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Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly

A MODERN APPROACH TO ENFORCING FOREIGN JUDGMENTS

Beals v. Saldanha
At common law, the English test for whether to enforce a foreign judgment is well known. The judgment must be final and conclusive, the defendant must either have been present in the foreign jurisdiction at the start of the litigation or have submitted to that jurisdiction, and the judgment must be for a fixed sum of money and not a tax or penalty.1 The second of these three requirements is a significant barrier to enforcement. It allows a defendant with no presence or assets in a jurisdiction to choose to ignore being sued there, safe in the knowledge that the resulting judgment will not be enforced in England. Through this requirement the English courts maintain an insular policy of protecting English defendants and their assets from foreign litigation. In the face of ever-increasing global commerce and


CASE AND COMMENT

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