FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Kyum Lee, Florian Dessault, Hannah Cobbett and Claire Gonzalez, BDGS Associés
12.2 Enforcement Procedure Articles 1514 to 1517 of the French Civil Procedure Code govern recognition and enforcement of foreign awards and international awards. Forced execution requires an exequatur order from the Judicial Court in whose jurisdiction an award rendered in France was made, or from the Paris Judicial Court for an award rendered abroad. The application is ex parte (Article 1516). The party seeking exequatur must submit an ex parte application to the competent court and prove: • the existence of the award by producing the origi - nal award and the arbitration agreement or duly certified copies thereof (together with a transla - tion of these documents if they were not drafted in French); and • that such enforcement is not manifestly contrary to French international public policy. At the initial ex parte stage, recognition or enforce - ment is refused only if it is manifestly contrary to French international public policy (Articles 1514 and 1515 of the French Civil Procedure Code). French courts define French international public policy as val - ues and principles that cannot be disregarded, even in an international context (Paris Court of Appeal, 14 December 2021, No 19/12417). In practice, French international public policy encom - passes both substantive rules (principle of good faith in the performance of agreements, regulations gov - erning foreign investment in France, certain principles of insolvency proceedings such as stay of individual proceedings against the debtor, international eco - nomic sanctions, prohibition of corruption and mon - ey laundering, etc) and procedural aspects (such as fair trial, equality of the parties, rights of the defence, fraud, etc). French courts may grant recognition or exequa - tur even where an award has been set aside by the courts at the seat, because foreign annulment is not itself one of the grounds listed in Article 1520 ( Cour de cassation , First Civil Chamber, 23 March 1994, No 92-15.137; Cour de cassation , First Civil Chamber, 29 June 2007, No 05-18.053; Paris Court of Appeal, 1
In particular, review of compliance with international public policy is not confined to the evidence placed before the arbitrators, and the reviewing court is not bound by the tribunal’s factual findings or legal char - acterisations ( Cour de cassation , First Civil Chamber, 23 March 2022, No 17-17.981). This intensified review does not amount to a general de novo review of the merits. It remains confined to the issues relevant to one of the exhaustively listed grounds in Article 1520, notably jurisdiction and inter - national public policy. The New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1958 (the “New York Convention”) was signed by France on 25 November 1958, ratified on 26 June 1959 and entered into force on 24 September 1959. Upon ratification, France made one reservation concerning reciprocity: “France declares that it will apply the Convention on the basis of reciprocity, to the recognition and enforce - ment of awards made only in the territory of another contracting State”. Pursuant to Article VII(1) of the New York Convention, a party may rely on the more favourable provisions of French law governing recognition and enforcement. French courts therefore frequently apply the French Civil Procedure Code rather than the Convention itself. France is also a party to other international treaties containing provisions relating to the enforcement of awards, such as: • the European Convention on International Com - mercial Arbitration of 21 April 1961; and • the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States of 18 March 1965 (which established the International Centre for the Settlement of Invest - ment Disputes (ICSID)). 12. Enforcement of an Award 12.1 New York Convention
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