Enforcement and Enforceability of Court Settlements in the European Union

Court settlements, as instruments of amicable dispute resolution, represent a flexible procedural tool that also serves as an enforcement title document. As such, these instruments are known in all of the Member States of the European Union (EU) and are included under the rules of EU’s private international law regulations, which offer a legal basis for their cross-border enforcement. However, challenges persist due to varying regulation and understanding of court settlements at the national level, as well as due to the ambiguities in the EU’s cross-border enforcement rules, leading to potential misinterpretations in practice. Thus, this paper firstly aims to explore what exactly constitutes a ‘court settlement’, both at the national and at the EU level. Based on this definition, it then examines the EU regulatory framework, specifically within the selected EU regulations, to assess whether further improvements are necessary. The answers to the research questions are found through case law analysis, exploration of academic literature, and particularly on the basis of the relevant provisions of the EU regulations that were selected for this research. Povzetek Sodne poravnave kot instrumenti sporazumnega reševanja sporov predstavljajo prilagodljivo postopkovno orodje, ki služi tudi kot izvršilni naslov. Kot takšni so ti instrumenti znani v vseh državah članicah Evropske unije (EU) in so vključeni v pravila mednarodnega zasebnega prava EU, ki zagotavljajo pravno podlago za njihovo čezmejno izvrševanje. Vendar pa izzivi ostajajo zaradi različnih predpisov in razumevanja sodnih poravnav na nacionalni ravni ter zaradi nejasnosti v pravilih EU o čezmejni izvršbi, kar v praksi vodi do morebitnih napačnih razlag. Zato je prvi cilj predmetnega prispevka raziskati, kaj točno predstavlja „sodna poravnava“ na nacionalni ravni in na ravni EU. Na podlagi te opredelitve prispevek nato naslovi regulativni okvir EU, zlasti v izbranih uredbah EU, za ugotovitev ali so potrebne nadaljnje izboljšave. Odgovori na raziskovalna vprašanja temeljijo na analizi sodne prakse, preučitvi znanstvene literature ter zlasti na podlagi ustreznih določb uredb EU, ki so bile izbrane za to raziskavo.