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Enforcing Your Judgment In China. We Cop To Ethnocentricism.

By Dan Harris on Posted in Legal News

We are always writing on how because Chinese courts will not enforce U.S. court judgments it is usually pointless to pursue litigation against a Chinese company in the United States if the Chinese company’s only assets are in China. So if you have an agreement with a Chinese company that requires litigation take place in your own United States city you are likely to face problems if you ever need to sue. Here are some of our posts on this:

So today when a client called to discuss suing a Chinese company, I started talking about how China does not enforce U.S. judgments. The client then reminded me that it was a Canadian company. Wait just a second. Canada is a separate country with its own international treaties. Is it in a treaty with China under which the two countries enforce each other’s court judgments? 

I did some quick research and discovered that China does not enforce Canadian judgments but it does enforce the judgments from the following surprisingly large (and somewhat diverse) list of countries:

  • Belarus
  • Brazil
  • Bulgaria
  • Cuba
  • Cyprus
  • Egypt
  • France
  • Greece
  • Hungary
  • Italy
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kuwait
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Laos
  • Lithuania
  • Mongolia
  • Morocco
  • North Korea
  • Poland
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Spain
  • Tajikistan
  • Tunisia
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine
  • United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.)
  • Uzbekistan
  • Vietnam

From now on, whenever I write about the enforcement of judgments in China from now on, I am going to strive to point out that what China does with U.S. judgments may not be the same thing it does with other country’s judgments. 

Anyone out there ever taken a judgment from a foreign country and had it enforced in China?

  • Lorena

    I took a Russian judgment into China and had it converted into a Chinese judgment quite quickly and without any problems. Only problem was on the collection side. The Chinese company shut down and I never got anything.

  • Twofish

    The general rule is that China is willing to enforce judgments from another country if that other country is willing to enforce Chinese judgments. One quick way to figure out the likelihood of your judgment being enforced in China is to imagine if you had a Chinese court judgment and think about how likely it would be that your local court would enforce that judgment.

  • linda

    When a foreign company wants to enforece a judgment issued by its country in China, first it should find out whether a Judgment issued by a Chinese court is enforceable in its country, if the answer is not, the answer is China will be “not” too.

  • Aemacst

    What about Hong Kong judgments – does China enforce judgments from courts there?

  • Greg

    I’m pretty surprised by some of the European countries on the list, some of which definitely don’t pass the Twofish test (at least in my ignorant imagination). Assuming that a case or a Chinese defendant has some connection to the other country, do you think it could ever be plausible to take a U.S. judgment to one of these jurisdictions, and from there to China?

  • Twofish

    There is an agreement regarding HK/PRC judgments
    Here is the agreement
    http://www.legislation.gov.hk/intracountry/eng/pdf/mainlandrej20060719e.pdf
    and here is commentary
    http://www.deaconslaw.com/eng/knowledge/knowledge_284.htm
    http://www.hg.org/articles/article_1694.html
    http://www.mayerbrown.com/litigation/article.asp?id=5281&nid=258
    One of the big issues in coming up with the agreement was to “translate” different concepts between legal systems.
    In particular, it was tricky to come up with the idea of a “final judgment” in PRC law, since higher courts in the PRC have the power to unilaterally reopen a case through “supervision” power whereas courts in common law countries can’t reopen a case unless someone asks them to.

  • http://www.brazilianlawblog.com Adler Martins

    Generally, Brazil will enforce judgements from any country, as long as the due process of law has been followed.
    In addition to that, the Brazilian constitution says that all foreign relations will be bound by reciprocity process. This usually works very well with countries that apply the same principle, such as China.
    Also, the BRICcountries have issued a protocol among their supreme courts, in order to enhance juridical cooperation within the group.
    Brazil and China also have signed a bilateral agreement on cooperation on the mutual enforcement of penal and criminal decisions.
    Finally, when it comes to arbitration, any award issued by a BRIC country can be enforced in any other BRIC country.
    Thank you very much. I have been reading this blog for a long time, looking for an opportunity to bring something to the table. Seeing Brazil on the top of the list seemed like a good one.
    Adler Martins

  • http://www.foarp.blogspot.com FOARP

    Once again showing the indispensability of the CLB.
    Dan you’ve just saved me a whole load of research to show that 1) China doesn’t enforce other countries judgments, and 2) likely won’t enforce the judgments of the courts in the relevant country I am considering. Cheers.