United Arab Emirates - Enforcement of Money Judgments

Although the governments of the U.A.E. and the individual emirates that make up the U.A.E. would point to existing federal statutory provisions for the enforcement of foreign money judgments in the U.A.E., the requirements of those statutes, as interpreted by courts in the U.A.E., make the enforcement of foreign money judgments in the U.A.E. problematic. (See Appendix I for the full text of the relevant statutes.) In the absence of a treaty – which preempts the requirements for enforcement of a foreign judgment under U.A.E. Civil Procedure Code (“CPC”) Article 238 – the enforcement of a foreign judgment in the U.A.E. would be the exception to the general trend of cases addressing this subject.

A core principle driving the U.A.E. courts to reject enforcement of foreign judgments is jurisdiction. Under CPC Article 235, as interpreted by the U.A.E. courts, if the U.A.E. courts would have had jurisdiction over a dispute, they will likely reject enforcement of a foreign judgment adjudicating the matter (in the absence of a treaty).

Thus, a litigant who foresees ultimately pursuing a party or property in the U.A.E. must carefully consider the statutory or applicable treaty requirements before initiating litigation in a foreign court. Only in narrow circumstances will the litigant be able to successfully enforce a resulting foreign money judgment in the U.A.E.

A more favourable option now open to judgment creditors is to enforce their foreign money judgments through the Dubai International Financial Centre (“DIFC”) Courts, a common law judicial system that operates independently from other U.A.E. Courts and operates pursuant to its own laws and court rules. The DIFC Courts are receptive to the enforcement of foreign money judgments and have entered into various protocols and memoranda of understanding with foreign courts that address the procedures for enforcement of each other’s judgments (See Appendix III).