Foreign Judgment Enforcement

The legal process of obtaining recognition and enforcement of a monetary judgment issued by a court in one jurisdiction within the courts of a different jurisdiction where the debtor holds assets. In the United States, foreign judgment enforcement is governed by state common law and the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act, which courts apply to assess whether the rendering court had proper jurisdiction and afforded basic procedural fairness. Enforcement proceedings can be contested by defendants raising defenses such as lack of jurisdiction, fraud in the procurement of the judgment, or public policy objections. Litigation funders financing cross-border disputes must model the cost and timeline of enforcement proceedings in each relevant jurisdiction as part of their overall return analysis.

Funders financing cross-border disputes model the enforcement timeline and cost in each jurisdiction where the debtor holds assets as a distinct underwriting variable, because a judgment that is easy to obtain in one country can be difficult and slow to enforce in another absent a reciprocal recognition framework. A defendant's asset concentration in a jurisdiction with a hostile or unpredictable recognition regime can materially lower a funder's expected value even where the underlying merits are strong.