Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Australia

Registration of foreign judgments

For a plaintiff seeking to enforce a judgment, it is not uncommon for a defendant’s assets to be spread across the globe, creating both opportunities and problems.  The opportunity lies in accessing potential sources of assets to satisfy the judgment.  The problem is that a company or person might have no assets in the plaintiff’s home jurisdiction, requiring the judgment to be enforced overseas.

The steps involved in accessing a defendant’s Australian assets to satisfy the judgment are recognition and enforcement.  We will explore these steps further in a series of upcoming posts.

In this first post we look at one method of recognition: registration of the foreign judgment under the Foreign Judgments Act 1991 (Cth) (Act). 

Impacts of a sluggish court system

Greece is in trouble.  It is being pressured to implement a number of reforms as part of negotiations for various forms of debt relief.

One of those reforms is an overhaul of its courts system, which is viewed as being slow, inefficient, and a handbrake on commerce.  For example, the World Bank reported this year that it took on average over four years to enforce a contract in Greece (compared to an OECD average of 1.5 years).

Does Australia have anything to worry about?