Uruguayan courts and government are receptive toward enforcement of foreign courts money judgments, and as long as the judgments are issued by competent foreign courts, Uruguayan judges can be expected to honor the judgments of such foreign courts.

 

It must be taken into account throughout this report that, as in most civil law countries, Uruguay regulates by law the enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards. This regulation is found in stipulations contained in the General Procedure Code (hereinafter GPC) and in several treaties which Uruguay is a party to, such as the Montevideo Treaties of 1889 and 1940 on International Procedural Law and the Inter-American Convention on Extraterritorial Validity of Foreign Judgments and Arbitral Awards. These statutes set up the requirements for the recognition and for the enforcement of foreign judgments. Whenever there is a contradiction between the norms established in the treaties and what is established in the convention, we have to attend to this last one. 

 

Uruguay also signed on November 4th, 1987 two international treaties with Spain, regarding this matter. The first one is an Agreement of Legal Cooperation, while the other refers to Conflicts of Laws in the matter of Alimony for minors and Recognition and Execution of decisions and judicial transaction relative to alimony.

 

Uruguay has also ratified the “Protocolo de Las Leñas” by act number 16.971 of June 15th, 1998, involving all the countries which belongs to the MERCOSUR, which refers to the Extraterritorial Effectiveness of the Judgments in an integrated space scope. 

 

As regards the enforcement of foreign money judgments issued by countries with which Uruguay has no treaties on the matter, such as the United States, the provisions of the GPC would apply.