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The Delivery Delay Clause in Residential Construction Contracts: Consumer Protection in Cyprus and Europe

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By Giorgos Kazoleas, LL.M., Lawyer, Managing Partner at Legal Experts Cyprus The purchase or construction of a new residence is one of the most significant financial and personal decisions a consumer can make. Residential construction contracts or agreements for the sale of property under construction are a crucial and defining element of the entire process, as certain terms they may contain can be detrimental to the buyer. One of the most critical aspects is the contractual delivery time of the project and the provision for delay, through the so-called delivery delay clause. The Delivery Delay Clause: Its Role and Legal Nature The delivery delay clause (also known as a penalty clause in the event of default) is a term usually included in the contract that specifies a predetermined compensation amount that the contractor or seller must pay to the buyer for every day, week, or month of delay beyond the agreed delivery date. The purpose of the clause is twofold: -Compensatory: ...
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CJEU Ruling C-57/23: Police May Rely on Internal Rules to Store Suspect Data

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Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-57/23 (Policejní prezidium): The police of a Member State may decide, on the basis of internal rules, whether it is ecessary to store the biometric and genetic data of a person accused or suspected of a criminal offence.  Where national law sets appropriate time limits for a review of the need to store those data, it does not necessarily need to provide for a maximum period of storage . A Czech public official was interviewed by the police in the context of criminal proceedings involving him. Despite his objections, the police ordered the taking of his fingerprints, the taking of a buccal smear on the basis of which the police established a genetic profile, the taking of photographs and the drawing up of a description of him. That information was entered into various databases.  In 2017, the public official was convicted by final judgment of, inter alia, misconduct in public office. In separate proceedings, he challenged the identific...
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Judicial Workload and Compensation: EU Law Does Not Mandate Extra Pay for Covering Vacant Posts (CJEU)

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Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-272/24 (Tribunalul Galați) on 13.11.2025: A judge who carries out tasks which fall to a vacant post at his or her court, in addition to those within the remit of the post to which he or she has been appointed, is not necessarily entitled to financial compensation. The grant of a rest period to compensate for the additional work is, under certain conditions, an adequate measure. The Galați Regional Court (Romania) is understaffed due to various judicial posts remaining vacant. A judge who has been working at that court since 2017 took the view that, since 2019, he has performed not only the tasks associated with his own post, but also, in part, those tasks linked to vacant posts.  Being of the opinion that he has worked overtime, that judge requested that he be remunerated for it. Specifically, he brought legal proceedings to claim a share of the net salaries and allowances attached to the vacant posts, divided by the number of judges in ac...
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ECHR Rules on Employee Data Privacy: The Guyvan v. Ukraine Judgment

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This case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) primarily concerned a complaint under Article 8 (Right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically regarding the processing of data from an applicant's work mobile telephone by his employer. Facts The applicant, was an employee whose work mobile phone was also used for private calls. In the context of an internal investigation related to the use of the phone, his employer, P. company, obtained detailed information from the mobile phone operator. This information included the date, time, and type of communication (incoming/outgoing), and details about international roaming services. The employer requested this data to verify the applicant's presence at his workplace. The applicant subsequently lodged a civil claim against the company, arguing that the collection and processing of his personal data were unlawful and requesting that the company be ordered to provid...
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Greece is ordered to pay financial penalties for failing to comply with a 2014 judgment of the Court of Justice

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Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-368/24 /Commission v Greece (Enforcement of the judgment on the Zakynthos landfill). Failure of a Member State to fulfil its obligations: Greece is ordered to pay financial penalties for failing to comply with a 2014 judgment of the Court of Justice. Greece is ordered to pay the European Commission a periodic penalty payment of €12 500 for each day of delay until the 2014 judgment has been complied with and a lump sum of €5 500 000 In the 2014 Commission v Greece judgment, [1] the Court held that Greece had failed to fulfil its obligations under two directives on waste. [2] [3]  Greece had not put an end to the use of a landfill in the Zakynthos National Maritime Park, the habitat of the ‘Caretta caretta’ sea turtle, even though the landfill was overfull and its malfunction represented a danger to health and the environment. With regard to the present case, an exchange of correspondence took place between the European Commission and Greece...
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Car Finance: Undisclosed Commissions and Unfair Relationships (Hopcraft v Close Brothers)

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The UK Supreme Court delivered a major judgment that clarified the law on undisclosed commissions in motor finance, which has significant implications for the finance industry and millions of consumers. Issue: Does a car dealer who receives a commission from a lender for arranging finance in a tripartite transaction between customer, dealer, and lender in which a car is bought on credit owe a duty to the buyer of the car such as to enable that buyer (absent the requisite level of disclosure) to bring a claim against the lender for bribery or dishonest assistance, or under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (the “CCA”)? Fiduciary Duty: The court ruled that, in a typical three-cornered motor finance transaction (dealer, lender, and customer), car dealers do not owe a fiduciary duty of loyalty to their customers. This overturned the Court of Appeal's finding that the commission payments constituted a form of "half-secret commission" and were a breach of fiduciary duty or a b...
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Restriction on right to vote in general election did not breach rights of prisoner serving indeterminate sentence for rape (Hora v. United Kingdom)

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In Chamber’s judgment in the case of Hora v. the United Kingdom (application no. 1048/20) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been no violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections) to the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned prisoner voting in the United Kingdom. The applicant’s case was the first to come before the Court concerning an election which had taken place following the steps taken by the United Kingdom to enforce the Court’s judgment in the case of Hirst v. the United Kingdom (no. 2) (application no. 74525/01). In the light of the developments since Hirst, the Court examined the manner in which the legislation in question had been applied to the specific applicant, in his particular circumstances. Considering the seriousness of his offending, his conduct, the risk he was found to pose to the public and the resulting imposition of a harsh sentence of indeterminate detention, the Court found that the r...
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Discrimination at work: the rights of persons with disabilities to protection against indirect discrimination extend to parents of children with disabilities (CJEU)

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Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-38/24: Discrimination at work: The rights of persons with disabilities to protection against indirect discrimination extend to parents of children with disabilities. Employment and working conditions should be adapted to enable those parents to care for their child without the risk of being subject to indirect discrimination. A station operator repeatedly asked her employer to appoint her to a position with fixed working hours. Her request was based on the need to care for her son, who has extensive and comprehensive needs arising from disability. Her employer provided her with some accommodations on a provisional basis. However, the employer refused to make those accommodations permanent. The station operator contested that refusal before the Italian courts and the case reached the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. That court referred questions to the Court of Justice because it had doubts as to the interpretation of EU law with regard to p...
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Revisiting the Protection of Minority Shareholders in Company Law: EU, Comparative and National Perspectives: International Conference in Cyprus

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International Conference "Revisiting the protection of minority shareholders in company law: EU, comparative and national perspectives", Wednesday 15 October 2025, Department of Law, University of Cyprus. This conference is funded by the A. G. Leventis Foundation as part of the Research Project "Protection of minority shareholders in Cyprus company law and capital markets law: an EU and comparative analysis" (ProMiSh). The Host Organization is the University of Cyprus. The Principal Investigator of this Research Project and the coordinator of this conference is Thomas Papadopoulos, Associate Professor of Business Law at the Department of Law of the University of Cyprus. Dr. Georgios Zouridakis, PhD (Essex), is the Research Fellow of this Research Project. Protection of minority shareholders is a core subject of company law, but there is no recent international conference examining various EU, comparative and national perspectives on this area.  This confer...
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Digital Services Act: The General Court annuls the Commission’s decisions setting the supervisory fee applicable to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok

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Digital Services Act: The General Court annuls the Commission’s decisions setting the supervisory fee applicable to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. However, the effects of the annulled decisions are provisionally maintained. (Judgments of the General Court in Case T-55/24: Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission and T-58/24  TikTok Technology v Commission). The Digital Services Act (‘the DSA’) [1] entrusts the European Commission with supervisory tasks in relation to providers of certain services, designated as very large platforms or very large online search engines since they exceed a significant minimum threshold of users in the European Union.  In order to cover the costs necessary for that purpose and to perform those tasks, the Commission collects, from those providers, an annual fee which is determined on the basis of the number of average monthly users of each service concerned. [2]  On 2 March 2023, the Commission adopted a delegated regulation supplementing the DSA ...
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