MALTA Law and Practice Contributed by: Antoine Cremona, Clement Mifsud-Bonnici and Chiara Frendo, Ganado Advocates
In cases where a judgment delivered by the courts of an EEA/EFTA member state is being enforced in Malta, the procedure is regulated by the Convention on jurisdiction and the recogni- tion and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, the so-called Lugano Con- vention. This will require the party demanding recognition and enforcement to file in the First Hall Civil Court: • an application containing such demands; • a copy of the judgment (accompanied with a certified translated copy); and • a recognition and enforcement order issued by the court registrar of the EEA/EFTA mem- ber state of origin (also accompanied by a translated copy). The court will recognise and enforce that judg- ment without a trial if all these requirements are satisfied. The judgment debtor does have rem- edies to challenge that judgment, but this first demand will not require the judgment debtor to make submissions. The judgment debtor is per- mitted to challenge the recognition and enforce- ment of such a judgment by lodging a separate and subsequent appeal application before the appellate courts within one month, according to the case, from the delivery of the judgment at first instance. In cases where a judgment delivered by the courts of a non-EU and non-EEA/EFTA member state (third country) is being enforced in Malta, the procedure is regulated by the Code of Organ- isation and Civil Procedure. A foreign judgment that is final and binding, and has been delivered by a competent court outside of Malta, will first need to be registered. Such registration requires the filing of an application before the First Hall of the Civil Court. Proceedings involve the judg- ment debtor, who will have the opportunity to
raise any of the grounds for objection to the reg- istration of the foreign judgment contained in the aforementioned code, such grounds being far wider than those contained in the EU Regula- tion. Once registered and recognised, the for- eign judgment may then be executed locally in the same manner as other local judgments. However, in cases where a judgment has been delivered by a court outside of the European Union or EEA/EFTA, on the basis of an exclu- sive choice of court agreement by the courts of a Contracting State to the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, then the enforc- ing judgment creditor has the choice to proceed with recognition and enforcement of that judg- ment in Malta pursuant to the procedure laid down in that Hague Choice of Court Conven- tion, as opposed to the procedure laid down in the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure. Where the judgment has not been delivered on the basis of an exclusive choice of court agree- ment, and has been delivered by the courts of a Contracting State to the Hague Judgments Con- vention (the Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judg- ments in Civil and Commercial Matters), it can also be recognised and enforced in accordance with that convention, at the choice of the enforc- ing judgment creditor. According to the British Judgments (Recipro- cal Enforcement) Act (Chapter 52 of the Laws of Malta), a limited number of money judgments delivered by the Superior Courts of the United Kingdom may be registered in Malta in accord- ance with a separate procedure established in that act. The procedure under this act is very similar to that found in the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure.
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