In a ruling rendered on October 23, 2018, the Paris Court of Appeal applied the rule regarding the reasoning of foreign judgments in the exequatur procedure.
To receive exequatur in France, every foreign judgment, regardless of the subject matter in which it was rendered, must be reasoned.
The Paris Court of Appeal recalled this rule in a ruling of October 23, 2018 (RG no. 17/08212):
“It is contrary to the French conception of international public policy of procedure to recognize a foreign decision that is not reasoned when documents capable of serving as equivalents to the deficient reasoning are not produced“.
In this case, the Court of Appeal confirmed the exequatur of a judgment rendered in Canada, as the calculation of costs and expenses had been sufficiently reasoned.
The Paris Court of Appeal had applied the same principle in a ruling of February 7, 2017 (RG no. 16/03284).
In that file, however, it had refused the exequatur of a judgment rendered in Israel based solely on a letter of request to the court to summon the defendant to appear, which was undated, unsigned, and devoid of any indication of the name and qualifications of its translator.
This single piece of evidence was therefore considered to lack probative value, and the equivalence to the absent reasoning of the Israeli judgment was therefore not established.
The requirement for reasoning of a foreign judgment in the exequatur procedure: jurisprudence established by the Court of Cassation
The rule regarding the requirement for reasoning of a foreign judgment in the exequatur procedure was set by a ruling of the Court of Cassation on May 17, 1978 (Cass. Civ. 1st, May 17, 1978, no. 76-14843):
“It is contrary to the French conception of international public policy to recognize a foreign decision that is not reasoned when documents capable of serving as equivalents to the deficient reasoning are not produced and [which do not allow] to ensure that this decision fulfills the conditions required for its recognition, notably regarding respect for public policy.“
Depending on the country where the judgment was rendered, this condition is set either by a bilateral cooperation agreement binding France to that country, or by the Cornelissen jurisprudence (Cass. Civ. 1st, February 20, 2007, no. 05-14082), under the angle of conformity with international public policy (D. Motte-Suraniti, La motivation de la décision de justice étrangère dans la procédure d’exequatur, Recueil Dalloz no. 1, January 2009).
In a ruling pronounced on May 28, 2014 (Cass. Civ. 1st, May 28, 2014, no. 13-10553), the Court of Cassation applied this rule.
The facts of the case that led the high court to apply this jurisprudence concerned a dispute between the Argentine Republic and the speculative fund NML CAPITAL.
The latter had obtained a judgment from a District Court in New York ordering the Argentine Republic to pay it the sum of $284,184,632 for the repayment of bonds.
The speculative fund then seized French justice to obtain the exequatur of the American judgment, based on the Cornelissen jurisprudence, as no international convention binds France and the United States regarding exequatur.
It had obtained a favorable outcome in a ruling rendered by the Paris Court of Appeal.
The Argentine State had then filed an appeal in cassation on the grounds of the lack of reasoning of the American judgment.
According to the State, on one hand, the American judge had limited himself to referring to a previous judicial decision, without specifying the grounds and without it having been communicated in the context of the trial.
On the other hand, Argentina reproached the American judge for not having analyzed all the arguments it had supported before him, abstaining notably from responding to its request for a preliminary inquiry before the pronouncement of a judgment.
On this appeal, the Court of Cassation noted that the New York court, recalling the claims of the company NML CAPITAL, had stated the facts of the case, identified precisely the debt securities whose payment was being pursued, and referred to detailed precedents.
The American judge had therefore expressly pronounced himself on the specific questions to which the defense of the Argentine Republic related.
The reasoning of the American judgment could not be regarded as deficient and the exequatur in France could therefore be granted to it.
Thus, this obligation in matters of exequatur experiences frequent developments in jurisprudence.