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English Court Judgment refused (again) enforcement by Dubai Courts
In a recent decision, the Dubai Supreme Court (DSC) confirmed that enforcing foreign judgments in the Emirate could be particularly challenging. In this case, the DSC ruled against the enforcement of an English judgment on the ground that the case had already been decided by Dubai courts by a judgment that became final and conclusive (DSC, Appeal No. 419/2023 of 17 May 2023). The case presents many peculiarities and deserves a closer look as it reinforces the general sentiment that enforcing foreign judgments – especially those rendered in non-treaty jurisdictions – is fraught with many challenges that render the enforcement process very long … and uncertain. One needs also to consider whether some of the recent legal developments are likely to have an impact on the enforcement practice in Dubai and the UAE in general.
The case
1) Facts
The case’s underlying facts show that a dispute arose out of a contractual relationship concerning the investment and subscription of shares in the purchase of a site located in London for development and resale. The original English decision shows that the parties were, on the one hand, two Saudi nationals (defendants in the UAE proceedings; hereinafter, “Y1 and 2”), and, on the other hand, six companies incorporated in Saudi Arabia, Anguilla, and England (plaintiffs in the UAE proceedings, hereinafter “X et al.”). The English decision also indicates that it was Y1 and 2 who brought the action against X et al. but lost the case. According to the Emirati records, in 2013, X et al. were successful in obtaining (1) a judgment from the English High Court ordering Y1 and 2 to pay a certain amount of money, including interests and litigation costs, and, in 2015, (2) an order from the same court ordering the payment of the some additional accumulated interests (hereinafter collectively “English judgment”). In 2017, X et al. sought the enforcement of the English judgment in Dubai.
Montenegro’s legislative implementation of the EAPO Regulation: setting the stage in civil judicial cooperation
Carlos Santaló Goris, Lecturer at the European Institute of Public Administration in Luxembourg, offers an analysis of an upcoming legislative reform in Montenegro concerning the European Account Preservation Order
In 2010, Montenegro formally became a candidate country to join the European Union. To reach that objective, Montenegro has been adopting several reforms to incorporate within its national legal system the acquis communautaire. These legislative reforms have also addressed civil judicial cooperation on civil matters within the EU. The Montenegrin Code of Civil Procedure (Zakon o parni?nom postupku) now includes specific provisions on the 2007 Service Regulation, the 2001 Evidence Regulation, the European Payment Order (‘EPO’), and the European Small Claims Procedure (‘ESCP’). Furthermore, the Act on Enforcement and Securing of Claims (Zakon o izvršenju I obezbe?enju) also contains provisions on the EPO, the ESCP, and the European Enforcement Order (‘EEO’). While none of the referred EU instruments require formal transposition into national law, the fact that it is now embedded within national legislation can facilitate its application and understanding in the context of the national civil procedural system.
The Supreme Administrative Court of Bulgaria’s final decision in the Pancharevo case: Bulgaria is not obliged to issue identity documents for baby S.D.K.A. as she is not Bulgarian (but presumably Spanish)
This post was written bij Helga Luku, PhD researcher at the University of Antwerp.
On 1 March 2023, the Supreme Administrative Court of the Republic of Bulgaria issued its final decision no. 2185, 01.03.2023 (see here an English translation by Nadia Rusinova) in the Pancharevo case. After an appeal from the mayor of the Pancharevo district, the Supreme Administrative Court of Bulgaria ruled that the decision of the court of first instance, following the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in this case, is “valid and admissible, but incorrect”. It stated that the child is not Bulgarian due to the lack of maternal ties between the child and the Bulgarian mother, and thus there is no obligation for the Bulgarian authorities to issue a birth certificate. Hereafter, I will examine the legal reasoning behind its ruling.
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Out Now: Dickinson, Natural Justice in Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, Recueil des cours, Tome 446
Last summer, Andrew Dickinson (Professor of the Conflict of Laws, University of Oxford, and former editor of ConflictofLaws.net) delivered a special course at the summer course of the Hague Academy of International Law entitled ‘Natural Justice in Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments’. It has now been published as Volume 446 of the Recueil des cours / Collected Courses.
The blurb reads as follows:
This special course assesses the utility of ideas of ‘natural law’ and ‘natural justice’ as tools to explain, rationalise and develop the rules governing the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments currently applied by the world’s legal orders.
After introducing the topic, the first part of the course consider how influential 17th and 18th century accounts of the law of nature sought to account for the relations existing between all human beings, as well as the creation of political societies with law-making powers, the global ordering of those societies and the role of adjudication as a means of resolving disputes within and among them. This provides the historical and intellectual background for what follows.
The principal part of the course considers how writers on the conflict of laws in this period drew upon and utilised these ideas, as the rules that we apply today to regulate foreign judgments began to take shape. This leads to a study of the further evolution of the legal landscape in the 19th century, highlighting the use of natural law reasoning by judges and commentators to explain and justify the effectiveness of individual exercises of adjudicatory authority beyond their original domains, as well as the later rejection of natural law thinking in favour of models centred on ideas of sovereignty and territoriality, which continue to dominate today.
Having completed this historical survey, the course examines the specific legacy of natural law reasoning in the common law world, involving the use of principles of ‘natural justice’ to deny recognition of unjust foreign judgments, as well as the counterparts of these principles in other legal systems and international treaties.
Drawing on the preceding material, the concluding chapter considers the case for renaturalising the law in this area, and the implications of following this path.
More information on the book can be found here.
It is available to subscribers to the Recueil des cours here.
AMEDIP: Annual seminar to take place from 22 to 24 October 2025 (in Spanish)
The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) will be holding its XLVIII Seminar entitled “Reflections regarding the Inter-American system in the 50th Anniversary of the CIDIP-I and the latest developments of Private International Law in Mexico” (Reflexiones en torno al sistema interamericano en el 50 Aniversario de la CIDIP-I y la actualidad del Derecho Internacional Privado en México) from 22 to 24 October 2025. The venue of the seminar will be the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (Querétaro, Mexico). Read more
University of East Anglia Law Podcast Series on (Private and Public) International Law: Series 3 out now
All episodes of Series 3 of the University of East Anglia Law School Podcast are now out. Hosted by Rishi Gulati, they cover the following topics:
- The Future of International Investment Law (Muthucumarasamy Sornarajah)
- Double Standards in International Law (Patryk Labuda)
- The launch of the Elgar Companion to UNIDROIT (Edward Elgar, 2024)
- The Rise of International Commercial Courts (Giesela Rühl)
- The exercise of self-defence in outer space (Chris O’Meara)
- Greenland, Self-Determination, and the Geopolitical Contest (Maria Ackrén).
All episodes are available at SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify