Its application seems to be simple enough. But the commentary to r 40 warns us, “[t]he question whether a foreign judgment is in personam or in rem is sometimes a difficult one on which English judges have been divided in opinion”.2 This warning, however, still falls rather short. As two opinions recently handed down by the Privy Council illustrate, r 40(1) raises two distinct issues: one, whether for purposes of recognition or enforcement, a foreign judgment is to be characterized as being in rem or in personam , and two, whether the foreign “judgment” is a judgment at all.

Any difficulty with the first is deftly dealt with by the Privy Council in the Manx case of Kamlesh Mansukhal Damji Pattni v. Nasir Ibrahim Ali and Dinky International SA 3 , as discussed briefly below.4 But, even though the second question logically precedes discussion of the first, it does not appear to have had the benefit of much judicial attention until the almost contemporaneous decision in another Isle of Man case, Cambridge Gas Transport Corporation v. The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (of Navigator Holdings Plc and others) .5 It is this case on which this comment will chiefly focus.

The facts of Cambridge Gas were these. In 2001, a group of investors borrowed US$300 million on the New York bond market and ordered five gas transport vessels for the purposes of commencing a shipping business. The venture was unsuccessful, and by 2003 the business was insolvent. Chapter 11 relief under the US Bankruptcy Code was sought and a plan of reorganization was eventually confirmed by the Federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in March 2004. But complications arose