NIGERIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Ibukun Enigbokan, Yussuf Akinola Oyebanjo, Temilade Oluwaseun Adepate and Hafeezah Salau, Streamsowers & Köhn
tion of the six-year limitation period for registering a foreign judgment as provided by Section 4 (1) of the Act. This leaves parties to act within the timeline of 12 months provided under the Ordinance and Section 10 of the Act, respectively. Foreign judgments that are otherwise registrable under the Act are caught mainly by the laws of limitation of time. A review of Nigerian decisions would show that there are numerous cases where Nigerian courts have either refused to register a foreign judgment or have set aside the registration of a foreign judgment based on objections that the foreign judgment was registered outside 12 months of the judgment without first seeking and obtaining the order of court for extension of time. From the foregoing, it appears that without orders of the Minster as provided for by Sections 3 and 12 of the Act, the reciprocity requirement was never applied, thereby hindering the complete application of the Act. Thus, the only accomplished purpose of enacting the Act is a widened scope of countries whose judgments are accorded registration and enforcement in Nigeria and an extension of the application of the Act to non- reciprocating countries, casting aside the reciprocity requirement, which has historically been the bedrock of Nigeria’s recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. This cannot be the intent of the legislature in enacting the Act. Comparative perspectives from other jurisdictions In the context of global commercialisation and inter - dependence, it is pertinent to consider how foreign judgments are treated in other jurisdictions. Canada Canada recognises two avenues for the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments: common law or legislation on reciprocal enforcement. i) Under common law For a foreign judgment to be enforced under com - mon law, the Canadian courts are guided by the tests established in Morguard Investments Ltd v De Savoye [1990] 3 SCR 1077 (Morguard) (that a foreign judgment must be final and conclusive, must have been issued by a court with jurisdiction over the matter, there was a real and substantial connection between the foreign
court and the subject matter of the action); and modi - fications over the years, such as that non-monetary foreign judgments are enforceable ( Pro Swing Inc v Elta Golf Inc ) and that the test of a “real and substan - tial connection to the action or the parties” are to be different within international and interprovincial con - texts ( Beals v Saldanha [2003] 3 SCR416, 2003 SCC 72; Chevron Corp v Yaiguaje , 2015 SCC 42 [2015] 3 SCR 69). In Beals v Saldanha (supra) , the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) restated the guiding principle for the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgment as follows: “[T]hat considerations of comity, order, and fairness support the application of the ‘real and substantial connection’ test to the recognition and enforcement of judgments originating in foreign countries... I would also question whether international comity requires us to move as far as the majority does in the direction of openness to foreign judgments when the position of jurisdictions with which we tend to compare ourselves is less generous.” Comity is the guiding factor for the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments by a Cana - dian court under common law. According to Marta Requejo Isidro, “[i]nternational comity combined with an economic rationale, accounts for the expansion of the scope of recognition of foreign judgments at the beginning of the millennium in the common law provinces in Canada” (Requejo Isidro, “Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments” CPLJ XIV 7, para). Reciprocity, as espoused in Beals v Saldanha (supra) , is considered in terms of a Canadian court recognising and enforcing a foreign judgment where the foreign court assumed jurisdiction over the cause of action on the same basis as the Canadian court would, and not reciprocity in terms of a Canadian court enforcing a foreign judgment because the foreign country would also recognise and enforce its judgment. Further, as held by the SCC in Chevron Corp v Yaiguaje (supra) , a finding of jurisdiction does not mean that a party will necessarily succeed in having a foreign judgment rec - ognised and enforced but only allows a party to seek recognition and enforcement of the foreign judgment.
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