HONG KONG SAR, CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Eric H. H. Chow, Michael Cheng, Stephanie Wong and June Wong, C L Chow and Macksion Chan
3. Foreign Judgments 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments A foreign judgment has no direct force in Hong Kong. Before any domestic enforcement step can be taken, the judgment must first be registered under a statutory scheme or recognised in a fresh common-law action, and which route applies depends mainly on where the judgment was given. Hong Kong is not party to any multilateral treaty on the mutual recognition of court judgments, so enforcement of foreign judgments runs through local legislation and the common law. There are three routes. • The Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforce - ment) Ordinance (Cap 319) (FJREO). A registration scheme for monetary judgments from the superior courts of designated jurisdictions that give Hong Kong judgments reciprocal treatment (see 3.2 Variations in Approach to Enforcement of Foreign Judgments ). • The Mainland China regimes. Judgments from Mainland China (other than Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) are dealt with under the Mainland Judg - ments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance, Cap 645 (MJCCMREO), in force from 29 January 2024, and its predecessor the Mainland Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance, Cap 597 (MJREO) (see 3.2 Variations in Approach to Enforcement of Foreign Judgments ). • The common law. For judgments outside the statu - tory registration framework, the creditor sues on the judgment in a fresh Hong Kong action. One fact matters at the outset; where a statutory scheme covers the enforcement of a judgment, it is exclusive. The judgment creditor cannot elect to sue by the common-law route for a judgment failing within an applicable ordinance. 3.2 Variations in Approach to Enforcement of Foreign Judgments FJREO (Non-Mainland Reciprocal Jurisdictions) The FJREO covers monetary judgments from the superior courts (courts of unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction) of 15 designated jurisdictions: Australia,
merits. Where the judgment is regular, setting aside is discretionary and the court considers all rel - evant factors, including the reason for the default and any prejudice to the plaintiff or third parties. The dominant factor is the merits: the defendant must show a real prospect of success, meaning a defence that could well be established at trial. The court forms a provisional view on that question rather than conducting a mini-trial on the affida - vit evidence, approaching the assessment with a sense of proportionality and mindful of the inter - locutory nature of the application. • Stay of execution pending appeal. For a judgment after trial, lodging an appeal does not automatically stay enforcement. The appellant must generally show a reasonable prospect of success and that the appeal would be rendered pointless without a stay – typically, where enforcement in the mean - time would cause irreversible harm. In practice, the court often requires the appellant to provide sufficient security for granting a stay of execution pending appeal. 2.6 Unenforceable Domestic Judgments Most domestic judgments are enforceable, but enforcement may be barred by statutory time lim - its. Under Section 4 (4) of the Limitation Ordinance, Cap 347, a judgment creditor cannot bring an action on a judgment more than 12 years after it became enforceable and cannot recover arrears of interest on a judgment debt more than six years after the inter - est fell due. Separately, the court’s leave is needed to issue a writ of execution where six years or more have elapsed since the date of the judgment, under Order 46 rule 2 of the RHC – so a judgment creditor should not leave enforcement too late. 2.7 Register of Domestic Judgments Hong Kong has no single, comprehensive public register of all judgments. Not every order made is published; written judgments are published on the Judiciary’s online database, and professional legal databases also carry them; the published version typi - cally shows the action number, the parties’ names, the date, the reasonings and the orders. A published judg - ment remains on the public record and is not removed even after the judgment debt is paid.
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