Litigation and Debt Recovery Lawyers in Cyprus

The work

Claimants and defendants, in court and in arbitration

In short

District Court and arbitration, acting for claimants and for defendants.
Freezing, disclosure and search orders where a claim needs protecting before it is decided.
Enforcement in Cyprus of foreign judgments and arbitral awards.

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, and cross-border asset recovery. We also apply to enforce foreign judgments and arbitral awards in Cyprus.

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.

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. Whether that relief is realistically available depends on the evidence and on where the assets sit. We will tell you which at the start.

What to send us in a first enquiry

Send us the contract or correspondence in dispute, a chronology, and any deadline you are aware of.

The recovery of unpaid debts, from letter before action through judgment and enforcement, is set out under debt recovery.

The first decisions

What gets decided in the first week

Four questions, answered before anything is issued. Most of what a dispute later costs was determined by how they were answered.

What kind of dispute is this, actually?

Clients arrive with a grievance, not with a cause of action, and the two are not the same shape. The same set of 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, and each carries a different burden of proof, a different remedy and a different cost. Sorting the grievance into claims, and discarding the ones that sound satisfying but cannot be proved, is the first useful piece of work on any file. 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 party holding the money is not the party you are suing, the question is whether interim relief is realistically available on the evidence you have today. This is a high-cost, high-value decision and it does not keep. It also runs both ways: applications of this kind carry obligations and consequences for the party that brings them, and an application 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. A clause of that kind 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, the question of where to bring the claim is a strategic one rather than an administrative one, and it 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, and it costs a fraction of what proceedings cost. It is not always right: where a limitation period is close, where the other side has shown that correspondence changes nothing, or where relief is needed at once, writing first simply donates time. What decides it is not temperament but the file, and we will give you a view rather than a menu.

How a matter runs

From first contact to implementation

Every matter is different, but the route is broadly the same. Knowing it in advance makes the cost and the timetable easier to judge.

First contact and conflict check

Review of the contract or correspondence in dispute, and a chronology

Engagement and fee agreement before any work begins

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

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, and the first task is therefore 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 sharply once each allegation is set against the document said to prove it, and the reverse also happens: a claim that looks like a nuisance sometimes contains one paragraph that is very difficult to answer. Which of those you are facing should be established in the first fortnight, because it determines whether the sensible objective is to defeat the claim, to reduce it, or to settle it before costs make settlement pointless.

Deadlines run from service, and they are unforgiving. The first practical priority on a defence file is therefore procedural: what has to be filed, by when, and what happens if it is not. A defendant who lets that slip converts an arguable case into a judgment.

Beyond the pleading, a defence has options a claimant does not. There may be a cross-claim worth more than the claim. There may be a third party who is truly responsible and who should be brought in rather than left out. There may be a jurisdiction or an arbitration point that disposes of the proceedings without touching the merits. And there is almost always a question about whether the claimant can actually pay if the defence succeeds, which is a commercial fact worth knowing before spending money on winning.

We defend for businesses, for individuals and, in the personal injury field, for insurers. Acting on both sides of that field is unusual and it is useful: it is difficult to value a claim well without having spent time arguing against claims of the same kind.

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 the messages sent from personal accounts and telephones
What was done rather than what was 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 should not be wiped when they are replaced, accounting systems should not be migrated without an export, and messaging applications should be backed up before a telephone is changed. This is dull advice and it is the advice that most often saves a case, because the party that can produce a complete, dated record is in a materially stronger position than the party explaining why it cannot.

The same discipline applies to what is created after the dispute begins. Internal emails written in frustration are read out later, and a file note recording what was actually said in a telephone call is worth more than a recollection of it two years on.

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 are quoted together. Pleadings are quoted once we know what is being alleged. Disclosure and evidence are the stage where costs escalate on a badly run file, and they are the stage we plan hardest, because the volume of material is the variable that moves the budget. Trial is estimated separately and, on most commercial files, is reached by a minority of the disputes that start.

Two figures are worth holding in mind throughout. The first is what the dispute is worth if you win completely. The second is what it will have cost to get there. Where those two numbers 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, and a contribution is not the whole bill, so it is one input into the 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. They are not used to disguise open-ended work as a package, because a fixed fee for something unpredictable is either a bad deal for you or one nobody intends to honour.

Within this practice area

Commercial disputes 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.

Commercial

Shareholder disputes 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.

Shareholders

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.

Cross-border

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.

Freezing orders

Personal injury claims in Cyprus

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.

Personal injury

Professional negligence claims 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.

Professional negligence

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.

Debt recovery

Construction disputes in Cyprus

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.

Construction

Frequently asked questions about litigation in Cyprus

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 that is 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, and it lets you make a commercial decision 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 at some point 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. Preparing a case properly is not in tension with settling it: a claim that has been set out clearly, with the documents behind it, is both easier to answer and easier to settle than one that has not.

I have been served with a claim. What should I do first?

Take advice immediately and do not wait to gather a full answer first. Deadlines run from service and missing one can convert an arguable case into a judgment against you. Send us the documents you were served with, note the date you received them, and preserve everything relevant rather than tidying it. What the claim is really alleging, and how strong it is, 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. Applications of this kind carry obligations for the party bringing them and are not made lightly. 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 rather than at the point of issuing, 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 it is directly useful when advising whether an offer on the table 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, such as an assessment, a demand or a single application. A successful party generally recovers a contribution towards its legal costs from the other side, which is a contribution rather than the whole bill.

Who leads this work

Between them the partners bring more than 40 years of practice in Cyprus. Every matter is run by one of them.

Andreas Kleanthous

Partner

Litigation, personal injury and insurance claims, debt recovery, administrative law, real estate, wills and probate.

Klitos Platis

Partner

Litigation, corporate and commercial matters, property and construction, including pleadings, interim applications and trial preparation.

Written on this subject

If a dispute has arisen, or is about to, send us the contract or correspondence in issue, a chronology and any deadline you are aware of. Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia. Telephone +357 22 680 330, office@kleanthousplatis.com or klitos@kleanthousplatis.com.

Request a consultation

Tell us briefly how we may assist

A few sentences is enough: what you need, and any date that matters. We reply within one business day. Please do not send confidential documents until we confirm we can act.