The UAE cabinet recently approved amendments to Federal Law No. 11 of 1992 on the Civil Procedure Law by supplementing certain provisions via cabinet resolution number 57/2018 which came into effect on 16 February 2019.

In this article we will stress on the changes made to the “Payment Orders” section by highlighting the below main points of difference from the previous regulations governing such procedures; as follows:

1.The new procedures now permit the creditor to commence such legal claims if their rights are established via electronic means confirming the monies owed to them by the debtor. The previous procedures did not include such right which per se were limited to only written commercial contracts / papers.

 

2.Upon implementation of the new procedures the courts in recent matters have also permitted the acceptance of invoices, delivery notes, local purchase orders to be included within the ambit of “commercial papers” for the creditor to establish its rights depending on a case to case basis.

 

3.The previous procedures did not permit the creditor to demand any interest and was limited to only claim the principal amount of debt. The new procedures now permit the creditor to make a request for interest, and to also take any other permitted pre-cautionary actions accordingly.

 

4.The new procedures have now included new means via which notification processes to the debtor for such orders could be done; for example, via voice / video calls, text messages to mobile phones etc. Time will say how courts would accept results of such notification processes completed via such means.

 

5.The old procedures gave the creditor a period of 6 months to notify the debtor upon attaining a successful payment order from the date of its issuance. The new procedures have now reduced such period to only 3 months.

 

6.The debtor as per the old procedures had a period of 15 days to file a grievance application upon being notified by a payment order; and a further period of 30 days to file an appeal if they failed to file such grievance within the 15 day period. As per the new procedures, the debtor has to appeal directly within 15 days upon being notified by a payment order.

It remains to be seen how these new procedures will co-exist and operate in practice within the core framework of the Civil Procedure Law.

If you require future assistance on the matter, please do not hesitate to contact us at United Advocates.