Registration of the company’s “account” in the “Electronic Court”

On October 18, 2023, the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Mandatory Registration and Use of Electronic Offices in the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System or its separate subsystem (module) that provides for the exchange of documents” No. 3200-IX dated 29.09.2023 comes into force. Below is a brief summary of the impact of the above-mentioned law on legal entities.

Regarding the Electronic Court System

The “E-Court” is an electronic system that provides for the exchange of procedural documents (sending and receiving documents) in electronic form between the court and the parties to the court proceedings. In accordance with the requirements of the procedural law, upon the beginning of the E-Court’s functioning, lawyers, notaries, private enforcement officers, insolvency officers, forensic experts, state authorities, local governments and business entities of the state and municipal sectors of the economy were obliged to register official e-mail addresses with the E-Court on a mandatory basis.

The main idea behind the introduction of the e-Court system is to reduce the amount of mail sent during court proceedings to the maximum, speed up the process of making court decisions and simplify the document management system.

What is changing?

With the entry into force of the above-mentioned Law, the obligation to register an official e-mail address with the E-Court will be extended to all legal entities.

Thus, for commercial proceedings, such mandatory registration will be introduced from October 18, 2023, and for administrative and civil proceedings – from February 20, 2024.

Potential negative consequences

The Law does not provide for any financial or legal sanctions against legal entities that fail to register in the E-Court system. At the same time, the absence of such registration may have a negative impact on the exercise of procedural rights of such legal entities in court proceedings, in particular:

• statements of claim, appeals and cassation appeals will be left without motion with a deadline for their submission through the E-Court system. If the requirements of the court order are not fulfilled within the time limit set by the court, the relevant application or complaint will be returned;

• the court will have the right not to accept a response to a claim, appeal or cassation appeal, explanations of third parties and decide the case on the basis of available materials if such documents are submitted by a person who is obliged to register an electronic cabinet but has not registered it and has not provided valid reasons for not fulfilling such an obligation;

• the parties to the case will no longer have the right to send copies of documents by post to other parties (legal entities), but to send them to such parties exclusively through the E-Court system.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that earlier the law provided for the obligation to register in the E-Court system only for attorneys, and thus every attorney registered in this system had the opportunity to represent the interests of his client – a legal entity, without the need to register a separate “account” of such a legal entity. However, with the adoption of the above-mentioned Law No. 3200-IX, the situation is changing – now, in order for an attorney to represent the interests of an enterprise in court, it is not enough to have only a registered “account” of the attorney himself, but it is necessary to additionally register an “account” of the enterprise itself, in order to avoid the negative consequences described above.

How to register in the E-Court system

User registration in the electronic cabinet of the E-Court system is possible if the user has a key with a qualified electronic signature (QES) issued in the name of the head of the company. For registration, keys issued by accredited centers of Qualified Electronic Trust Service Providers may be used.

The electronic cabinet can be accessed at https://id.court.gov.ua/.

Conclusions:

1. In order to ensure the proper realization of their procedural rights, we recommend that companies register their official e-mail address with the E-Court without delay, and in any case no later than 18.10.2023. This recommendation is especially relevant for those companies that are currently involved in ongoing litigation.

2. It is important to note that the specified e-mail address will receive notifications from the E-Court system regarding the receipt or publication of any procedural documents in the court case. Therefore, it is important to register an email address that is regularly checked by the responsible employees of the legal entity. Otherwise, there is a risk of not receiving information from the judicial authorities and/or parties to the court case.

3. We also emphasize that for registered legal entities, the court will send court decisions and summonses exclusively through their personal account in the E-Court system. This will be considered proper notification of the party and proper proof of the start of the relevant procedural deadlines.