China And Hong Kong Tie Judgment Enforcement Knot: What's Good For The Goose Is Almost Good Enough For The Gander

According to today's online China Economic Review, China and Hong Kong will today (China time) be signing off on an agreement making commercial judgments from each other's courts enforceable on both sides of the "border."  China and Hong Kong have agreed Hong Kong will enforce the judgments of 469 mainland courts, "including the Supreme People's Court, 32 higher people's courts, 389 intermediate courts and 47 basic-level courts." 

There are some exceptions, as the pact provides that enforcement is not required for judgments obtained by fraud or where the losing party was given insufficient time to prepare a defense, but I see this agreement as likely to have a huge impact.  "The two governments have been negotiating the pact since 2002 but concerns over the quality of mainland courts have been a stumbling block."  Hong Kong is still able to avoid having to enforce the judgments of certain mainland courts.

For those wishing to learn more about this agreement and its likely impact, I urge you to read this excellent Legal Week article by Jim James and Patrick Bourke of London-based mega law firm, Norton Rose. 

And, in the "it's a small world" department, this is the first I have heard of Jim James since we worked together on a huge case many years ago in Hong Kong.  Jim was in Norton Rose's Hong Kong office at the time and I see he now heads up Norton Rose's Shanghai office.  Jim is a great lawyer and I heartily recommend him to those with a "bet your company" China arbitration matter.