SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Randolph Khoo, See Chern Yang, Tan Ei Leen and Sharon Ki, Drew & Napier
cause papers, subject to permission of the court being obtained. There are also private service providers who can per - form litigation searches, to trace records of past pro - ceedings. As such, it is not likely that a debtor can apply to remove or expunge a judgment from the Registry once it has been satisfied. Instead, any judgment debtor who has satisfied a judgment debt should apply to the court to record the satisfaction of the judgment (Order 22 Rule 3 of the ROC 2021). 3. Foreign Judgments 3.1 Legal Issues Concerning Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Legal issues with the enforcement of foreign judg - ments often arise owing to confusion as to the scope and applicability of the various enforcement regimes in Singapore. At present, there are both common law and statutory regimes for the enforcement of judgments in Singa - pore. The common law method essentially involves the filing of a fresh action on an implied debt. The statutory regimes have undergone several recent changes, which can be summarised as follows. Prior to 1 March 2023, the statutory regimes consisted of the following. • The Reciprocal Enforcement of Commonwealth Judgments Act 1921 (RECJA) – this provided for the enforcement of certain judgments of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth states (eg, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Windward Islands, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Brunei Darussalam, Papua New Guinea, and India (except the state of Jammu and Kashmir)). • The Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act 1959 (REFJA), as amended by the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (Amendment) Act 2019, which came into operation on 3 October 2019 (REFJA(A)) – this provided for the enforce - ment of certain judgments of the Hong Kong Spe -
cial Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR). More types of judgments could potentially be registered and enforced under the REFJA(A) than before the amendments to the statue in 2019. • The Choice of Court Agreements Act 2016 (CCAA) – this was enacted to give domestic effect to the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agree - ments (HCCCA) under Singapore law with effect from 1 October 2016. Part 3 of the CCAA provides for the enforcement of judgments from a court of a contracting state to the HCCCA, if that court was designated in an exclusive choice of court agree - ment concluded in a civil or commercial matter after the HCCCA entered into force in that con - tracting state. However, the RECJA has since been repealed by the Reciprocal Enforcement of Commonwealth Judg - ments (Repeal Act) 2019 (the “RECJA Repeal Act”), which took effect from 1 March 2023. The purpose of its repeal was to simplify and streamline the existing statutory framework for the recognition and enforce - ment of foreign judgments under the REFJA(A). Rec - ognition of countries under the RECJA is now effect - ed under the REFJA(A), which presently governs the enforcement of judgments from the HKSAR, the UK, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Paki - stan, Brunei Darussalam, Papua New Guinea, and India (Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments (United Kingdom and Commonwealth) Order 2023). As a general rule of thumb, the common law route should be pursued only if none of the statutory regimes apply. However, the latter are to some extent mutually exclusive. The REFJA(A) does not apply to judgments that may be recognised or enforced under the CCAA (Section 2A of the REFJA(A)). Additionally, where the REFJA(A) applies, a foreign judgment can - not be enforced through the common law at all (Sec - tion 7 (1) of the REFJA(A)). There may be further changes to the local enforce - ment regime, with the Convention on the Recogni - tion and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (concluded on 2 July 2019) being billed as a game-changer for cross-border dis -
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