Parallel Proceedings In Italy And France: International Lis Pendens And Opposition To Payment Orders

In a recent case decided by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, Joint Sections (Order No. 12330 of 2 May 2026), a dispute arose from an application for a payment injunction sought by an Italian company against a defaulting French client.

This gave rise to two sets of proceedings:

• The first before the Italian Courts (Parma District Court and Bologna Court of Appeal) concerning opposition to the injunction sought by the French company, which the Italian company considered to be time-barred;
• The second before the French courts (Tribunal de Nanterre and Cour d’appel de Versailles) concerning the opposition to a third-party garnishment order, which that court ultimately upheld after identifying certain defects in the service of the injunction that had rendered the opposition to the injunction timely. This gave rise to a number of issues concerning international lis pendens (parallel proceedings in different jurisdictions).

The order of the Joint Sections is noteworthy because of  the novelty of the issue addressed, concerning the relationship between the proceedings opposing the payment injunction before the Italian Courts and the proceedings opposing the third-party garnishment order before the French courts.

Principles on International Lis Pendens

On the subject of international lis pendens, the ruling reaffirms the approach whereby the provisions of Articles 29 and 30 of EU Regulation No 1215 of 2012, designed to avoid conflicts between judgments that would constitute an obstacle to the recognition of a decision issued in another Member State, give precedence to the principle of priority of the court first seised.

This is due to the absence of a supranational court called upon to resolve potential conflicts of jurisdiction, given that the court subsequently seised is required to stay proceedings were the same cause of action is involved (lis pendens, which may also arise in cases of continence or so-called ‘mirror-image proceedings’) and may stay proceedings in cases of related actions.

It is clarified that international lis pendens presupposes, in addition to the identity of the parties, the identity of the substantive relief sought, but regardless of the identity of their immediate ‘petitum’ and the specific legal basis invoked.

On this basis, the order states that: in application of the rules on the automatic recognition of judgments delivered within the European Union, the Court of Parma at first instance and the Court of Appeal of Bologna at second instance, having functional jurisdiction to rule on the opposition to the injunction, were required to assess its timeliness independently, without being able to attribute any res judicata effect to the judgment of the French court, which concerned the separate issue of opposition to the third-party attachment.

In other words, the Court of Appeal of Bologna, just as the Court of Parma at first instance, in interpreting Article 650 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure for the purpose of examining the objection of inadmissibility of the opposition to the injunction raised by the Italian company, could not be regarded as bound by the res judicata effect of the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Versailles, which, moreover, concerned only the refusal to enforce the attachment against third parties.

Therefore, once the irregularity of  service of the injunction had been established, in the light of domestic law and, in particular, the aforementioned Article 650 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure the relevant issue was to establish the time at which actual knowledge thereof was acquired from that time, for the time limit for lodging an objection begins to run, subject to the final time limit of ten days from the first enforcement measure (Article 650, first and third paragraphs, of the Code of Civil Procedure).

Conclusion

Having clarified the operational requirements of international lis pendens as set out above, the order, in relation to late opposition to an order for payment, clarifies an operational aspect of Article 650 of the Code of Civil Procedure, namely that the ordinary time limit and the final time limit for opposition, as provided for therein, are interdependent; therefore, for late opposition to be admissible, neither of them must have elapsed, in line with what has already been stated by the Joint Sections, including in relation to the European order for payment (Joint Sections, judgment no. 7075 of 20 March 2017).

Corte di Cassazione, Sez. Unite, Ordinanza n. 12330 del 2 Maggio 2026