A foreign court or arbitration judgement in property matters has effect and is enforceable in the Czech Republic only if it is a final judgement having force of law (i.e., a judgement against which no further appeal lies) and if it has been recognised by the appropriate Czech court. (Act no. 97/1963 Sb., on Private International Law and Law of International Procedure, in wording of subsequent amendments).
A particular foreign judgement can not be recognised in the Czech Republic, and therefore not enforced, if any of the following apply to the judgement: 1.) Czech legal provisions on competence of Czech courts, applied to the foreign countries involved would not admit the case to be heard by courts or authorities of the foreign state, or if the matter lies within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Czech courts; 2.) A Czech court has already issued a final decision on same legal action or a foreign decision in the same legal action has been previously recognised in the Czech Republic; 3.) A participant to the proceedings against whom foreign judgement is to be recognised was denied the possibility of defending its rights and to take part in the proceedings, especially if the respective order to appear before the court or motion to open proceedings was not served properly; 4.) The foreign judgement is in contradiction with public order of the Czech Republic; 5.) Reciprocity is not granted to similar decisions made by Czech courts in the respective foreign state (reciprocity is not required if the foreign decision is not directed against a Czech citizen or Czech legal person).
It is important to realise the distinction between recognition of a foreign judgement, on the one hand, and execution of a foreign judgement, on the other hand. Recognition will normally be realised without special decision, i.e., the Czech court takes regard of the foreign judgement in property matters as in case of a Czech judgement in same matter.
Following recognition of the foreign judgement, execution must be ordered by decision of a Czech court (decision exequatur). It is always necessary to justify ordering of execution, but examination of the foreign judgement as to substance in merits of matter is not allowed. Otherwise, execution of foreign judgement is realised in the same manner as execution of domestic judgements and according to the general legal prescriptions with respect to property rights.
The Czech Republic is party to a number of multilateral and bilateral treaties dealing with this subject. Multilateral treaties include The Hague Convention of Apr. 15, 1958 on Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Relating to Maintenance Obligation in Respect of Children; The Hague Convention of Oct. 2, 1973 on Recognition and Enforcement of Decision Relating to Maintenance Obligations; The Geneva Convention of Sept. 26, 1927 on Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards; New York Convention of June 10, 1958 on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
