Creditor Distribution Challenge Declared Inadmissible for Preliminary Ruling

The High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed as inadmissible a referral from the Bucharest Tribunal (Fourth Civil Section) seeking a preliminary ruling on whether Article 870(1) of the Civil Procedure Code, allowing all interested creditors to participate in the distribution of sums, necessarily requires following the intervention procedure under Article 691 et seq. of the same code. The court ruled against the referring tribunal, meaning the request for a preliminary ruling was rejected. The underlying dispute involved a challenge in a civil enforcement distribution phase, where the issue was whether a creditor's participation in distribution must be preceded by formal intervention proceedings. The court based its dismissal on procedural admissibility grounds under the framework of preliminary rulings (Article 521(3)), without resolving the substantive legal question, and made the decision binding accordingly.