TAIWAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Yafen Lin, Peng-Kwang Chen, I-Ming Chen and Weiyu Chiang, Formosa Transnational Attorneys at Law
proceedings. A defendant whose domicile, residence, office, or place of business is located within Taiwan may not have sufficient knowledge of documents issued by foreign judicial authorities, making it diffi - cult to discern whether such documents are indeed genuinely presented by a foreign judicial authority. At this juncture, serving judicial documents with the assistance of Taiwan’s diplomatic or judicial authori - ties will eliminate the costs incurred by parties in screening and verifying these documents indepen - dently. This is the primary legislative purpose behind the Law on Cooperation with Requests from Foreign Courts and the handling procedures for mutual legal assistance cases. Therefore, foreign judicial authori - ties should naturally serve judicial documents through these channels in order to safeguard the substantive right of defence for defendants within Taiwan. The determination of whether a defendant has “appeared” must be based on whether the right of substantive defence has been sufficiently protected. As a principle, where service of process is effected in a foreign jurisdiction, it should be made directly on the party or its legal representative. Service on the party’s litigation representative is also permissible. Howev - er, where substituted or alternative service methods are used under the law of the foreign state, the court must conduct a detailed assessment of whether the defendant’s right of defence has been sufficiently pro - tected, and whether the defendant has been afforded adequate time and opportunity to prepare an effective defence. Public Order and Good Morals in Taiwan Where the foreign judgment is incompatible with “public order and good morals” (public policy) in Tai - wan, the Taiwanese court shall not render a judgment to enforce the foreign judgment. In 2026, the Taiwan Supreme Court held that the assessment of whether a foreign judgment contra - venes public order or good morals is limited to exam - ining the dispositive conclusions reached by the for - eign court in its findings of fact and application of law in the specific case. It does not concern the legislative policy of the foreign jurisdiction, nor does it entail a re-
examination of the correctness of the foreign court’s factual determinations or legal application. Reciprocity If the courts of a foreign jurisdiction will not recognise Taiwan court judgments, Taiwan will not enforce judg - ments issuing from the courts of that jurisdiction. In view of its contested political status, Taiwan may not always be able to enter into treaties with other countries to establish the principle of reciprocity in the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. Therefore, Taiwanese courts tend to relax the require - ment of reciprocity when it comes to recognition of foreign judgments. In a 2013 judgment, the Taiwan Supreme Court held that Taiwanese courts should take the initiative to recognise judgments from a given foreign jurisdiction so long as the foreign jurisdiction does not expressly refuse to recognise the validity of the judgment made by the Taiwanese court. In other words, the Supreme Court has directed the lower courts to take a liberal view of reciprocity. Moreover, in a 2021 judgment, the Taiwan Supreme Court further clarified that mutual recognition in this context does not refer to mutual state recognition by Taiwan and another state under international law, but rather refers to reciprocity in mutual recognition of judgments between courts. If the foreign jurisdiction’s laws or courts do not expressly refuse to recognise the validity of Taiwanese judgments, Taiwan courts should be as lenient as possible and take the initiative to recognise the validity of the other jurisdiction’s judgment based on the principle of reciprocity. 3.4 Process of Enforcing Foreign Judgments Vietnamese and Chinese Judgments As the Cross-Strait Relations Act does not specify how to determine the jurisdiction for the procedure of recognising a Chinese judgment, the Taiwan Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that the Taiwan Code of Civil Pro - cedure shall apply by analogy. In principle, the credi - tor shall petition the court located in the place of the debtor’s domicile for recognising titles from China. Titles from Vietnam have similar issues as stated above. However, there is no precedent on the deter - mination of the jurisdiction for procedures to recog - nise a Vietnamese judgment. It is understood that the
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