EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Amr A Abbas, Ahmed Abdel Hakeem, Khaled Abou El Wafa and Adham Ahmed Saied, Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy
• filing an appeal before the highest courts, such as the Court of Cassation; • seeking the cancellation of the judgment; and • a stay of enforcement until the final decision on merits is rendered by the court. Additionally, in order to ensure a balance between the creditor’s right to obtain its rights through compulsory enforcement and the debtor’s right to avoid invalid enforcement, Egyptian law regulates the initiation of certain lawsuits to: • suspend the enforcement automatically; or • grant the competent judge the discretion to sus - pend the enforcement. Egyptian law further regulates the legal requirements and procedures for the initiation of these lawsuits. By way of example, the defendant can challenge the enforcement if the creditor’s right is extinguished for any reason. The defendant can also challenge the enforcement if the applicant is seeking enforcement against an asset that cannot be subject to enforce - ment or attachment. This includes property owned by the state or public juridical persons and allocated for a public purpose, as well as any amount more than a quarter of a person’s salary. Another option is to file a contestation against the enforcement of the judgment. The first contestation automatically suspends the enforcement of the judg - ment until the court’s determination on the merits of the contestation itself. 2.6 Unenforceable Domestic Judgments Any judgment that does not impose an obligation on its parties cannot be subject to enforcement. By way of example, a declaratory judgment cannot be sub - ject to enforcement. In addition, the judgment should be final and not subject to an appeal (other than a challenge before the Court of Cassation), unless it is issued in a summary matter or accompanied by an expeditious execution. 2.7 Register of Domestic Judgments There is no central register including all judgments rendered by the Egyptian courts. However, each court has a documentary record of all the judgments that
it has issued. This record only includes the parties’ names, the number of judicial proceedings, and the date of the judgment. The Ministry of Justice is currently preparing docu - mentary records for all judgments issued by the Egyp - tian courts. On 10 June 2020, in a welcome response to the COV - ID-19 outbreak, the Court of Cassation announced the launch of a new electronic platform that contains a record of all challenges before the Court of Cassation, including the challenge number, status, hearing date, and other relevant data. 3. Foreign Judgments 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments The Civil and Commercial Procedures Law No 13 of 1968 regulates the recognition and enforcement pro - cedures of foreign judgments in Egypt. A party seek - ing the enforcement of a foreign judgment must obtain an exequatur. Foreign judgments can be enforced in accordance with the same requirements for the enforcement of domestic judgments. This general rule is subject to foreign judgment enforcement conven - tions and treaties to which Egypt is a signatory. A petition for the enforcement of foreign judgments should be filed before the competent court of first instance as per the normal procedures for the initiation of a lawsuit. The court will not render its enforcement order unless the following conditions are satisfied: • Egyptian courts have no jurisdiction over the dispute and the foreign court has jurisdiction to decide on the respective dispute; • the concerned parties are duly notified and repre - sented in the proceedings; • the relevant judgment is final as per the law of the court rendering the judgment; and • the judgment does not contradict any existing judgment or order rendered by any Egyptian court and is not in contravention of public policy or morality in Egypt.
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