The courts have a panoply of powers at their disposal to assist with the collection of debts. Recently, the High Court rejected an application to set aside an order granting permission for a Chinese company to serve debt enforcement proceedings on a UK citizen living in China.
The company had obtained a money judgment in China against the woman in the sum of more than $2.1 million, and sought to enforce that judgment in England. Although the woman was a UK citizen, she was currently resident in China. An English judge granted the company permission to serve its enforcement claim out of the jurisdiction by emailing it to the woman’s solicitor. She applied to the Court to set aside that order on the grounds that the claim had no reasonable prospect of success and that England was not the proper place to bring it.
She argued that the company had no reasonable prospect of demonstrating that the Chinese judgment was final and conclusive, and thus capable of enforcement. The judgment was the subject of an application to the Procuratorate in China, which might lead to a retrial. However, the Court accepted the company’s argument that the judgment remained final and conclusive until a retrial was ordered. In any case, the test of finality and conclusiveness fell to be determined at the time the judge’s order was made, at which point no complaint had been lodged with the Procuratorate.
The woman contended that the judgment could not be enforced against her assets in England because they were subject to worldwide freezing injunctions. However, the Court noted that, if the company succeeded in its application to enforce the judgment in England, it could apply to vary or set aside those injunctions. The Court observed that the appropriate forum in which to enforce a money judgment against assets in England was clearly England.
Dismissing the woman’s challenge to the judge’s order, the Court was satisfied that there was no real prospect of demonstrating that the claim was hopeless, and that there was no reason why it should not be capable of determination in the English courts.