justified claim – if no multiplication is involved,98 unless perhaps the amount awarded is entirely irrational.99

All three regimes make an exception preventing recognition of judgments given in default against a defendant who was not adequately notified of the original action. In the context of recognition at common law, Atkin LJ said in Jacobson v Frachon100 that the foreign court must have given notice to the litigant that it was about to proceed to determine his rights and must also have afforded him an opportunity of substantially presenting his case. It may be, however, that service in a form authorised by an agreement between the parties will always satisfy the common law.101 Under the 1920 Act, s 9(2)(c) prevents enforcement if the judgment debtor, being the defendant in the original proceedings, was not duly served with the process of the original court and did not appear. Under the 1933 Act, s 4(1)(a)(iii) prevents registration if the English court is satisfied that the judgment debtor, being the defendant in the original court, did not receive notice of the proceedings there in sufficient time to enable him to defend them and did not appear, even if process was duly served on him in accordance with the law of the original country.

Finally, a judgment may be refused recognition because it is irreconcilable with another judgment.Thus, under all three regimes, an external judgment will be refused recognition in so far as it is irreconcilable with an English judgment, regardless of the order in time in which the judgments were given.102 Where the irreconcilable judgments are from different foreign countries, s 4(1)(b) of the 1933 Act gives preference to the earlier judgment by permitting the court addressed to set aside the registration of a judgment if it is satisfied that the matter in dispute in the proceedings in the original court had previously to the date of the judgment in the original court been the subject of a final judgment by a competent court. The position at common law, and under the 1920 Act, was for a long time obscure, but eventually, in Showlag v Mansour,103 the analogy of the 1933 Act prevailed. There the Privy Council, on appeal from Jersey, faced with a conflict between an earlier English and a later Egyptian judgment, held that where there were two competing foreign judgments, each of which had been pronounced by a competent court and each of which was final and otherwise unimpeachable, then the earlier in time had to be recognised to the exclusion of the later, unless there were circumstances connected with the obtaining of the second judgment which made it unfair for the party relying on the first judgment to do so.

Conclusion

This chapter has examined the respect which is accorded in England to foreign judgments. Chapter 19 considers the recognition and enforcement in England of foreign arbitral awards.

Further reading

Collins et al (eds), Dicey, Morris and Collins on the Conflict of Laws, 15th edn, 2012, Sweet & Maxwell. Hill and Chong, International Commercial Disputes, 4th edn, 2010, Hart Publishing.

Stone, EU Private International Law – Second Edition, 2010, Edward Elgar.

98See General Textiles v Sun and Sand Agencies [1978] 1 QB 279.

99See Adams v Cape Industries [1990] Ch 433.

100(1927) 138 LT 386 at 392.

101See Copin v Adamson (1874) LR 9 Ex 345; (1875) 1 ExD 17.

102See Vervaeke v Smith [1983] 1 AC 145; Man v Haryanto [1991] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 429; s 9(1) of the 1920 Act; and s 4(1)(a)(v) and

(b) of the 1933 Act.

103[1995] 1 AC 431.