MEXICO Law and Practice Contributed by: Enrique Espejel, Diego Mora-Jensen, José Joaquín Pacheco and Luis Enrique Pérez García, White & Case
3.4 Process of Enforcing Foreign Judgments Requirements for Initiating the Enforcement Procedure For the process of enforcing a foreign judgment to begin, the judge or court must issue a letter rogatory, to which the petitioner must attach: • an authenticated or certified copy of the judgment, award or jurisdictional resolution; • an authenticated or certified copy of proof that the essential procedural formalities (outlined in 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments ) have been complied with; and • a translation into Spanish of all the authenticated documents. Likewise, for proceedings within Mexican territory, the plaintiff must indicate an address for service of notice in the jurisdiction of the court before which it is requesting the enforcement of the foreign judgment. Jurisdiction for Enforcement Proceedings In terms of determining which court has the jurisdic - tion to enforce the foreign judgment, it will be suffi - cient to take into consideration the national address of the defendant or – where this is unknown/absent – the location of the defendant’s assets. A local judge or a federal judge may deal with commercial matters. Procedural Stages The ancillary proceedings to enforce a judgment will begin with a personal summons to the executing party and the executed party, who may present their defences and exercise their corresponding rights and – if applicable – offer the pertinent evidence. In this part of the process, it is important to reiterate that neither the court of first instance nor the appeal court may review the merits of the judgment or the reasons or grounds of fact or law. Additionally, the decision delivered in the first instance may be appealed in both eventualities – ie, whether it denies or grants the execution. Questions relating to attachments, seizure of assets, appraisal, auction, and other matters concerning the liquidation and enforce - ment of a judgment delivered by a foreign court will be resolved by the court in charge of the enforcement process. The distribution of funds resulting from the
auction will remain at the disposal of the foreign judge delivering the judgment. 3.5 Costs and Time Taken to Enforce Foreign Judgments The length of time taken to enforce a foreign judgment – and the costs involved – will vary from case to case. Fundamentally, however, costs and waiting time will ultimately depend on: • the workload of the corresponding courts; and • the collection rate and accumulated experience of the legal counsel handling the specific case. Any estimate of the cost of enforcing foreign judg - ments must also take into consideration the individual cost of the translation of the foreign court decision (if applicable). One way of reducing costs is to find an official expert translator recognised by the judge in charge of the judicial enforcement procedure. This will avoid the need to opt for a second translation if the corresponding judge does not recognise the expert nature of the translator. Likewise, in terms of reducing times and costs, anoth - er viable alternative is the use of Mexico’s online court case systems. In the authors’ experience, the federal online court case system is more efficient and con - tains more functions than those available in local juris - dictions. The adoption of an online court case system is a key means of achieving efficiency and low cost in a judicial proceeding, even more so if the enforcement of a foreign judgment is involved. It is possible for the parties to view notices, pleadings and judicial resolu - tions – as well as file initial pleadings and motions – through an online court case system known as the “Online Services Portal”, thereby avoiding unneces - sary transfers to the court and greater agility for the filing of judicial motions. It is important to note that, in order to use this online system for filing pleadings, users must have a digital signature certificate recog - nised either by the Federal Judicial System or by the Mexican Tax Authority. 3.6 Challenging Enforcement of Foreign Judgments The only grounds for challenging and opposing the enforcement of a foreign judgment are those con -
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