Enforcement of foreign judgments – Israel as a case study

Abstract

This article shows how enforcement of foreign judgments in Israel works in practice. Using an original hand-coded dataset, the article seeks to determine empirically which factors increase the likelihood of a foreign judgment being enforced by Israeli courts. To do so the article makes use of two major theories about enforcement of foreign judgments – international comity and vested rights. Also, the article hypothesises that enforcement can be influenced by specific characteristics of the Israeli court and the foreign judgment.

The article finds that the best predictor of foreign judgment enforcement in Israel is the specific characteristics of the foreign judgment and of the Israeli court – cases with a contractual-commercial nature, and cases brought before one of the central districts of Israel are more likely to be enforced. Additionally, the volume of trade between the issuing country and Israel might also be a certain predictor of enforcement. Finally, the article finds that the due process in individual cases might have some influence on the enforcement decision.

Keywords:

• enforcement of foreign judgments
• empirical legal studies
• Israeli Law
• law and international relations
• access to international justice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See infra Part B.

2 The text of the Convention, as adopted at the 22nd Diplomatic Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, is available on the Hague Conference website at https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/full-text/?cid=137 accessed on 30 June 2022 [hereinafter the Convention]

3 See the status table available at https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/?cid=137.

4 G Shaffer and T Ginsburg, “The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship” (2012)106 American Journal of International Law 1, 5–11.

5 CA Whytock, “Transnational Litigation in U.S. Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Reassessment” (2022) 19 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 4.

6 T Eisenberg and G Miller, “Ex Ante Choice of Law and Forum: An Empirical Analysis of Corporate Merger Agreements” (2006) 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 1975; See also T Eisenberg and G Miller, “The Flight From Arbitration: An Empirical Study of Ex Ante Arbitration Clauses in the Contracts of Publicly Held Companies” (2007) 56 DePaul Law Review 335.

7 S Shakargy, “Whose Law Is It Anyway? The Case of Matrimonial Property in Israel” (2022) 23 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 165.

8 KF Tsang, “Enforcement of Foreign Commercial Judgments in China” (2018) 14 Journal of Private International Law 262.

9 A Yekini, The Hague Judgments Convention and Commonwealth Model Law (Hart Publishing, 2021).

10 As will be explained later, the article focuses only on enforcement and not on recognition of foreign judgments.

11 A hand-coded dataset is a dataset which was coded manually.

12 R Michaels, “Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments”, in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, 2009), 1, 2.

13 D Stewart, “The Hague Conference Adopts a New convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters” (2019) 113 American Journal of International Law 772, 772.

14 T Einhorn, Private International Law in Israel (Wolters Kluwer, 2009) 329. As Einhorn writes: “[o]nly certain judgments can be enforced, that is, judgments which order one person (the judgment debtor) to perform an obligation towards another (the judgment creditor), or judgments which order the passing of title to property from one person to another.”

15 supra n 12, 1.

16 P Torremans, “Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments—The Traditional Rules”, in P Torremans et al. (eds) Cheshire, North & Fawcett: Private International Law (Oxford University Press, 15th edn, 2017) 525, 527–56; CW Fassberg, Private International Law (Nevo, 2013) 251–2 [Hebrew]; See generally RC Casad, “Issue Preclusion and Foreign Country Judgments: Whose Law?” (1984) 70 Iowa Law Review 53; A Mehren and D Trautman, “Recognition of Foreign Adjudications: A Survey and a Suggested Approach” (1968) 81 Harvard Law Review 1601, 1674.

17 SP Baumgartner, “Understanding the Obstacles to the Recognition and Enforcement of U.S. Judgments Abroad” (2013) 45 NYU Journal of International Law and Policy 965, 969.

18 Fassberg, supra n 16, 254.

19 M Rosen, “Should Un-American Foreign Judgments Be Enforced” (2004) 88 Minnesota Law Review 783, 803.

20 Y Rotem, “The Problem of Selective or Sporadic Recognition: A New Economic Rationale for the Law of Foreign Country Judgments” (2010) 10 Chicago Journal of International Law 505.

21 H Maude, “Codifying Comity: The Case for U.S. Ratification of the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters” (2020) 38 Wisconsin International Law Journal 108, 109; A Chong, “Moving Towards Harmonisation in the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgment Rules in Asia” (2020) 16 Journal of Private International Law 31, 31; A Pribetic, “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Recent Trends in the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Canada” (2006) Annual Review of Civil Litigation 141; V Singal, “Preserving Power Without Sacrificing Justice: Creating an Effective Reciprocity Regime for the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments” (2007) 59 Hastings Law Journal 943, 945.

22 Rosen, supra n 19, 803.

23 Singal, supra n 21, 945; Chong, supra n 21. 33.

24 M Whincop, “The Recognition Scene: Game Theoretic Issues in the Recognition of Foreign Judgments” (1999) 23 Melbourne Journal of International Law 416, 421–22.

25 F Juenger, “The Recognition of Money Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters” (1988) 36 American Journal of Comparative Law 1, 4.

26 Rotem, supra n 20, 510.

27 Fassberg, supra n 16, 254; Juenger, supra n 25, 4.

28 Fassberg, supra n 16, 254; Baumgartner, supra n 17, 966-7.

29 Juenger, supra n 25, 4.

30 Michaels, supra n 12, 1.

31 Ibid, 2-3; Torremans, supra n 16, 525-7; Fassberg, supra n 16, 254-5; P Schlosser, “Jurisdiction and International Judicial and Administrative Cooperation” (2000) 284 Hague Collected Courses 9, 33; Haggai Carmon, Foreign Judgments in Israel – Recognition and Enforcement (Springer, 2013) ix-x.

32 W Dodge, “International Comity in American Law” (2015) 115 Columbia Law Review 2071; JR Paul, “Comity in International Law” (1991) 32 Harvard International Law Journal 1; SL Stevens, “Commanding International Judicial Respect: Reciprocity and the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments” (2002) 26 Hastings International & Comparative Law Review 115, 119–21.

33 Juenger, supra n 25, 7.

34 J Edelman and M Salinger, “Comity in Private International Law and Fundamental Principles of Justice” in A Dickinson and E Peel (eds), A Conflict of Laws Companion (Oxford University Press, 2021) 325.

35 For a discussion of the different interpretations of comity, see JR Paul, “The Transformation of International Comity” (2008) 71 Law and Contemporary Problems 19; T Dornis, “Comity”, in J Basedow et al. (ed), Encyclopedia of Private International Law (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 381–91.

36 Michaels, supra n 12, 2-3; Paul, supra n 32, 4; Fassberg, supra n 16, 255-6; I Canor, “No More Respect of Sovereignty – Reciprocity and the Rise of Public Considerations from the Public International Law to the Private International Law” (2019) 41 Iyunei Mishpat 532–4 (2019) [Hebrew].

37 Juenger, supra n 25, 10.

38 Michaels, supra n 12, 2.

39 CW Fassberg, “Rule and Reason in the Common Law of Foreign Judgments” (1999) 12 Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 193, 202; Juenger, supra n 25, 10; Whincop, supra n 24, 424.

40 Fassberg, supra n 16, 256.

41 Michaels, supra n 12, 3.

42 Case 99-3195 Society of Lloyd's v Ashenden [2000] 233 F 3d 473, 480-81 (7th Cir.) (discussed in the specific context of the Illinois Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act, 735 ILCS 5/12-618 to 626); See generally MD Carodine, “Political Judging: When Due Process Goes International” (2007) 48 William and Mary Law Review 1159.

43 Maude, supra n 21.

44 A Dickinson, “Keeping Up Appearances: The Development of Adjudicatory Jurisdiction in the English Courts” (2016) 86 British Yearbook of International Law 6; A Briggs, “Recognition of Foreign Judgments: A Matter of Obligation” (2013) 129 Law Quarterly Review 87; A Dickinson, “Schibsby v Westenholz and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in England” (2018) 134 Law Quarterly Review 426.

45 Fassberg, supra n 16, 256; Schibsby v Westenholz [1875] LR 6 QB 155.

46 Hilton v. Guyot [1895] 159 US 113.

47 Fassberg, supra n 16, 265; Schlosser, supra n 31.

48 Fassberg, supra n 16, 257.

49 Chong, supra n 21, 32; Baumgartner, supra n 17, 971; WG Southard, “The Reciprocity Rule and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments” (1977) 16 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 327, 327; Y Zeynalova, “The Law on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Is It Broken and How Do We Fix It” (2013) 31 Berkley Journal of International Law 150, 165–6.

50 Juenger, supra n 25, 11.

51 See above text accompanying notes 35–37 and 41–43.

52 See, J Rachlinski and A Wistrich, “Judging the Judiciary by the Numbers: Empirical Research on Judges” (2017) 13 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 203.

53 KM Clermont and T Eisenberg, “Anti-Plaintiff Bias in the Federal Appellate Courts” (2000) 84 Judicature 128; T Eisenberg and E Hill “Arbitration and Litigation of Employment Claims: An Empirical Comparison” (2004) 58 Dispute Resolution Journal 44; SL Haynie and KL Sill “Experienced Advocates and Litigation Outcomes: Repeat Players in the South African Supreme Court” (2007) 60 Political Research Quarterly 443.

54 S Farhang and G Wawro, “Institutional Dynamics on the US Court of Appeals: Minority Representation Under Panel Decision Making” (2004) 20 Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 299; JL Peresie, “Female Judges Matter: Gender and Collegial Decision Making in the Federal Appellate Courts” (2005) 114 Yale Law Journal 1759.

55 Peresie, supra, n 54.

56 Foreign Judgments Enforcement Law, 5718-1958, LSI 68 (1958) [hereinafter Enforcement Law]; See also Fassberg, supra n 16, 502–9; CivA 970/93 Attorney General v Agam [1995] 49(1) PD 561 (Isr.) (establishing the precedent that there is a common law route only for enforcement of foreign judgments but not for recognition of foreign judgments).

57 Einhorn, supra n 14, 332–3.

58 Enforcement Law, s 11(b), supra n 56.

59 Based on the author’s research for the current article.

60 Enforcement Law, supra n 56.

61 Ibid, s 3(1).

62 Ibid, s 3(2).

63 Ibid, s 3(3). This

64 Einhorn, supra n 14, 338. Einhorn suggests that one of the rare cases in which enforcement might be refused on these grounds is a case in which the foreign court ordered an artist to create a certain painting (which is prohibited under Israeli Contract Law).

65 Ibid, s 3(4).

66 Ibid, s 3(3); See CivA 4949/03 Bulos Gad LTD v Globe Master Management LTD [2005] PD 59(5) 616; Fassberg, supra n 16, 495.

67 Enforcement Law, supra n 56, s 4; See Canor, supra, n 36.

68 CivA 3081/12 Double K Gas Products LTD v Gazprom Transgaz Uchta [2014] Nevo Legal Database.

69 Enforcement Law, supra n 55, s 6(a)(1).

70 See Fassberg, supra n 16, 496; CivA 3441/01 John Doe v Jane Doe [2004] Nevo Legal Database.

71 Enforcement Law, supra n 56, s 6(a)(2).

72 See CivA 29/76 Shunderman v Krakowski [1976] PD 30(3) 423; CivA 802/89 Indorexis v Indorexis [1990] PD 46(2) 366.

73 CivA 541/77 Rozenshine v Spatus [1978] PD 32(2) 71.

74 Enforcement Law, supra n 56, s 6(a)(4).

75 Ibid, s 6(a)(5).

76 Hague Conference on Private International Law, Status table, supra, n 3.

77 Enforcement Convention, supra, n 2, Art 2(1)(b) and 2(1)(c).

78 Ibid, Art 2(1)(k).

79 Ibid, Art 2(1)(l).

80 Ibid, Art 2(1)(m).

81 Ibid, Art 4(3).

82 Ibid, Art 5(1)(b).

83 See R Schuz, The Hague Child Abduction Convention: A Critical Analysis (Hart, 2013) 133, n 198.

84 Fassberg, supra n 16, 526.

85 RN Barger, “The High-Tech Sector”, in A Ben-Bassat et al. (eds), The Israeli Economy 1995-2017 (Cambridge University Press, 2021) 527.

86 E Rivlin, “Israel as a Mixed Jurisdiction” (2012) 57 McGill Law Review 781.

87 Y Elbashan, “People of Mizrachi Origin in Israeli Law Faculties – A Journey” (2020-2021) 23 Mishpat U Mimshal 1 [Hebrew].

88 Double K v Transgaz, supra n 68, para 12.

89 CivC (TA DC) 48946-11-12 Reitman v Jiangsu Overseas Group Co Ltd [2015] Nevo Legal Database (enforcing a judgment from China), para 129.

90 Center for Systematic Peace, Polity5 Annual Time-Series, http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html accessed on July 1 2022.

91 See in the context of the Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, FamC (TA) 74430/99 PvP [1999] and Schuz, supra n 83 at 13 and 361.

92 [dataset]* Cingranelli et al., 2013, CIRI Human Rights Data Project, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxDpF6GQ-6fbY25CYVRIOTJ2MHM/edit accessed on 3 July 2022.

93 [dataset]* C Farris, 2014, Latent Human Rights Protection Scores Version 2 http://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/HumanRightsScores/faces/study/StudyPage.xhtml?globalId=doi:10.7910/DVN/24872 accessed on 3 July 2022.

94 [dataset]* E Voeten et al., 2009, United Nations General Assembly Voting Data, Harvard Dataverse https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/LEJUQZ accessed on 3 July 2022.

95 [dataset]* K Barbieri et al., Correlates of War Project Trade Data Set – Trade, Version 4.0., 2012 http://correlatesofwar.org; For trade data for the years 2019 and 2020 the article used: Israeli Bureau of Statistics, Trade 2017–2020 accessed on 3 July 2022. https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/Pages/%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9C-%D7%A1%D7%97%D7%A8-%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A5.aspx. accessed on 3 July 2022.

96 JA Segal, “Judicial Behavior”, in RE Goodin (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Political Science (Oxford University Press, 2009) 275, 280–1.

97 S Farhang and G Wawro, “Institutional dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals” (2004) 20 Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 299; CR Sunstein et al, “Ideological Voting of Federal Courts of Appeals: a Preliminary Investigation” (2004) 90 Virginia Law Review 301; RL Revesz, “Environmental Regulation, Ideology, and the D.C. Circuit” (1997) 83 Virginia Law Review 1717.

98 The data includes two cases with judgments issued by the Palestinian Authority. Given that there is very limited data on the Palestinian Authority (for instance, no polity or human rights scores), in most of the statistical analyses these cases are excluded for lack of data.

99 Nevo Database, https://www.nevo.co.il/ accessed on 3 July 2022.

100 Shakargy, supra n 7, 170-1.

101 A chi-2 test is a hypothesis test used to determine whether there is a relationship between two categorical variables.

102 LFamA (DC NZ) 6–10 John Doe v Jane Doe [2011] Nevo Legal Database; FamC (NZ) 7776-04-14 SSBH v ABH [2017] Nevo Legal Database; CivC (DC Jer) 6403–09 Levin v Levin [2011] Nevo Legal Database; FamC (Jer) 19021/00 SF v SF [2004] Nevo Legal Database.

103 Levin v Levin, supra n 102.

104 SSBH v ABH, supra n 102, para 23

105 CivC (MC TA) 6900-06-17 Primze 2009 LTD v Ashtrum International LTD [2020] Nevo Legal Database.

106 CivC (DC TA) 1344/94 Shifman v Shifman [1995] Nevo Legal Database.

107 CivC (DC Jer) 492/98 Lipsky v Schwab [1999] Nevo Legal Database.

108 Double K v Transgaz, supra n 68 (enforcing a judgment from Russia); CivA 7884/15 Reitman v Jiangsu Overseas Group Co Ltd [2017] Nevo Legal Database (enforcing a judgment from China).

109 Civ (Krayot) 46824-02-15 Wolinski v KBC Verzekeringe NV[2018] Nevo Legal Database.

110 Civ (Haifa) 28138-05-16 Isadora v Ben Ezra [2017] Nevo Legal Database.

111 FamC (TA)16136-07-12 John Doe v Jane Doe [2013] Nevo Legal Database.

112 Civ (JR) 786–08 Wasserstein v Friedriechshain [2010] Nevo Legal Database.

113 SF v SF, supra n 102 (trial court); LFamA (JR DC) 637/04 Sf v Sf [2006] Nevo Legal Database (appeal).

114 A t-test is a statistical test that compares the means of two samples.

115 Due to the relatively low number of cases the author chose to assume that there is no connection between the decisions in the first instance in which the case was tried, and its appeal. However, one might argue that in such a case the appeal judges might have a status quo bias. A logit test is used to model dichotomous outcome variables – in our case, whether the judgment was enforced or not.

116 See R Wacks, Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2006) 92.

117 See TG Weaver and T George, “The Role of Personal Attributes and Social Backgrounds on Judging”, in L Epstein and S Lindquist (eds), The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Judicial Behavior (Oxford University Press, 2016) 15.

118 See John Doe v Jane Doe, supra n 111.

119 Double K v Transgaz, supra n 68.

120 See M Bertrand and S Mullainathan, “Do People Mean What They Say? Implications for Subjective Survey Data” (2001) 91 American Economic Review 67.

121 See Shaffer and Ginsburg, supra n 4, 9; R Higgins, “Remarks” (2005) 99 American Society of International Law Proceedings 135.

122 See L Epstein and AD Martin, “Quantitative Approaches to Empirical Legal Research”, in P Cane and HM Kritzer (eds), Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research (Oxford University Press, 2010).

123 Reitman v Jiangsu, supra n 108, para 43; Double K v Transgaz, supra n 68, para 55.

124 It should also be noted that perhaps for these reasons Israel is also currently not a Party to Hague Conventions on family law apart from the Child Abduction and Intercountry Adoption Conventions.

125 SF v SF, supra n 102 (trial court).

126 Ibid, para 33.

127 Ibid, paras 12-32.

128 See Reitman v Jiangsu, supra n 108, para 43; H Peled, “The Status of the Reciprocity Requirement Following CivA 7884/15 Reitman v. Jiangsu Overseas Group Co Ltd” (2018) 12 Haarat Din 22.

129 Double K v Gazprom, supra n 68.

130 Ibid, paras 43 and 55.

131 Primze v Ashtrum, supra n 105.

132 Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry, The Israeli Foreign Trade – An Overview https://israel-trade.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%92%D7%AA-%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%94-04.2021.pdf accessed on 3 July 2022.

133 Without a treaty, generally, Israel recognises foreign judgments only incidentally; See supra Part B.