The High Court has held that there is no common law rule preventing enforcement of a foreign judgment in England and Wales simply because it is not presently or fully enforceable in the relevant foreign jurisdiction: Invest Bank PSC v El-Husseini [2023] EWHC 2302 (Comm).
A foreign money judgment is enforceable at common law by suing on the judgment as a debt. The key requirement is that the foreign judgment must be final and conclusive in its jurisdiction of origin. In the present case, an Abu Dhabi judgment for amounts due under two guarantees was not enforceable locally, due to a subsequent change in the law of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, in the court's view, a mere impediment to local enforcement did not mean the judgment failed to be final and conclusive. It therefore remained enforceable at common law in this jurisdiction. The judge noted, however, that if his conclusion on this issue were essential to the outcome of the case (which it was not, because of an alternative basis for the claim) he might have been persuaded to grant permission to appeal on it. This issue may therefore be ripe for consideration by a higher court.
Interestingly, the outcome in this case contrasts with the position under the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, which enables judgments from certain countries (including for example Australia, Canada and India) to be enforced by registering the judgment in England. Under the express terms of the 1933 Act, a foreign judgment cannot be registered if it could not be enforced by execution in the country of origin.
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