NORWAY Law and Practice Contributed by: Christian Reusch, Øystein Nore Nyhus, Therese Sætre Løfsgaard and Oda Lauksund Engamo, Simonsen Vogt Wiig
is not delivered from a court of law that issues that kind of judgment, or that the judgment is too vague to be enforced. Furthermore, a defendant may only raise objections to the claim set out in the judgment if those objections could not have been put forward in the court case. Objections related to service of the proceedings must be brought before the courts as a request to reopen the proceedings and cannot be used as a challenge in the enforcement proceedings. However, if the judg - ment is a default judgment, then the reopening of the proceedings will affect the enforceability of the judg - ment. In the conciliation board, the formalities related to service of documents are less strict than in the ordi - nary courts of law, so a default judgment can be made even if the defendant has not been made aware of the claim and proceedings at all. Such a default judgment may be considered null and may not be enforced. 2.6 Unenforceable Domestic Judgments Under Norwegian law, declaratory judgments can - not be enforced. Furthermore, a judgment cannot be enforced if it is so vague or contradictory that the enforcement office cannot tell exactly what is to be enforced. As mentioned in 2.1 Types of Domestic Judgments , some judgments in default are not enforceable; reo - pening the proceedings due to objections relating to service will affect the enforceability of a judgment in default. 2.7 Register of Domestic Judgments No central register of judgments has yet been imple - mented or become available in Norway, but there are some websites where most Norwegian judgments are published and searchable, such as Lovdata.no and rettsdata.no. Unedited Supreme Court decisions are also available at www.domstol.no. Lovdata and Rettsdata contain the full text of judg - ments, with both reasoning and conclusion. Sensitive judgments and judgments involving private parties are usually in an anonymised form, with A, B, C, etc, listed instead of the parties’ names. Company names, however, will usually not be anonymous. To obtain the
names of private parties, one may request a copy of the judgment from the court that delivered it. A judgment debtor cannot have the judgment removed from such official websites by paying the debt, as the purpose of the websites is to give access to case law for use in legal arguments. 3. Foreign Judgments 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Foreign judgments are only enforceable in Norway to the extent they follow from a treaty or bilateral agree - ment between Norway and the country where the judgment was made, or if they follow from statutory law. The most relevant treaties for the enforcement of judg - ments in commercial disputes are as follows: • the Lugano Convention of 30 October 2007 (Con - vention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters); and • the bilateral agreement between Norway and the UK regarding recognition and enforcement of judg - ments in civil matters of 12 June 1961 – Norway and the UK confirmed this bilateral agreement by an agreement of October 2020, which ensures the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil matters between Norway and the UK after the UK left the European Union, unless or until the UK becomes an independent party to the Lugano Convention post-Brexit. In the absence of any such applicable conventions or agreements between Norway and the foreign country, the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters are subject to the Nor - wegian Enforcement Act of 26 June 1992, together with the Norwegian Dispute Act of 17 June 2005. Furthermore, the Norwegian Dispute Resolution Act (of 17 June 2005, No 90), Section 19-16, together with the Norwegian Enforcement Act (1992), Section 4-1, second paragraph (g), provides for a final foreign court
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