CJO has previously reported the work of the Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI) relating to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Asia, culminating in the release of the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Asia and the Asian Principles for the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments.
ABLI has recently released a free publication titled Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in ASEAN: Ranking the Portability of ASEAN Judgments within ASEAN, a derivative publication of its foreign judgments work.
The jurisdictions within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, are of diverse legal backgrounds. Specifically, Brunei, Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore are common law jurisdictions, while Cambodia, Lao, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand are of civil law tradition. The remaining ASEAM member, the Philippines, is a hybrid jurisdiction.
Two primary hurdles have been identified as hindering efforts to improve the portability of ASEAN judgments within the bloc. First, some ASEAN jurisdictions, such as Indonesia and Thailand, have no law that allows foreign judgments to be recognised and enforced. Second, most civil law jurisdictions in ASEAN still have rather rigid requirements on reciprocity.
Three key takeaways can be gleaned from the ranking.
First, Vietnamese judgments are found to be the most portable of ASEAN judgments within ASEAN. They can be enforced in seven out of the other nine ASEAN countries. This is mainly because Vietnam has the benefit of having bilateral agreements with Cambodia and Laos which allow its judgments to be enforced in the latter two jurisdictions.
Second, judgments rendered by the other civil law countries of ASEAN come in second place. They can be enforced in six out of nine ASEAN countries.
Third, judgments from the common law countries of ASEAN and the hybrid jurisdiction of the Philippines are jointly in third place. They can be enforced in five out of nine ASEAN countries.
Download the Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in ASEAN: Ranking the Portability of ASEAN Judgments within ASEAN from https://payhip.com/b/OkhoH to find out the reasons behind this ranking result which may be surprising.
ABLI regularly publishes the latest developments in the field of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Asia on its website and LinkedIn.
Cover photo by 瓜田 月下 on Unsplash
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
