Recognition of Foreign Country Judgments in New York: The Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act
![handle is hein.journals/buflr18 and id is 9 raw text is: RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN COUNTRY JUDGMENTS IN NEW YORK:
THE UNIFORM FOREIGN MONEY-JUDGMENTS RECOGNITION ACT*
BAuPnAnA KuLZER**
THIS article considers the desirability of enactment by the State of New
York of the Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act. The first
part is devoted to the necessity for and advisability of codification of the com-
mon law on the recognition of foreign judgments. The second part reviews the
leading judicial pronouncements on foreign (herein, extranational) judgments
in this State. The third and most lengthy part analyzes the provisions of the
Act, compares them with prevailing New York case law, and attempts to
predict the probable effect of enactment. An assessment of the Act's effectiveness
will be offered in the light of parallel codifications in the form of proposed
multilateral treaties and existing legislation in England. The fourth part con-
tains general conclusions and a draft of the Act incorporating the few changes
this paper suggests.
PART I
The Case for Codification
Many commentators have long stressed the need for codification of the
rules relating to the recognition of foreign money judgments in this country.'
Their concern has not been so much with the substantive law now in force in
most of the states2 but with the comprehension-or lack of it-of that law on
the part of foreign countries. The consensus has been that, by and large, Ameri-
can judgments have not fared well overseas, particularly in the vast majority of
This article was prepared as a study for the Judicial Conference of the State of
New York upon recommendation of the Committee to Advise and Consult with the
Judicial conference on the CPLR. It is published in substantially identical form in The
Thirteenth Annual Report of the Judicial Conference 195 (1967) and is republished here
with the permission of the Judical Conference to which acknowledgement is gratefully made.
The author wishes to express her gratitude to the members of the Committee to Advise
and Consult with the Judicial Conference on the CPLR, and especially to the Chairman,
Professor Adolf Homburger, and to all who have commented on the study as it appeared in
the Thirteenth Annual Report. Their suggestions and criticisms have been most helpful and
many of these are referred to in this article. The author is, of course, solely responsible for
its contents.
** Assistant Professor of Law, Rutgers School of Law, Camden; B.A. University
of Pennsylvania, 1961; LL.B. Rutgers School of Law, Newark, 1964; LL.M., Columbia
Law School, 1967.
1. See generally Nadelmann, Non-Recognition of American Money Judgments Abroad
and What to Do About It, 42 Iowa L. Rev. 236 (1957). The following authors have stressed
the need for legislation or treaties: Graupner, Some Recent Aspects of the Recognition and
Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Western Europe, 12 Int'l & Comp. L.Q. 367 (1963)
(in the context of the [British] Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act of 1933,
23 & 24 Geo. 5, c. 13); Yntema, The Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Anglo-American
Law, 33 Mich. L. Rev. 1129, 1164-65 (1935).
2. But see Smit, International Res Judicata and Collateral Estoppel in the United
States, 9 U.C.L.A.L. Rev. 44 (1962); von Mehren & Trautman, Recognition of Foreign
Adjudications; A Survey and a Suggested Approach, 81 Harv. L. Rev. 1601 (1968).
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Recognition of Foreign Country Judgments in New York: The Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act
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