Our firm represented one of the successful Defendants / Applicant in a major commercial dispute before the Limassol District Court, involving claims exceeding USD 135 million, culminating in a significant ruling with both procedural and substantive implications.

In a detailed interlocutory judgment, the Court struck out the entire Statement of Claim, accepting that the pleading was fundamentally defective for several reasons:

• The Statement of Claim incorporated extensive narrative and evidence, rather than a concise pleading of material facts.
• It suffered from lack of clarity, with numerous repetitions and unclear attribution of actions to individual Defendants.
• It improperly invoked foreign law without providing the required legal particulars.
• The volume and structure of the pleading created a serious procedural disadvantage for the Defendants.

Importantly, the Court observed, that the more complex and multi-faceted a dispute is, the greater the need for pleadings to be well-structured and limited to the material facts:

“The more complex a case is, with disparate alleged facts, the greater the need for the Statement of Claim to comply with the rules of civil procedure so that, at the end of the day, there is a concise statement (depending, of course, on the complexity of the case) with the necessary alleged facts revealing the cause of action.”

The Plaintiffs were instructed to file a new Statement of Claim within a fixed period.

Procedural Importance:

The judgment is significant in reaffirming the procedural integrity expected in complex litigation. The judgment serves as a clear reminder that proper pleading is not a formality, but a safeguard of due process. Especially in complex, multi-party actions, pleadings must enable the fair and efficient adjudication of disputes.