Claimants and defendants, in court and in arbitration
Discuss your claimWe reply within one business day. Scope and fees are agreed before work starts.
In short
- District Court and arbitration, acting for claimants and for defendants, including in multi-party and cross-border disputes.
- Freezing, disclosure and search orders where a claim needs protecting before it is decided.
- Enforcement in Cyprus of foreign judgments and arbitral awards.
Explore the scope of our work
We act for claimants and defendants before the District Courts and in arbitration. The work covers commercial and corporate disputes: banker and customer disputes, breach of directors' and fiduciary duties, shareholders' disputes, winding-up applications, cross-border asset recovery, and the enforcement in Cyprus of foreign judgments and arbitral awards.
Beyond that: professional negligence, bankruptcy, insolvency and receivership, landlord and tenant, matrimonial, breach of contract, personal injury, insurance, employment, intellectual property and technology, and defamation, libel and slander. From 7 May 2026 a defendant sued over a matter of public interest has the procedural safeguards in Law 24(I)/2026, set out in Cyprus now has an anti-SLAPP law.
Where a claim needs protecting before it is decided, the Cyprus courts can grant interim relief, including freezing injunctions, disclosure injunctions, garnishee proceedings and search orders.
How to start a first enquiry
Tell us the names of the parties, so we can run a conflict check, a short outline of the dispute, and any hearing or limitation date. Do not send the contract or the correspondence in dispute until we confirm we can act.
The recovery of unpaid debts, from letter before action through judgment and enforcement, is set out under debt recovery.
The work
What is settled in the first week, before anything is filed, usually decides more than the hearing does: what was preserved, what was frozen, and which forum the contract had already chosen.
Where to start
Assets are being moved
When the court will freeze assets before judgment, and the dissipation risk that has to be proved.
A claim has been served
The appearance is filed within 14 days of service, the defence 28 from filing it.
A dispute with another business
Breach of contract between businesses, distribution and agency, partnership and joint venture fallouts.
Someone will not pay
Unpaid invoices, loans and rent arrears, from the letter before action through judgment and enforcement.
The people you will work with
How a matter runs
From first contact to implementation
The route is broadly the same in every matter, and knowing it in advance makes the cost and the timetable easier to judge.
First contact and conflict check
Engagement and fee agreement before any work begins
Review of the contract or correspondence in dispute, and a chronology
Assessment of the merits, the limitation position and whether the assets can be reached
Letter before action, negotiation, or an urgent application where the claim needs protecting first
Pleadings, disclosure and evidence, or the terms of a settlement
Implementation and monitoring of the agreed terms
The first decisions
What gets decided in the first week
Four questions, answered before anything is issued. Most of what a dispute later costs turns on the answers.
What kind of dispute is this, actually?
Clients arrive with a grievance, not with a cause of action. The same facts may support a claim in contract, a claim for a debt, a claim against a director personally, an application to wind up a company, or none of those, each carrying a different burden of proof, a different remedy and a different cost. A strong claim pleaded alongside two weak ones is a weaker case, not a broader one.
Does anything need protecting before it is decided?
A claim that will be worth nothing by the time it is won needs attention immediately. Where assets are being moved, where information is about to be lost, or where the money is held by someone other than the defendant, the question is whether interim relief is realistically available on today's evidence. The question does not keep.
It runs both ways: an application of this kind carries obligations and consequences for the party that brings it, and one made without the material to support it is worse than none.
Where does the dispute belong?
The forum is set by the contract before it is set by anything else. Many commercial agreements provide for arbitration, some for a preliminary step before proceedings can be brought at all, and some for a foreign court. Such a clause is not a formality, and issuing in disregard of it can waste a year. Where the parties or the assets sit in more than one country, where to bring the claim is answered by asking where a judgment would actually be enforced.
Write, or issue?
A well-prepared claim put to the other side with the documents that support it resolves a significant proportion of disputes without proceedings, at a fraction of the cost. It is not always right: where a limitation period is close, where correspondence has already been shown to change nothing, or where relief is needed at once, writing first donates time. What decides it is the file, not temperament.
In one respect the choice is not entirely ours. Rule 3.9 of Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules 2023 (13/2023) makes the approved pre-action protocols listed in Annex I the usual and reasonable approach, expected to be followed, and sets out their purposes: earlier contact between the parties, an early and full exchange of information about the prospective claim, better investigation on both sides, settlement before proceedings, and effective case management where proceedings cannot be avoided. Rule 3.10(1) requires substantial compliance with an approved protocol.
The consequence of ignoring it is a costs consequence. Under rule 3.10(2) the court may take a failure to comply into account when exercising its powers under Part 28 or Part 39, or when deciding whether to impose sanctions. Under rule 3.10(4), where the non-compliance led to proceedings that need not have been started, or to costs that would not otherwise have arisen, the court may order the party in breach to pay all or part of those costs.
Rule 3.10(5) spells out what counts: for a claimant, failing to give sufficient information or to follow the procedure the protocol requires; for a defendant, failing to give a preliminary or a full response to the letter of claim within the protocol's time, or failing to disclose documents the protocol requires.
Three situations sit outside it. Rule 3.11(1) excuses compliance in urgent claims, where a limitation period is about to expire and the time between that expiry and the claimant instructing an advocate is too short to allow compliance, and where there are reasonable and sufficient grounds for non-compliance, fully set out in the claim form or the pleading.
In the limitation case, rule 3.11(2)(a) still expects the claimant's advocate to give sufficient notice of the intention to sue, and allows the court to extend time or to stay the proceedings while the pre-action steps are taken.
Under rule 3.12(1) letters of claim and response do not have the status of pleadings, and under rule 3.13(1), where no approved protocol covers the dispute, the parties are still expected to act reasonably in exchanging information and documents so as to avoid proceedings.
Defending a claim
The other half of the practice
Being sued is a different exercise from suing, and it is the half that most firms describe least.
A defendant does not choose the timing, the forum or the way the case is framed. The first task is to establish what is actually being alleged, as against what the claimant would like the court to feel.
A claim that reads as devastating often narrows once each allegation is set against the document said to prove it; one that looks like a nuisance sometimes contains a paragraph that is very difficult to answer. Which of those you are facing should be established in the first fortnight: it decides whether the objective is to defeat the claim, to reduce it, or to settle it before costs make settlement pointless.
The deadlines do not all run from the same event, which is where defendants lose time they cannot get back. Under rule 10.4(1) of the Civil Procedure Rules 2023 the acknowledgement of service is filed within fourteen days of service of the claim form, or, where the claim form states that particulars of claim will follow, within fourteen days of service of those particulars.
The defence is then filed under rule 17.4(1) within twenty-eight days of the filing of the acknowledgement of service, not of service itself, and a file managed on the assumption that both periods run from the same day will be late. Rule 17.5(1) allows the parties to agree an extension of the defence period up to forty-two days in total, with the court informed in writing under subsection (2), and rule 17.3(1) leaves a defendant who files nothing exposed to default judgment where Part 13 permits it.
Beyond the pleading, a defence has options a claimant does not: a cross-claim worth more than the claim, a third party who is truly responsible and should be brought in, a jurisdiction or an arbitration point that disposes of the proceedings without touching the merits, and the question whether the claimant can actually pay if the defence succeeds.
We defend for businesses, for individuals and, in the personal injury field, for insurers. Acting on both sides of that field is what makes a valuation credible.
Evidence
Civil cases are decided on documents
Witnesses explain documents. They very rarely overcome them.
What decides them
- The contract, and every version of it, including the terms nobody read
- The correspondence in sequence, with dates, including messages from personal accounts and telephones
- What was done rather than agreed: invoices raised, payments made, deliveries accepted, and the conduct of the parties over time
- Board minutes, resolutions and filings, where a company is involved
- Bank records, and the trail of where money actually went
- Any admission, however informal, and any complaint, and what was said in answer to it
- Expert evidence, where the issue is one a court cannot resolve without it
Preserve it now
Once a dispute is foreseeable, the routine destruction of material stops being routine. Mailboxes should not be closed, devices not wiped when they are replaced, accounting systems not migrated without an export, and messaging applications should be backed up before a telephone is changed. The party that can produce a complete, dated record is in a materially stronger position than the party explaining why it cannot.
The same applies to what is created after the dispute begins: internal emails written in frustration are read out later, and a file note of what was said in a telephone call is worth more than a recollection two years on.
If a claim is coming or a deadline is close, tell us who is on the other side and what date is running, at office@kleanthousplatis.com, or the enquiry form. We reply within one business day.
Cost
How the cost is controlled
Litigation is priced by stage, and each stage is estimated before it is begun: the assessment and the initial letter together, pleadings once we know what is being alleged, trial separately. Disclosure and evidence are where costs escalate on a badly run file, and the stage we plan hardest, because the volume of material is the variable that moves the budget.
Two figures are worth holding in mind throughout: what the dispute is worth if you win completely, and what it will have cost to get there. Where they approach each other, the correct advice is to settle, and we give it rather than waiting for you to reach the conclusion yourself. A successful party generally recovers a contribution towards its legal costs from the other side, which is one input into that arithmetic rather than an answer to it.
Fixed fees are used wherever the work is genuinely definable: an assessment, a demand, a single application, a discrete piece of advice. A fixed fee for something unpredictable is either a bad deal for you or one nobody intends to honour.
Within this practice area
Enforcing a Judgment in Cyprus
GuideArbitration Under Cap. 4: Clause, Award, Court
LitigationMediation: What It Stops, and What It Produces
LitigationLimitation Periods: How Long You Have to Sue
LitigationLate Payment in Commercial Transactions
Interest runs without a demand, at the reference rate plus eight points, and a fixed forty euro for recovery costs comes with it.
Arbitration or Court: What That Clause Decides
An arbitration clause is enforced, and the stay must be sought before any other step. When arbitration is worth it, when the court is, and where clauses go wrong.
You Have Received a Lawyer's Letter
A demand letter is not a judgment, but the way you handle it is recorded. What not to do in the first twenty four hours, and what silence costs.
A Freezing Order Has Been Served on You
It does not take your property: it forbids you to move it until the case is decided. What is excepted, why it was granted without you, and what breaching it costs.
Commercial Dispute Lawyers in Cyprus
Breach of contract between businesses, distribution and agency, partnership and joint venture fallouts, and disputes from the sale of a business. The three questions that get answered before anything is spent, why termination is the most dangerous moment, and the time limits that run earlier than most clients assume.
Shareholder Dispute Lawyers in Cyprus
Deadlock, minorities shut out of management or dividends, disputed transfers and dilutions, and exits at a fair price. What the Companies Law actually gives a minority, what the shareholders’ agreement usually already contains, and which records a shareholder is, and is not, entitled to see.
Cross-border litigation in Cyprus
Jurisdiction under the European rules, the three roads for enforcing a foreign judgment in Cyprus, arbitral awards under the New York Convention, and Cyprus orders in aid of proceedings running elsewhere. How we work alongside foreign counsel without duplicating them.
Freezing orders in Cyprus
When the court will freeze assets before judgment, the dissipation risk that has to be proved, the duties that come with relief obtained without notice, and the sequence to follow if you are the one served. Available before an action is filed and in support of foreign proceedings.
Fraud and asset recovery in Cyprus
Deceit under section 36 of Cap. 148 and the two forms of civil conspiracy, what has to be proved and to what standard, and the disclosure orders that find the money: Norwich Pharmacal against involved third parties and Bankers Trust against banks, with the necessity test that decides most of these applications.
Personal Injury
Accidents on construction sites and at work, on the road, and in public and private places, together with medical negligence and injuries to visitors to Cyprus or to people resident here who are injured abroad. What each type of claim has to establish, the evidence that decides it, and the three-year limitation period.
Professional Negligence Lawyers in Cyprus
Claims against lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers and other advisers whose work fell below the profession's own standard. Why the expert opinion is the case, the causation question these claims are lost on, and the three-year period that runs while you negotiate. We act for claimants and defend professionals.
Debt recovery in Cyprus
Unpaid invoices, loans, rent arrears and construction payments, from the assessment and the letter before action through judgment, enforcement against assets and cross-border recovery. What has to be established before anything is sent, and what it costs at each stage.
Construction Disputes
Defects, delay and extension of time, variations, unpaid certificates and retention, claims against consultants and termination. Who is answerable to whom, the site records that decide these cases, and why the evidence degrades predictably.
Frequently asked questions about litigation in Cyprus
Is contact before proceedings compulsory?
It is not always optional. The first step may be a letter before action, a demand for payment, a contractual notice, a request for documents or an invitation to negotiate. Under the Civil Procedure Rules 2023 pre-action contact is not optional in certain categories of case, and a failure to make it is taken into account on costs.
What about a judgment from a foreign court?
Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards is part of the department's work. Which route applies depends on where the judgment was given and under what regime, and is answered from the documents rather than in the abstract.
How long does a civil case take in Cyprus?
It depends far more on what is disputed than on the subject matter. A claim that is not defended, or that settles once it has been properly put, is resolved in a fraction of the time of one fought to trial on contested facts with expert evidence on both sides. That is why the assessment at the outset matters: it tells you which of those you are in, while you still have all your options.
Will my case go to trial?
Most do not. The great majority of civil disputes are resolved by agreement between the first letter and the trial date, and the better the claim is prepared at the start, the earlier that point tends to arrive. A claim set out clearly, with the documents behind it, is both easier to answer and easier to settle than one that has not been.
I have been served with a claim. What should I do first?
Take advice immediately. Deadlines run from service and missing one can convert an arguable case into a judgment against you. Tell us the date you received them and how they were served, and preserve everything relevant rather than tidying it. What the claim is really alleging can be assessed once the procedural position is safe.
Can I get an urgent order to stop assets being moved?
The Cyprus courts can grant interim relief, including freezing injunctions, disclosure injunctions, garnishee proceedings and search orders. Whether that relief is realistically available in your case depends on the evidence you can put before the court now and on where the assets sit. We will tell you at the outset whether yours is a realistic candidate.
Our contract says disputes go to arbitration. Does that change anything?
It changes where the dispute is resolved, and it is the first thing we look for. Where the parties have agreed to arbitrate, that agreement is capable of being enforced, and proceedings issued in disregard of it may be halted. The clause is read at the outset, because discovering it late is expensive.
Do you act for defendants, or only claimants?
Both, and deliberately. In the personal injury field we act for injured claimants and for insurers. Having argued the same kind of case from both sides is what makes a valuation credible rather than optimistic, and useful when advising whether an offer is a good one.
What will it cost?
Litigation is priced by stage and each stage is estimated before it is begun, so you decide whether to take the next step with the cost of it in front of you. Fixed fees are used where the work is genuinely definable. A successful party generally recovers a contribution towards its legal costs from the other side, which is a contribution rather than the whole bill.
Court or arbitration: which is better for my dispute?
Neither in the abstract. The dispute resolution clause in the contract decides where the dispute is heard, by what procedure, in how long, at what cost, and how easily the result is enforced. The comparison, without the clichés, is set out in Arbitration or Court: What That Clause Actually Decides.
Disputes, from the first letter to enforcement
Every page we hold on running and defending a claim in Cyprus, grouped by the stage the matter has reached.
Three useful starting points
Browse all guidance by topic
Before anything is filed5
Letter Before Action in Cyprus
The first step in recovering a Cyprus debt: what the letter must say to be worth sending, what it protects, and what follows if it is ignored.
You Have Received a Lawyer's Letter. What Now?
A demand letter is not a judgment, but the way you handle it is recorded. What not to do in the first twenty four hours, and what silence costs.
Limitation periods in Cyprus: how long you have to sue
The periods under Law 66(I)/2012: six years for contract, three for negligence, one for defamation, twelve on a mortgage, and the rules that stop and restart the clock.
Limitation Periods Calculator
Which limitation period applies to a claim in Cyprus under Law 66(I)/2012, including the 39 month suspension and the periods section 24 preserves.
Mediation in Cyprus: what it stops, and what it produces
Law 159(I)/2012: the suspension of limitation, what cannot be used afterwards, the exclusions including non cross-border employment, and enforcement of the settlement.
How a case actually runs9
The Civil Procedure Rules 2023: A Practical Guide
What the Cyprus Civil Procedure Rules 2023 changed in practice: the overriding objective, the pre-action protocols, and costs tied to conduct.
The Commercial Court, and the case heard in English
Law 69(I)/2022 legislates for a Commercial Court and an Admiralty Court, but jurisdiction moves only on a published notice. Until then the District Court keeps it.
Hearsay is admissible in a Cyprus civil case. Weight is the fight
Cap. 9 stopped excluding hearsay and gave the court a statutory checklist for weighing it, a right to summon the maker, and video evidence from a witness abroad.
Arbitration in Cyprus is two statutes, not one
Cap. 4 governs domestic arbitration. An international commercial arbitration is governed by Law 101/1987, which enacts the Model Law and reaches arbitrations seated abroad.
What a Court Case in Cyprus Actually Costs
The honest structure of litigation cost in Cyprus: your own fees, disbursements, the costs order at the end, what drives cost up, and how it is kept down.
Bringing a Claim Without a Lawyer in Cyprus
The honest answer from a law firm: some claims do not need one. What you take on when you file alone, where the risk sits, and the middle option people forget.
Cyprus consumers are represented without opting in
Law 91(I)/2023 lets a qualified entity sue for redress on behalf of every consumer affected unless they opt out, and no individual consumer pays costs.
Cyprus now has an anti-SLAPP law, in force since May 2026
Law 24(I)/2026 gives a defendant sued over a matter of public interest security for costs, early dismissal and full costs back. Discontinuing does not escape it.
Being sued in Cyprus?
Served with a Cyprus claim form: 14 days to file an appearance, 28 for the defence from filing it, and what default judgment and setting aside really mean.
Recovering a debt6
Debt Recovery Lawyers in Cyprus
Debt recovery in Cyprus for businesses and individuals: letter before action, court proceedings, enforcement against property and bank accounts.
Recovering a Debt in Cyprus, Step by Step
From the demand letter to enforcement: assessment before expenditure, the pre-action protocols, the court process, and why enforcement is where cases are won.
Recovering a Debt From a Cyprus Company That Will Not Pay
Statutory demand, winding up petition or ordinary action: the options for recovering a debt from a Cyprus company, and how to choose between them.
Late Payment in Cyprus Commercial Transactions
A business paid late is entitled to interest without any demand, at the reference rate plus eight points, and forty euro in recovery costs, under Law 123(I)/2012.
I Lent Money and There Is Nothing in Writing
No document does not mean no right: it means a problem of proof. What evidence works, why partial repayments matter, and the order to move in.
Restructuring & Insolvency
Company restructuring and insolvency in Cyprus: directors' duties as a company approaches insolvency, creditor claims, liquidation and personal exposure.
When it will not wait4
Freezing Orders in Cyprus
Freezing injunctions in Cyprus: when the court will freeze assets, what an applicant must show and undertake, and how to respond if you are served with one.
A Freezing Order Has Been Served on You
It does not take your property: it forbids you to move it until the case is decided. What is excepted, why it was granted, and what breach costs.
Norwich Pharmacal Orders in Cyprus
What a Norwich Pharmacal order does, what the court has to be satisfied of before granting one, and what an application against a bank has to contain.
A Freezing Order Must Name a Sum for Each Company Separately
A freeze over two companies named one global figure of 100,825 euro. The appeal court kept the order but split it, because each answers only for what is claimed from it.
Enforcing what you have won3
Enforcing a judgment in Cyprus
You won; now collect. The enforcement routes under the Civil Procedure Rules 2023, the ten-year charge over land under Cap. 6, and how the right measure gets you paid.
Enforcing Foreign Judgments in Cyprus
Enforcing foreign judgments and arbitral awards in Cyprus: Brussels Ia, third-country judgments, New York Convention awards and interim measures.
Debt recovery in Cyprus for foreign creditors
A fixed-fee assessment for a creditor abroad chasing a Cyprus debtor: is the debt still enforceable, what does the debtor own, and which instrument collects.
Arbitration2
Arbitration or Court: What That Clause Actually Decides
An arbitration clause is enforced, and the stay must be sought before any other step. When arbitration is worth it, and where clauses go wrong.
Arbitration under Cap. 4: the clause, the award, the court
The domestic Arbitration Law: what the First Schedule reads into your clause, the stay you must ask for before pleading, setting aside, and enforcement as a judgment.
Particular claims6
How a Negligence Claim Works in Cyprus
What a negligence claim in Cyprus must prove, the evidence that decides it, the three-year limitation period, and how a claim actually proceeds.
Defamation in Cyprus: the Claim, the Defences and the One Year Limit
Defamation under Cap. 148: the five imputations of section 17, why repeating and naming the source are no answer, truth, fair comment and privilege, and the one year limit.
Neighbour Disputes in Cyprus: Nuisance, Noise and the Building Next Door
Private and public nuisance under Cap. 148, the fifteen year rule for light, why coming to the nuisance is no defence, and the injunction that stops continuing damage.
Faulty Goods in Cyprus: the Two Years, the 25 Days and the 30 Days
Consumer rights against the seller under Law 154(I)/2021: two years with the defect presumed, free repair within 25 days, rejection in the first 30, and refunds.
A Cheque That Bounced in Cyprus: the Holder's Rights, and the One Duty That Loses Them
The drawer's statutory engagement, the notice of dishonour that discharges the careless, interest from presentment, and why these claims suit summary judgment.
Professional Negligence Lawyers in Cyprus
Professional negligence claims in Cyprus against lawyers, accountants, architects and engineers: the standard, the expert evidence, the deadlines.
Across a border, and against the State3
Cross-Border Litigation Lawyers in Cyprus
Cross-border disputes with a Cyprus connection: jurisdiction, enforcing foreign judgments and awards, and Cyprus orders in aid of foreign cases.
Challenging a Government Decision in Cyprus: 75-Day Deadline
How to challenge an administrative decision in Cyprus: the 75-day recourse deadline, which decisions can be challenged, and what the Court can order.
Public & Administrative
Challenging a decision of a Cyprus public authority: the recourse to the Administrative Court under Article 146, and what counts as an executory decision.
Fraud and commercial disputes4
Fraud and Asset Recovery in Cyprus
Civil fraud claims and asset recovery in Cyprus: deceit and conspiracy, freezing injunctions, and Norwich Pharmacal disclosure against banks and third parties.
Commercial Dispute Lawyers in Cyprus
Commercial and contract disputes in Cyprus: breach of contract, distribution and agency, partnership and joint venture fallouts, in court and in arbitration.
Shareholder Dispute Lawyers in Cyprus
Deadlock, exclusion and oppression in a Cyprus company: the section 202 buyout, just and equitable winding up, derivative claims, and what records a member can see.
Banking & Fintech
Disputes with banks and payment institutions in Cyprus, restructuring of facilities, guarantees and enforcement, and regulation of payment businesses.
To see which limitation period applies and what can move it, use our limitation periods calculator.
To see whether a tenancy falls under the Rent Control Law, use our rent control checker.
The first step in most recoveries is a letter before action, sent on a fixed fee.
All our writing is on the writing index. Related: Specific performance or damages, Corporate & Commercial, Banking & Fintech and Restructuring & Insolvency.
If a dispute has arisen, or is about to, tell us the names of the parties, what has happened and any deadline. Once the conflict check is clear we will ask for the contract or correspondence in issue and a chronology.