In May 2023 I was lucky enough to speak at the AIJA conference in the Hague on “The Hague Judgment Convention - a gamechanger?”. I was on a great panel with lawyers from the Netherlands, USA, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. We were also privileged to have representatives from the HCCH (the global inter-governmental organisation behind the various Hague conventions) join us in the discussion. 

The 2019 Hague Convention is all about enforcement - once you've obtained your judgment from a UK court (or a court in another jurisdiction), what can you do with it to convert your judgment into cash? The idea of Hague 2019, along with the Lugano Convention and their arbitration equivalent, the New York Convention, is to make enforcing judgments around the world simpler.

Our conclusion was that whilst Hague 2019 is a step in the right direction and is progress, it has a couple of weaknesses: (i) it doesn't have the breadth of Lugano (not least because it does not cover injunctions, for example) and (ii) it's only of real value if enough jurisdictions sign up to it and ratify it – it takes (at least…) two to tango. In May 2023, only Europe and the Ukraine had ratified Hague 2019, although a number of other states including the USA had signed up to it. At the time I said the UK probably would sign up to it, but it was in a consultation process. Happily, the UK Government announced a couple of weeks ago that the UK will sign up to it “as soon as practicable”. It will only come into force for a new signatory country 12 months after ratification, so hopefully we can expect to be in the Hague 2019 group proper by 2025. 

This will make enforcement of UK judgments in Hague 2019 countries more straight forward and maintain the UK as a jurisdiction at the forefront of global dispute resolution. For now though, we do still have the means of enforcing judgments from around the world in the UK, our legislation is tried and tested and it goes back to the 1920s and 1930s, so don’t hold back – come to us with your overseas judgments and we can advise you on how to convert your judgment into £pounds sterling, or other currencies if you prefer. :-)