The Hague Judgments Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters, which aims to facilitate global recognition of court decisions, has entered into force in the European Union on 1 September 2023.
The Hague Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (“the Convention”), ratified by the European Union (“EU”) and Ukraine on 29 August 2022, has entered into force in their respective territories on 1 September 2023. Costa Rica, Israel, Russia, the United States and Uruguay are also signatories but have not yet ratified the Convention.
In Europe, the recognition and enforcement of judgements were already governed by the Brussels I bis Regulation, which concerns the EU, and by the Lugano Convention, which concerns the EU, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. Under the Brussels I bis Regulation, judgments rendered in one EU Member State are enforceable in all other EU Member States. Similarly, the Lugano Convention provides that judgments rendered in the Contracting States are ipso iure, but differs from the Brussels I bis Regulation by requiring a prior procedure to confer them exequatur .
The Hague Convention seeks to facilitate the recognition of judgments in a larger number of countries. For a judgment to be recognised and enforced in a foreign country, the Convention requires it to be valid, effective and enforceable in its country of origin. The Convention also precludes any review of the merits of the judgment in the country where enforcement is sought.
The Convention also sets out a list of grounds on which recognition of a foreign judgment may be refused, including violation of the public policy of the state where recognition is sought, lack of jurisdiction of the court and fraud.
The Convention is part of an effort to standardise the procedure for recognising and enforcing foreign judgments and aims to replicate the success and efficiency demonstrated in international arbitration by the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards. This would require, however, that the Convention be ratified by a number of States comparable to those that have adopted the New York Convention (i.e., 172). This is still far from being the case, as the Convention currently applies only in the Member States of the European Union (with the exception of Denmark) and Ukraine.
