Facts
Company X. SA filed a public law appeal against the judgment of the Court of Justice of the Canton of Geneva which had ordered the final release of the opposition filed by X. SA to debt collection proceedings initiated by Y. in liquidation on the basis of a foreign arbitral award.
The Federal Tribunal upheld the appeal of X. SA and annulled the contested judgment. It considered that the debt collection proceedings had lapsed at the time of filing the release request, as the peremptory one-year time limit provided for in Art. 88 para. 2 DEBA had expired.
Considerations
According to the case law of the Federal Tribunal, the debtor is admissible to raise in the release proceedings the ground of lapse of the debt collection, when it is manifest. In the present case, the dates taken into account by the cantonal authority for the calculation of the time limit were not disputed, and the lapse of the debt collection was established.
The Federal Tribunal considered that the peremptory one-year time limit provided for in Art. 88 para. 2 DEBA runs from the notification of the payment order to the…