The European Small Claims Procedure is a judicial enforcement mechanism that allows you to bring cases to court over a civil or trade dispute (e.g. you did not receive your order, or your flight was cancelled), with a cross-border element (you or the other party are based in another EU Member State). The exception is Denmark, which is not bound by the EU Regulation on Small Claims procedure) and a value of maximum 5000 EUR, excluding expenses.

If these conditions apply, you will be able to take your case to court using the so called European Small Claims Procedure. The main advantage will be that you don’t need to hire a lawyer to start the procedure, the claim can be resolved quicker and the procedure is simpler, especially for cross-border claims. However, you can incur certain costs such as court or translation fees, which can be reimbursed if your case is successful.

How to act

• You can start the small claim procedure online, by filling up a form containing all required information (you should attach any case-relevant documents, e.g. invoices) and sending it to the court that has jurisdiction.
• Within 14 days of receiving, the Court must fill in an ‘answer form’ and send a copy to the defendant, which has 30 days to reply by filling another answer form.
• Within 30 days of receiving the defendant’s answer, the court must either give a judgement, request further details or summon the parties to an oral hearing.
• In case of oral hearing it is not necessary to be represented by a lawyer and, if possible, the hearing is carried out through videoconference / teleconference.  At the end of the process, the Court issues a certificate which is enforceable in all Member States without formalities.
• For more information, you can consult the European Commission’s Toolkit on Small Claims Procedure.

The Small Claims Procedure can be a good mechanism to process claims under Passenger Rights Regulations.