Written by Anthony Kennedy, Barrister at Serle Court
This is the second online symposium on Private International Law in Nigeria initially announced on this blog. It was published today on Afronomicslaw.org. The first introductory symposium was published here by Chukwuma Samuel Adesina Okoli and Richard Frimpong Oppong. More blog posts on this online symposium will follow this week.

Introduction
Authority exists for the proposition that a creditor of a foreign judgment may bring an action at common law in Nigeria, by which action he, in effect, seeks recognition and/or “enforcement” of that foreign judgment[1]. The common law action has not been abolished by statute or disapproved judicially but, sadly, it is not widely understood or used by practitioners/courts in Nigeria. This is unfortunate, especially where the statutory mechanism[2] for the enforcement of foreign judgments is certainly limited but otherwise shrouded in confusion[3]. This paper argues for a reawakening of the common law action.
The construction placed on the statutory regime
It is impossible properly to assess the scope for the common law action in Nigeria without first addressing the statutory mechanism for the enforcement of foreign judgments. The common law action only works in the space which has been left for it by the applicable statutory regime. Moreover, tactically, judgment creditors are likely to favour registration of the foreign judgment under that statutory regime, where such registration is permitted, given the “better protection” which such regime affords them, at least theoretically, when compared with the common law[4]. Read more...