Joint Stock Company (Aeroflot - Russian Airlines) v Berezovsky & Anor

English courts enforce foreign judgments only where the foreign court had international jurisdiction under English private international law. Physical presence when proceedings were commenced or submission to the jurisdiction ordinarily suffices; whether residence without presence is enough was left open.

Enforcement may nevertheless be refused for breach of public policy, the European Convention on Human Rights or natural justice. The finality principle prevents a foreign court from reopening and substantially increasing a final award for the same cause of action, particularly without new facts or circumstances. Fair notice remains essential, but whether notice was sufficient may require a trial.

Aeroflot sought recognition and enforcement in England of Russian judgments against Boris Berezovsky and Nikolay Glushkov concerning compensation for the Andava fraud. The judgments included a 2007 judgment against Mr Berezovsky and earlier judgments against Mr Glushkov, followed by a 2011 Russian judgment purporting to index the compensation to a substantially larger sum.

Both defendants applied to strike out the claim or obtain summary judgment. They argued that the Russian courts lacked international jurisdiction and that enforcement would breach public policy, the right to a fair hearing and natural justice. Mr Berezovsky additionally challenged notice of the indexation proceedings; Mr Glushkov argued that the wrong earlier judgment had been indexed.

1. Applications allowed. Summary judgment was granted dismissing the enforcement action against both defendants.

2. Under the common law, a foreign judgment creates an enforceable debt only if given by a court possessing international jurisdiction. That question is determined by English private international law. Physical presence in the foreign country when proceedings are commenced, or submission to the foreign court, is sufficient. The court left open whether residence without presence can independently found jurisdiction.

3. Mr Berezovsky’s presence in Russia when the earlier criminal investigation began did not establish jurisdiction because the relevant proceedings began only when the case was sent to court. His lawyers’ request to the prosecutor to discontinue the case was not submission to the jurisdiction, since it invited the prosecutor not to invoke the court’s jurisdiction.

4. The 2011 indexation proceedings reopened the final assessment of damages in the earlier judgment. They concerned the same cause of action, introduced no new facts or circumstances and multiplied the award approximately tenfold. That was a breach of the finality principle, which is a rule of English public policy and reflects the legal-certainty requirement in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

5. The court could not determine summarily whether service at the defendants’ registered Russian addresses gave fair notice. Their actual receipt of documents, Aeroflot’s knowledge of their English addresses and the operation of Russian procedural rules required investigation at trial. Those issues therefore did not independently justify summary judgment.

6. Mr Glushkov’s submission to the jurisdiction in the earlier Russian proceedings arguably extended to a later related indexation claim, applying the approach in Murthy v Sivajothi and Whyte v Whyte. That issue did not alter the result because enforcement was barred by the finality principle.

This was a first-instance decision of the High Court (Chancery Division). No appeal from the present decision is stated in the judgment.