Foreign Judgment Enforceable At Common Law Despite Legislative Change Making It Unenforceable In State Of Origin

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. In the present case, that meant that Abu Dhabi judgments for amounts due under two guarantees remained enforceable in England despite a subsequent change in the law of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which meant they could not be enforced there: Invest Bank PSC v El-Husseini [2023] EWHC 2302 (Comm).

This 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.