Transavia Air - won my claim, but they won't pay

[Jahn]

It goes on, and on...

I had a luggage claim against Transavia Air. They have a registered UK address on Companies House, here -

Name & Registered Office: TRANSAVIA AIR LIMITED 19 KATHLEEN ROAD LONDON UNITED KINGDOM SW11 2JR Company No. 05359705

Status: Active Date of Incorporation: 09/02/2005 Country of Origin: United Kingdom Company Type: Private Limited Company Nature of Business (SIC): 82990 - Other business support service activities not elsewhere classified Accounting Reference Date: 28/02 Last Accounts Made Up To: 28/02/2019 (DORMANT) Next Accounts Due: 30/11/2020 Last Confirmation Statement Date: 09/02/2019 Next Confirmation Statement Due: 23/02/2020 Mortgage: Number of charges: ( 0 outstanding / 0 satisfied / 0 part satisfied ) Last Members List: 09/02/2016 Previous Names: No previous name information has been recorded over the last 20 years.

Claim was for £450. This came after they offered me £250 of a total £700 missing luggage claim against them.

Won the case by Default. They paid. But they REFUSED to pay the £250 already offered, and so subtracted from the claim I had just won. Also, the Courts failed to include interest.

So I took them on AGAIN, for £300. The £250 and £50 owed interest.

Won again by Default in June.

They have repeatedly refused to pay the £325 ordered in the latest Judgement. They have, in their latest email to me today, stated

" I am contacting you concerning your request for court fees refund. First of all, I am sorry for my late reply due to an exceptionally high amount of inquiries received during a high season.

After escalation your case to the legal department I need to inform that we are not liable for court costs. Therefore I cannot grant your request in your favour. "

I am sick to my back teeth of these bastards. I can see that their company on companies house states that the latest accounts field are considered (DORMANT) and need to know if this will affect my ability to enforce the Judgment?

Any of you nice people have advice on how to proceed?

Thank you,

Jahn R.

[des8]

I think you will have much difficulty enforcing this judgement as the UK company is dormant, and has been for 13 years.
They seem only have a registered office in UK and so no assets here to be seized.
Their operation UK is via an agency based in Edinburgh.
Whether or not it is worth trying to enforce the judgement in the Netherlands is doubtful (https://iclg.com/practice-areas/enfo...ns/netherlands)


They say they are not liable for court costs, but you could point out they are liable to pay court orders even if they don't agree.
They should have disputed your claim.

Have you complained to the CEO or the holding companies, Air France and KLM?

[Jahn]

I think you will have much difficulty enforcing this judgement as the UK company is dormant, and has been for 13 years.
They seem only have a registered office in UK and so no assets here to be seized.
Their operation UK is via an agency based in Edinburgh.
Whether or not it is worth trying to enforce the judgement in the Netherlands is doubtful (https://iclg.com/practice-areas/enfo...ns/netherlands)


They say they are not liable for court costs, but you could point out they are liable to pay court orders even if they don't agree.
They should have disputed your claim.

Have you complained to the CEO or the holding companies, Air France and KLM?

Well damn it!!!

I'll try the holding companies...

They paid the first Judgement though, cannot see why they would refuse to pay the second.

Could I put this through as a European Union Cross Border claim against their Dutch head office? I believe a UK Judgement would lead to an automatic and identical Judgement this way, that can then be enforced in Holland.

[Jahn]

Oh, and how did you find out about an agency based in Edinburgh?

[des8]

Oh, and how did you find out about an agency based in Edinburgh?

starting point: https://www.airlinescontactnumber.co.uk/transavia-uk/

[R0b]

For starters, you can't pick and choose which entity you issue a claim against. Your contract (from what I can decipher from their website) will either be with Transavia C.V. or Transavia S.A.S. if you choose to issue a claim against any other Transavia entity then you are at risk of having costs awarding against you for claiming and having obtained judgment against an entity not party to the contract.

See this on a regular basis where ordinary consumers think they can issue a claim against a UK based entity who are part of a group of companies under the same banner but are not in fact the contracting party. Some get away with it and others I've seen are landed with costs way more than what they are claiming in compensation and then moan about it and say it's unfair. If you want to cycle through the Transavia entities it is entirely up to you, but be warned.
In terms of options,

I believe (but don't quote me) that you could issue a claim locally in the UK and then it would need to be served on the correct Transavia entity in Netherlands or France whichever is applicable. If you obtain judgment that way, then you would need to have it certified by a court in that jurisdiction before you can enforce it in their domiciled country.

Other options are the European Small Claims procedure which I assume you are referring to you as the European Cross Border claim?

https://www.gov.uk/recover-debt-from...european-union

https://europa.eu/youreurope/busines...e/index_en.htm

[des8]

Well damn it!!!

I'll try the holding companies...

They paid the first Judgement though, cannot see why they would refuse to pay the second.

Could I put this through as a against their Dutch head office? I believe a UK Judgement would lead to an automatic and identical Judgement this way, that can then be enforced in Holland.

You can follow all sorts of routes, but I just wonder if it is worth all the hassle.
That is your decision alone!

Looking into it more deeply:
Against whom exactly did you win your claim?
Transavia Air Ltd is not the same company legally as Transavia Airlines C,V, (which is 100% owned by KLM)
Transavia Airlines C.V. owns two subsidiaries Transavia Netherlands and Transavia France
According to Company accounts Feb 2016 there is one shareholder for Transavia Air Ltd viz Avalon Services Ltd which goes back to a company in the Bahamas

I think you were lucky to get your first claim paid as you probably sued the wrong company!

[MIKE770]

move on principles fail most times and in this case let it go

[Jahn]

Hmmh. After the first Judgement against Transavia Air in the UK, I emailed them said Judgement, and in response they stated they had "arranged payment of the Judgement to the bank details I sent them." No mention of the Service address/Entity's name being wrong.

So I guess my question is does this make them liable for the subsequent claims made to same entity/address?

[R0b]

Not in law no. Every company has their own separate legal personality, which, in laymans terms means they are treated as separate individuals. To give you a simple example, you can't bring a claim against John Smith just because he is a cousin of John Doe who you originally contracted with and the only connnection being that they are related.

No party has any liability towards another contractually unless they are a party to the contract. Now you can continue applying your method against Transavia or any other company but I suspect one day you might get your fingers burnt. Entirely up to you on whether that's worth taking the risk.

[Jahn]

Regarding the original Judgment (the 2nd judgement), that has not been paid in the five months I have pursued, I have read that

1) I can pay £45 and request to see total assets of the agents named as running that company, and

2) I can force the company into liquidation?

Is there leverage here?

[des8]

1)There are no agents running the company against whom you won a default judgment.
The company is dormant.

2) To what end? But the answer is NO as you need to be owed £750 to apply to wind a company up (which by the way is not cost free!)

[Antrc]

rob

"I believe (but don't quote me) that you could issue a claim locally in the UK and then it would need to be served on the correct Transavia entity in Netherlands or France whichever is applicable. If you obtain judgment that way, then you would need to have it certified by a court in that jurisdiction before you can enforce it in their domiciled country."

I have heard this. Iberia is owned by International Airlines Group, and operates flights to/from the UK, and can be served via the UK address for IAG's headquarters.

Does anyone know if Vueling can also be served this way? They are owned by Iberia, so it's not as straight forward.

[Antrc]

Anyone know?

[R0b]

I don't know the answer to your question. What I can say is that certain groups of companies take the decision for one member company to handle all disputes relating to all members within that group. Could be a number of reasons why such as the other members don't have their own in-house legal team, or that it might make business sense for one company to handle common disputes. You would need to confirm with IAG on their processes but until they do confirm, the legal process I mentioned above still stands.