Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
The Hague Judgments Convention 2019
Adrian Briggs *
The Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters 2019 will come into force for the United Kingdom on 1 July 2025. It will represent the principal means for the mutual recognition of judgments between the United Kingdom and the European Union (and any other states adopting it), and it is for this reason timely to examine the instrument which will replace, but certainly not replicate, Chapter III of the Brussels I Regulation. In discussing the structure and detail of the Convention, it is noticeable how far it falls short of the pre-existing regime.
I. INTRODUCTION
Even though English courts have been creative in finding ways to make English judgments ramify overseas without the need for a judgment creditor to engage with a foreign court, the ability of a judgment creditor to enforce a judgment, or award, in accordance with the law of the state in which enforcement is really sought, is a valuable thing. Where arbitral awards are concerned, the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1958, by virtue of its widespread adoption, made, and makes, that straightforward.1 While the United Kingdom was a Member State of the European Union, the export of English judgments to Europe (and the import of Member State judgments into the legal order of the United Kingdom) was also straightforward: the Brussels Convention 1968,2 and its successors3 and derivatives,4 resulted, by the time the United Kingdom walked out, in enforcement being close to automatic. Those Brussels instruments were revoked by Parliament,5 leaving enforcement of foreign judgments, incoming and outgoing, grievously damaged, dependent on a scattering of bilateral treaties6 or treaty-like arrangements,7 the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements 2005,8 and a wild universe of native rules
* KC; Emeritus Professor of Private International Law, University of Oxford.
1. Even if it may appear that the Commercial Court spends far too much of its time dealing with attempts, mostly desperate, to avoid complying with the terms of an award.
2. Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, Sch.1.
3. Regulation (EC) 44/2001 (Brussels I); Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 (Brussels I recast).
4. Lugano Convention 1988; Lugano Convention 2007.
5. SI 2019/479.
6. Taking effect under the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933.
7. Taking effect under the Administration of Justice Act 1920 (and, for Guernsey, Jersey, and the Isle of Man, under the 1933 Act).
8. Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, s.3D, Sch.3F (inserted by Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020, ss 1(2), (3)).
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