This guide is written for solicitors, trainees and law students in England and Wales.
Enforcing a foreign judgment in England and Wales runs down one of several routes. Which one you take depends on where the judgment came from. The Supreme Court added another route in July 2026. This explainer sets them side by side, explains what Drelle changed, and covers the defences a debtor keeps.
Who is this explainer for?
Litigators handling cross-border debt recovery. Insolvency practitioners acting for foreign office-holders. Funders pricing a foreign judgment.
It maps the routes rather than advising on which to take. That choice turns on the judgment, the country it came from, and where the debtor keeps assets.
What are the routes?
Five, and they do not overlap neatly.
| Route | Applies to | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| Administration of Justice Act 1920 | Judgments from many Commonwealth countries | Registration in the High Court |
| Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 | Judgments from countries with a bilateral arrangement, including Canada, Australia, India and Israel | Registration in the High Court |
| Hague Convention 2005 | Judgments from a court chosen in an exclusive jurisdiction clause | Registration under CPR Part 74 |
| Hague Convention 2019 | A wider class of civil and commercial judgments from contracting states | Registration under CPR Part 74 |
| Common law | Everything else, including the United States, Russia, China and the Gulf | Fresh claim on the judgment, then an English judgment |
The common law route is the fallback. It is also the slow one. A creditor issues a claim in England on the foreign judgment as a debt. It usually seeks summary judgment. It ends up with an English judgment it can then enforce.
What does the common law require?
Four conditions, all of them long settled.
- The judgment must be final and conclusive in the court that gave it.
- It must be for a debt or a definite sum of money.
- It must come from a court with jurisdiction in the international sense. That usually means the debtor was there when proceedings started, or submitted to that court, or agreed in advance to do so.
- It must not be a judgment for taxes, a penalty or a fine.
Miss any of those and the route closes, whatever the judgment says on its face.
Where does Drelle change things?
It opens a sixth route, and it skips a step.
In Drelle v Servis-Terminal LLC [2026] UKSC 29, handed down on 27 July 2026, the Supreme Court held that a foreign money judgment can be a debt under section 267 of the Insolvency Act 1986. No English court need have recognised it. No statutory regime need allow it to be registered here. A creditor may petition for bankruptcy on the judgment itself.
The court revived what it called the obligation principle. The trail runs back through nineteenth-century cases such as Williams v Jones and Godard v Gray. On that principle a foreign judgment for a set sum creates a duty to pay at once. Recognition is the machinery for enforcing that duty here. It is not what creates it.
Five justices agreed, and they overturned the Court of Appeal in [2025] EWCA Civ 62.
What does that mean in practice?
For a creditor holding a non-treaty judgment, the sequence gets shorter.
| Step | Before Drelle | After Drelle |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Issue a common law claim on the foreign judgment | Serve a statutory demand on the foreign judgment |
| 2 | Win an English judgment, usually by summary judgment | Present a bankruptcy petition under section 267 |
| 3 | Serve a statutory demand on the English judgment | Debtor raises substantive defences at that stage |
| 4 | Present a bankruptcy petition | Not required |
That saves a set of proceedings, and the costs that go with them. It does not make the judgment any easier to defend.
One question stays open. The reasoning does not read as limited to personal insolvency. But the court had a section 267 case in front of it. Anyone reaching for a winding-up petition on the same logic should expect a fight about it.
How do you actually start?
Three different first steps, depending on the route.
For the statutory and Hague routes, apply to register the judgment under CPR Part 74. The application goes in without notice, supported by evidence. The debtor’s route out is an application to set the registration aside, and time runs from service of the registration order.
For the common law route, issue a Part 7 claim on the judgment debt. Most creditors then apply for summary judgment, because the four conditions are usually a matter of record rather than argument.
For the insolvency route, serve a statutory demand and wait the statutory period before petitioning. Expect the debtor to apply to set the demand aside if there is anything to say about the foreign proceedings.
What happens once you have an English judgment?
The ordinary toolkit opens up, and none of it is automatic.
- A charging order over land or securities, followed by an order for sale.
- A third party debt order against a bank account or a debt owed to the debtor.
- A writ or warrant of control, putting an enforcement agent onto goods.
- An attachment of earnings order, where the debtor is employed here.
- An order to obtain information, if you do not yet know what the debtor holds.
Assets drive the choice. A judgment against someone with a house in England points one way. A judgment against someone with a bank account and nothing else points another.
A creditor deciding how to enforce a non-treaty judgment now has an extra option. This lays out all the routes side by side so the choice is an informed one.
What defences does a debtor keep?
All of them. Drelle widened the gate. It did not clear what waits behind it.
- Fraud. The court will not enforce a judgment obtained by fraud.
- Natural justice. A debtor can challenge proceedings that were unfair in procedure.
- Public policy. The court refuses enforcement that would offend English public policy.
- Section 32 of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982. A judgment from proceedings brought in breach of a dispute resolution agreement generally will not run here.
- Multiple damages. Section 5 of the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980 blocks multiple damages awards.
Drelle itself proves the point. The Supreme Court sent back the arguments about bias and unfair procedure in the Russian proceedings, on which the debtor said the debt was genuinely in dispute. Nobody has decided those points yet.
Common mistakes
Assuming a Commonwealth judgment can be registered. The 1920 and 1933 Acts reach listed countries, not every former colony. Check the list first.
Treating Hague 2005 as general. It only reaches judgments from a court that an exclusive jurisdiction clause named.
Reading Drelle as the end of recognition. It removes recognition as a step before petitioning. To execute against assets you still need an English judgment.
Forgetting the debtor’s route out. A debtor can apply to set aside a statutory demand where the debt is genuinely in dispute on substantial grounds. A foreign judgment does not escape that.
Ignoring limitation. English limitation periods apply to a common law claim on a foreign judgment.
Official sources
- Drelle v Servis-Terminal LLC, UKSC case page and press summary
- Find Case Law, for the full judgments
Our news coverage of the Supreme Court ruling covers the decision in full. For another recent appellate decision with commercial reach, see Deckers v Up & Running.
Last updated
3 August 2026. Due for review when the remitted issues in Drelle are decided, or when a court applies the reasoning to a winding-up petition.