December court turmoil

We left behind another year of increased judicial activity of creditors in December. It started a few years ago, when in July 2018, Article 118 of the Civil Code was amended – in the case of claims for which the limitation period is two years or longer, the limitation period now expires at the end of the calendar year. In recent years, December has been a real frenzy for trial lawyers – lawsuit upon lawsuit, and summons upon summons.

The number of lawsuits filed around December 22, 23 or even December 24 (unfortunately, sometimes even on December 31) could probably only be compared to the number of road investments “put into service” on those days. At the end of 2024, a certain easing of this holiday rush could be observed, and this is undoubtedly due to the amendment of Article 121 of the Civil Code and the addition of, among others, point 6), according to which from June 2022, filing an application for conciliatory proceedings no longer interrupts, but only suspends the limitation period for the claims covered by it. As a result, some of the “December” lawsuits (and for the exceptionally brave, also repeated applications) were filed during the year – depending on the dynamics of scheduling conciliation hearings in various cases.

The rational legislator’s goal is clear – to counteract the practice of “serial” interruption of the limitation period by means of multiple applications for conciliatory proceedings. The new regulation is also intended to motivate creditors to take more decisive action (i.e. to file claims to court more quickly).

However, it seems that this goal has not been fully achieved yet. Whether due to a certain rhythm set by previous legal solutions or for other reasons, creditors still seem to be considering filing a motion for conciliatory proceedings at the end of the year first. In the case of monetary claims, this is still a “cheaper” solution in terms of the court fee. Therefore, 2024 was full of lawsuit preparations on strictly defined deadlines (set by the dates of the conciliation hearings).

The situation therefore seems to be “normalizing” and the rational legislator has found a way (one could ask- was it intentional?) to mitigate the effects of the amendment to Article 118 of the Civil Code, by restoring, to some extent, the old rules of expiry of limitation periods for claims – during the year, and not “collectively” on  December 31.

In the next entry, I will consider the issue of what other actions before courts and other bodies “taken directly for the purpose of pursuing or establishing or satisfying or securing a claim” can still be considered safe in the context of interrupting the limitation period for claims in accordance with Article 123 § of the Civil Code.