Enforcement and recognition of foreign court rulings and decisions in Brazil

Brazil will usually recognize and enforce all kinds of foreign court rulings and decisions. In order to achieve that, a procedure must be filed before the superior court for non-constitutional issues (STJ). Foreign arbitration awards shall follow the same procedures.

This subject is trivial and pacified in Brazil. But a recent post from the China Law Blog has reminded me of how difficult this question can be for foreign lawyers.

Here is a copy of the original ChinaLawBlog post, as well as my comments to it (at the end).

Enforcing Your Judgment In China. We Cop To Ethnocentricism.

Posted by Dan on May 18, 2011

We are always writing on how because Chinese courts will not enforce U.S. court judgments it is usually pointless to pursue litigation against a Chinese company in the United States if the Chinese company's only assets are in China. So if you have an agreement with a Chinese company that requires litigation take place in your own United States city you are likely to face problems if you ever need to sue. Here are some of our posts on this:

• Enforcing Foreign Judgments in China -- Let's Sue Twice
• Chinese Companies Can Say, "So Sue Me."
• Taking Judgments To China (And Korea), Let's Not Sue Twice
• Will Your US Judgment Be Enforced Abroad? Not China, But Maybe
• Why Suing Chinese Companies In The US Is Usually A Waste Of Time
• How To Sue A Chinese Company. Part III. Litigation Strategies And Enforcing Judgments

So today when a client called to discuss suing a Chinese company, I started talking about how China does not enforce U.S. judgments. The client then reminded me that it was a Canadian company. Wait just a second. Canada is a separate country with its own international treaties. Is it in a treaty with China under which the two countries enforce each other's court judgments?

I did some quick research and discovered that China does not enforce Canadian judgments but it does enforce the judgments from the following surprisingly large (and somewhat diverse) list of countries:

• Belarus Brazil Bulgaria Cuba Cyprus Egypt France Greece Hungary Italy Kazakhstan 
• Kuwait Kyrgyzstan
• Laos Lithuania Mongolia Morocco North Korea Poland Romania Russia Spain Tajikistan Tunisia
• Turkey Ukraine United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) Uzbekistan Vietnam

From now on, whenever I write about the enforcement of judgments in China from now on, I am going to strive to point out that what China does with U.S. judgments may not be the same thing it does with other country's judgments.

Anyone out there ever taken a judgment from a foreign country and had it enforced in China?

MY COMMENTS

Generally, Brazil will enforce judgements from any country, as long as the due process of law has been followed.

In addition to that, the Brazilian constitution says that all foreign relations will be bound by reciprocity process. This usually works very well with countries that apply the same principle, such as China.

Also, the BRIC countries have issued a  protocol among their supreme courts, in order to enhance juridical cooperation within the group.

Brazil and China also have signed a bilateral agreement on cooperation on the mutual enforcement of penal and criminal decisions.

Finally, when it comes to arbitration, any award issued by a BRIC country can be enforced in any other BRIC country.

Thank you very much. I have been reading this blog for a long time, looking for an opportunity to bring something to the table. Seeing Brazil on the top of the list seemed like a good one.