules, made on a prescribed form, open for acceptance for 21 days, and its whole point is what it does to costs. If a defendant offers and the claimant fails to beat that offer, the claimant pays the defendant's costs from the day the acceptance period expired. If a claimant offers and does beat it, the claimant is entitled to costs on the higher, indemnity basis from that date. An offer can be made at any stage, and it converts the question from who is right into what the risk of being wrong now costs.

They can apply for it. The court may order a claimant to give security where the claimant is not resident in Cyprus or is a company without assets here, or where a company appears unable to meet a costs order, weighing the value of the claim, its prospects, the nature of the assets and the surrounding circumstances. A claimant based abroad is asked for it often enough that it belongs in the budget rather than in the surprises.

Possibly. The rules allow an interim payment on account of a probable final judgment where the defendant has admitted liability, where the claimant is likely to recover a substantial sum, and where the defendant has the means to pay, an insurer or a public authority behind them being the clearest case. The amount is adjusted at the final judgment. It does not fit every commercial claim, but where liability is not really in issue and only the figure is, it is worth asking for.