ΕλληνικάJurisdiction at the place of taking over, the carrier’s presumed liability, wilful misconduct and the limits of a claim decided in the carrier’s absence
The international road carriage of a single vehicle on behalf of a private individual, through a small carrier, is one of those transactions that are rarely accompanied by a consignment note, written terms or insurance, and for that very reason they frequently end in a dispute. Judgment 20570/2026 of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki, given in ordinary proceedings and published on 15 July 2026, concerns exactly such a case. It deserves attention for three reasons: it confirms that the Geneva Convention of 19 May 1956 on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR) applies in full to carriage of this kind; it shows how the carrier’s default turns the claimant’s allegations into admitted facts; and it is a reminder that even against an opponent who does not appear, a head of claim not supported by pleaded facts is dismissed.
Status of the judgment: the judgment was given in default of the defendant. As of 1 October 2026 it has not been confirmed whether an application to set aside the default judgment or an appeal has been filed, and the judgment should not be read as a final determination of the questions discussed.
The facts as accepted by the court
The claimant, a resident of Luxembourg, agreed with a carrier operating a sole proprietorship transport business established in Germany that the carrier would transport a motorcycle with a market value of EUR 20,000 from Thessaloniki to Luxembourg for a carriage charge of EUR 400. The carrier took over the vehicle on 31 August 2023 and undertook to deliver it on the seventh day after collection and no later than 7 September 2023. The vehicle was delivered on 28 October 2023, 51 days after the deadline, with damage which, according to the claim, was caused while it was stored in a warehouse in Volos, to which the carrier had moved it without the claimant’s knowledge or agreement. The claimant accepted delivery under reservation, recording the damage on the delivery document, and claimed the repair cost of EUR 7,315.64, compensation of EUR 1,000 for the delay and monetary satisfaction of EUR 10,000 for non-pecuniary damage. The defendant filed no pleadings and judgment was given in default. These facts were not proved through the taking of evidence; they were deemed admitted because of the default.
The scope of the CMR Convention
The CMR was ratified in Greece by Law 559/1977 and, under Article 28(1) of the Constitution, prevails over any conflicting statutory provision. Under Article 1(1), it applies to every contract for the carriage of goods by road in vehicles for reward where the place of taking over and the place designated for delivery are situated in two different countries, at least one of which is a contracting country, irrespective of the place of residence and the nationality of the parties. The judgment confirms that the Convention is not confined to commercial consignments: it applies equally to the carriage of a single vehicle on behalf of a private individual, provided the carriage is performed for reward. One limit, however, is often overlooked. Under Article 1(4)(c), the Convention does not apply to furniture removal. The carriage of household effects as part of a move abroad is therefore governed by other rules, and the protection described here does not automatically extend to it.
The international jurisdiction of the Greek courts
The Court founded its jurisdiction, among other provisions, on Article 31(1)(b) of the Convention, which allows proceedings in the courts of the country where the carrier took over the goods. The same provision, in point (a), allows proceedings in the country where the defendant is ordinarily resident, which in this case was also Greece. Article 31(1) lists the available fora exhaustively, providing that proceedings may be brought in no other courts. At EU level, Article 71 of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 leaves specialized conventions such as the CMR unaffected, subject to the conditions developed in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. For a sender shipping a vehicle from Greece, this means that the dispute can as a rule be heard in Greece, even if the sender lives abroad and the carrier’s business is in another State.
The carrier’s liability and the burden of proof
Under Article 17(1) of the Convention, the carrier is liable for the total or partial loss of the goods and for damage to them occurring between the time of taking over and the time of delivery, as well as for delay in delivery. Under paragraph (2), he is relieved of liability only if the loss, damage or delay was caused by the wrongful act, neglect or instructions of the claimant, by inherent vice of the goods or by circumstances which he could not avoid and the consequences of which he was unable to prevent, and under Article 18(1) the burden of proving such a cause rests on him. Following Areios Pagos 826/2004 and 1518/2001, the Court characterized this liability as contractual. It also accepted that it may run concurrently with liability in tort under Article 914 of the Greek Civil Code towards the owner of the goods (Areios Pagos 420/2003 and 1060/2003), subject to Article 28 of the Convention, under which the carrier may invoke against a claim in tort the provisions excluding or limiting his liability (Thessaloniki Court of Appeal 915/2007).
The limits of compensation and wilful misconduct
The Convention does not, as a rule, compensate every loss. In the case of damage, Article 25 makes the carrier liable for the amount by which the goods have diminished in value, capped at the amount payable for total loss, which under Article 23(3), as amended by the 1978 Geneva Protocol, is 8.33 units of account per kilogram of gross weight. For a single vehicle, that cap may fall well short of the actual cost of repair. In addition, Article 23(4) provides that, beyond the refund of carriage charges and other charges incurred in respect of the carriage, no further damages are payable.
Those limits cease to apply under Article 29(1) where the damage was caused by the carrier’s wilful misconduct or by such default as, under the law of the court seized, is considered equivalent to wilful misconduct. Following the plenary decision of the Areios Pagos 18/1998 and Areios Pagos 1729/2014, 1795/2012 and 1319/2011, the Court reiterated that wilful misconduct is a concept unknown to Greek law. It is less serious than intent and more serious than gross negligence, and covers the conduct of a carrier who acts in the knowledge that his act or omission increases the risk of damage and is indifferent to that risk, without necessarily accepting the result. Areios Pagos 532/2023 recently confirmed the same concept and that, where it is established, the carrier is liable under general law for full compensation.
In our view, this is the critical point of the judgment. The Court set out the concept of wilful misconduct in detail, but did not state expressly that moving and storing the vehicle in Volos amounted to such conduct. It nevertheless awarded the full cost of repair and monetary satisfaction for non-pecuniary damage, an outcome that presupposes the removal of the limits of Articles 23 and 25. The characterization is reasonable: a carrier who, instead of performing the agreed carriage, leaves the vehicle for weeks in a warehouse in another city without the owner’s consent knows that he is exposing it to a risk the contract did not contemplate. The characterization nonetheless remains implicit and rests solely on the presumption of admission. In contested proceedings, the claimant would have had to plead and prove specific facts establishing wilful misconduct, and that would have been the central evidential issue of the trial.
Default and the presumption of admission
Under Article 271 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure, where the defendant is in default, the factual allegations in the claim are deemed admitted, except for facts that cannot be the subject of an admission, and the claim is upheld if it is well founded in law. The judgment shows the limits of that presumption. The Court accepted as admitted that the claimant had suffered non-pecuniary damage, but not the amount of monetary satisfaction, which it fixed itself under Article 932 of the Civil Code at EUR 1,000 instead of the EUR 10,000 claimed, weighing the nature of the infringement, the degree of fault, its consequences and the financial and social circumstances of the parties.
The award of non-pecuniary damages in a dispute about the carriage of goods also has a doctrinal dimension. Monetary satisfaction under Article 932 of the Civil Code presupposes a tort, and under Articles 23(4) and 28 of the Convention the carrier may invoke the Convention’s limits against a claim in tort as well. In our view, an award of non-pecuniary damages is compatible with the Convention’s scheme only where the limits have been removed by wilful misconduct. Here too, the judgment rests on the same implicit premise.
The claim for delay
The most instructive point of the judgment is the dismissal of the EUR 1,000 head of claim for delay as insufficiently particularized. The Court held that the claim did not set out the facts from which the exact amount of the claimant’s actual loss or loss of profit could be established, so that the amount could not be tested on its merits. The delay itself was beyond dispute, but the loss it caused was never described.
In our view, this head of claim would have faced two further obstacles under the Convention even if properly pleaded. Under Article 23(5), compensation for delay may not exceed the carriage charges, here EUR 400, unless a special interest in delivery was declared under Article 26 or the limits are removed under Article 29. Under Article 30(3), no compensation is payable for delay unless a written reservation has been sent to the carrier within 21 days from the time the goods were placed at the consignee’s disposal. Finally, under Article 20(1), where goods are not delivered within 30 days following the expiry of the agreed time limit, the person entitled may treat them as lost. In this case the delay exceeded 30 days, and that option was in principle available before delivery.
Interest
The Court awarded statutory interest under Greek law from the day after service of the claim. Article 27(1) of the Convention provides for interest at 5 per cent per annum from the date on which the claim was sent in writing to the carrier or, if no such claim was made, from the date on which proceedings were instituted. Whether wilful misconduct also displaces that rule, which sits in the same chapter of the Convention as the limits of liability, is a question the judgment does not address.
The outcome
| Head of claim | Amount claimed | Court’s ruling |
| Cost of repairing the damage | EUR 7,315.64 | Awarded in full |
| Compensation for delay | EUR 1,000.00 | Dismissed as insufficiently particularised |
| Monetary satisfaction for non-pecuniary damage | EUR 10,000.00 | EUR 1,000.00 awarded |
| Total | EUR 18,315.64 | EUR 8,315.64, with statutory interest from the day after service of the claim |
The judgment was declared provisionally enforceable for EUR 4,000, the defendant was ordered to pay part of the claimant’s costs in the amount of EUR 450, and the fee for an application to set aside the default judgment was fixed at EUR 200.
Practical consequences
For the sender, the case shows that the Convention’s protection works best when the evidence is organized before the carriage begins. The agreement should be recorded in writing, stating the place of collection and delivery, the time limit and, where it matters, a prohibition on intermediate storage. Under Article 4, the absence of a consignment note does not affect the validity of the contract of carriage, but a consignment note makes proof considerably easier, and Greece ratified the Additional Protocol on the electronic consignment note in 2023. On delivery, apparent damage must be recorded immediately as a reservation, because under Article 30(1) taking delivery without reservation raises a presumption of good condition, while for delay a written reservation within 21 days is required.
For the claimant’s lawyer, the judgment points to three things: plead wilful misconduct expressly and with specific facts whenever compensation beyond the Convention’s limits is sought; quantify and reason every head of claim; and check limitation under Article 32, which is one year from delivery, or three years in the case of wilful misconduct. For the carrier, the case shows that a default amounts to an admission of the facts on which full liability rests.
For enforcement, the judgment has a cross-border dimension, since the carrier’s business is in Germany. Article 31(3) and (4) of the Convention provides that enforceable judgments, including judgments by default, become enforceable in the other contracting States once the required formalities are completed, without review of the merits. Between EU Member States, the relationship between that regime and Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 has also been considered by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its judgment of 21 March 2024 in Case C-90/22.
Points the judgment leaves open
The judgment does not decide expressly whether the carrier’s conduct amounted to wilful misconduct, and does not address the limits of Articles 23 and 25, interest under Article 27 or the written reservation required for delay. Because it was given in default, it cannot be taken as an indication of how a contested dispute would be decided. This article does not examine the insurance of the carrier or the sender, or the procedural details of enforcement in another State.
Conclusion
Judgment 20570/2026 confirms that the CMR Convention offers real protection even to a private individual sending a single vehicle abroad: jurisdiction at the place of taking over, a presumption of carrier liability and, where the carrier acts with wilful misconduct, full compensation under general law. It does not clarify when exactly wilful misconduct is established, because the court’s findings rested on the carrier’s default rather than on evidence. Its greatest practical value lies in its negative lesson: even when the opponent does not appear, a claim that is not properly founded is dismissed, and an excessive one is reduced.
Frequently asked questions
Does the CMR Convention apply if I ship a single vehicle through a private carrier?
Yes, provided the carriage is performed for reward and the place of taking over and the place of delivery are in different countries, at least one of which is a contracting State. It does not apply to furniture removal.
Can I sue in Greece if the carrier is based abroad?
Under Article 31(1) of the Convention, proceedings may be brought, among other places, in the country where the carrier took over the goods. If the goods were taken over in Greece, the Greek courts have jurisdiction.
Up to what amount am I compensated for damage to the vehicle?
As a rule, up to the limits of Articles 23 and 25 of the Convention. Full compensation under general law can be claimed only if you plead and prove the carrier’s wilful misconduct.
What should I do on delivery if the vehicle is damaged or arrives late?
Record any apparent damage in writing immediately as a reservation. For delay, send a written reservation to the carrier within 21 days, failing which no compensation is payable for it.
How long do I have to bring a claim?
One year from delivery, or three years if the damage was caused by wilful misconduct.
Contact
OIKONOMAKIS LAW, Athens. Email leads@oikonomakislaw.com. Telephone +30 21 0360 0036.
This article is general legal information and not legal advice on a specific case. Law as of 1 October 2026. The details of the parties have been omitted.
OIKONOMAKIS LAW, Christos Oikonomakis, Fully Qualified Lawyer (Greece)