France - Time Bars
Transport Law | Carriage of goods Any action based on carriage of good contract issued against the carrier, the freight forwarder, the shipper or the consignee is time barred upon a 1 year time limit starting from the moment the cargo was delivered or should have been delivered:
Passenger transportation Any action based on passenger transportation contract issued against the rail or road carrier is time barred upon French Civil Law general time limits i.e. 5 years with exception of any action based on personal injury whereby the time to bring the claim is 10 years. |
French Civil Law statutory general time limits (applicable to both contractual and tortious actions) | Any personal or property action - contractual or in tort - is time barred within 5 years from the day when the holder of the right knew or should have known the facts allowing him to exercise his right (Article 2224 of the French Civil Code) with exceptions:
N.b: time limit under French law can be either interrupted - whereby a new time limit starts to run from the date of the interruptive act - or suspended - whereby the lime limit is temporarily suspended without elapsed time being erased (articles 2230, 2231 and 2234 to 2239 of French Civil Code) |
French Civil Law contractual time limits | Beside French Civil Law general time limit of 5 years, the parties of a contract are given the possibility by Article 2254 of French Civil Code to arrange and determine the time limit which shall apply to the actions under their contract.
The scope of this article - excluding any action relating to payment - is in particular limited to contracts which are not governed by compulsory rules. |
Latent damage / defects claims in sales contracts or “garantie des vices caches” | Article 1641 of French Civil Code provides that should arise any damage making the sold thing either (i) unfit for the use for which it was intended or (ii) impairs that use at an extent that the buyer would not have acquired it or would have given a lesser price for it had he known of them, any action might be brought by the buyer within 2 years (…) from the moment the latent defect / damage was discovered by the buyer (article 1648 of French Civil Code). |
Penal / Criminal Law | French criminal law provides a tripartite itemisation of infringements varying depending on offences’ seriousness/severity level and each category of offence is ruled by specific Timebars provisions.
Nb: each time limit starts from the day the offence was committed/omitted in case of negligence constituting a penal/criminal infringement
Nb: each time limit starts from the day any final court decision imposing a sentence or fine is issued |
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Libya - Time Bars
25/01/2017
Time bars under contract of carriage in contract and in tort for both personal injury and latent damage claims are governed by the Libyan civil law as follows;
Italy - Time Bars
19/01/2017
Under Italian law, limitation periods depend on the type of claim. For the purpose of the time bars examined in this article, the main statutes are the Civil Code and the Code of Navigation. Time bars are distinguished between prescrizione and decadenza: both cannot be extended or shortened by agreement between the parties, but prescrizione can be protected by a notice of claim which will make a fresh time bar period start to run, whilst decadenza can be avoided only by court action or any other act required by the law or by the contract.
The lengthy judicial proceedings in the French courts arising out of the sinking and massive oil spill from the tanker ERIKA off the coast of Brittany in December 1999, gave rise to numerous questions regarding the interaction between the international oil pollution liability conventions as incorporated into French law and other French legislation which claimants argued should apply. As a result legislation has been passed by France since the ERIKA judgements in an attempt to codify the Erika jurisprudence.
QCR Autumn 2018: Hague Rules time bar may be inapplicable where there has been a deviatio
12/12/2018
DERA COMMERCIAL ESTATE V DERYA INC [2018] EWHC 1673 (Comm)