Delivery – An overview of types of delivery in Denmark

The Danish courts use several ways of serving notices.

The manner of service is at the discretion of the court.

The following are delivery methods, all of which are equally appropriate, effective and lawful.

Mail delivery

The court sends its notification as a letter by ordinary mail. The recipient must sign that he/she has received the message. This proof must be submitted to the court; only then is the notification deemed to have been delivered.

Telephone delivery

The court calls the person to whom a notice is to be given – the notice must also be in writing. After the telephone call, the court sends a confirmation that the telephone service has taken place.

Delivery by a delivery officer

The court will appoint a delivery officer to serve the notice. The delivery officer looks for the recipient at his/her place of residence, whereabouts, place of work or similar. on. If the recipient cannot be found in person, the delivery can also be made to his/her relatives, landlords, employers, employees or similar. respectively.

Delivery by the police

The court instructs the police to determine the addressee’s whereabouts if the previously mentioned methods of service have proved ‘unsuccessful’.

Statstidend [Dan. Counterpart to the Federal Gazette]

Finally, a message can also be published via the Statstidende bulletin if the person concerned cannot be located by the police. In connection with the announcement in the newspaper, there will also be a notification by post. The Statstidende message asks the person to contact the court.

Simplified digital delivery

There is a proposal for simplified digital delivery.

This approach would make it much easier for the courts to serve documents in criminal proceedings. The introduction of this practice would mean that criminal courts could use digital mail to send notices to a person to be summonsed, charged or given a court decision. In the legal sense, the digital message is considered received and delivered as soon as it is opened, moved or deleted.

The judiciary has indicated that this system is not yet functioning satisfactorily and its introduction has been postponed until further notice.

The above article is written by lawyer Anders Stig Vestergaard.