The complication and delay that can be associated with the serving of judicial documents within the European Union will be familiar to all practitioners.

Council Regulation 1348/2000, which came into force on 31 May 2001, has as its purpose the avoidance of these problems in transmission of legal and other documents.

But will it achieve its aim?The regulation applies to the service between member states of judicial and extra-judicial documents in civil or commercial matters.

It supersedes the relevant provisions of the Brussels and Hague Conventions, but both these conventions will continue to apply to those countries not within the EU, together with Denmark, which has opted out of the regime.

It will co-exist with the current provisions for service on parties through foreign governments, judicial authorities and British Consular authorities provided for in the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR), part 6.Despite being a regulation -- hence not requiring domestic legislation to take effect -- it has been incorporated into the CPR by SI 2001/1388.

Changes are found in part 6 on service, part 12 on default judgment and part 13 on setting aside default judgment.The regulation requires member states to designate public officers, authorities or persons to be known as 'transmitting agents' to be responsible for the transmission of documents to another member state.

Provision is also made for the establishment of 'receiving agencies' for the receipt of such documents.

All documents to be served out of the jurisdiction under the regulation are to be transmitted via the foreign process office of the High Court.

That office also acts as the receiving agenc y for all documents transmitted into the jurisdiction for service.

Across the border, the Law Society of Scotland indicated prior to implementation of the regulation that all solicitors' firms would be accredited for the purposes of acting as transmitting and receiving agencies, although only messengers-at-arms would be able actually to serve documents.The transmitting agency must transmit the document 'by any appropriate means'.

There is no guidance on this point, although member states must indicate what methods of receiving documents their receiving agencies are capable of.

This may include, for example, sending documents by fax and e-mail.

Nevertheless, the potential for delay is considerable, as receiving agencies appear to have an obligation to check documents and must either request additional information or return the documents if they are not in good order.The question of whether or not an expensive and time-consuming translation of judicial documents is required has always been unclear.

The requirement in CPR part 6.28 for a translation to accompany service through judicial or consular authorities serves as a powerful disincentive to utilise that regime.

Much use has been made of the provisions in the notes to the CPR at 6.24.4 and its predecessor, the old Rules of the Supreme Court 65/3/10, for service on foreign companies abroad, so as to avoid the requirement for an accompanying translation.The regulation attempts to deal with the problem by providing that documents must be completed either in the language of the member state addressed, or the language of the member state of transmission which the recipient understands.

While the ability to serve documents without an accompanying translation in the case of an English-speaking recipient is superficially attractive, in practice it may cause delay if a recipient claims not to understand English.

The likelihood of this happening may be increased because the receiving agency is required to inform the recipient that he can refuse the documents if they are not in the correct language.

The documents would then be returned with a request for translation.Even if documents themselves do not need to be accompanied by a translation, the prescribed forms to be used by every member state to convey relevant information from one state to another must be completed in the official language of the member state addressed, or in another language which that member state has indicated that it can accept.

Details of acceptable languages and other administrative matters will be collated and published in the Official Journal.The receiving agency should itself serve the document upon the intended recipient, or arrange to have it served by a third party accredited for that purpose.

Service must be effected as soon as possible and, in any event, no later than one month after receipt.After service is completed, a certificate of completion must be sent to the transmitting agency with the appropriate rules of language observed.

The date of service must be calculated in accordance with the law of the member state addressed.

There are more detailed rules in respect of documents which must be served within a specified period.The regulation also deals with a defendant's failure to respond if the document served was a claim form, or similar originating process.

In brief, judgment will only be entered if it is established that the document was served in accordance with the internal law of the member state addressed, or the document was delivered to the defendant or his residence by a method provi ded for in the regulation.

Both matters must have taken place in sufficient time to enable the defendant to defend.If a defendant can show that he did not have knowledge of the document in sufficient time to defend, or knowledge of the judgment in sufficient time to appeal, but has a prima facie defence on the merits, he can appeal against the judgment within a 'reasonable time'.

Each member state should inform the commission of a time after which it will not entertain such an appeal, although the regulation states the cut-off date must be no less than one year after the date of judgment.

This raises the spectre of challenges to the validity of default judgments many months after they have been granted.

In specified circumstances, judgment may be awarded even if no certificate of service or delivery has been received.Existing methods of service are by no means obsolete -- member states can still transmit documents via consular or diplomatic channels, or directly through judicial offices as before, depending on the type of claim brought and the country and the party upon which it is to be served.

For example, a member state can oppose such service within its territory unless the documents are to be served on nationals of the member states in which the documents originate.More importantly, service of judicial documents can still be effected directly by post to persons residing in another member state although each member state may specify conditions under which it will accept such intended service.The aim of the regulation is to harmonise and regularise the service of proceedings within member states, but it is clear that considerable difficulties will still remain.

Until a network of agencies has been fully established between member states, the efficiency of the new regime cannot truly be tested.

Even when it is running, it may well be that practitioners will still be obliged to consider methods of service outside of this regime where speed is an important factor.