Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and awards

Judgments from Lugano States

A judgment obtained abroad is of little value to a creditor unless it can be enforced where the debtor’s assets are. For judgments from the member states of the European Union and from Iceland and Norway, the relevant instrument is the Lugano Convention of 30 October 2007 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, which entered into force for Switzerland on 1 January 2011. Its contracting parties are Switzerland, the European Union, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. The Convention runs parallel to the Brussels I Regulation of 2001, which the European Union replaced by the recast Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 with effect from 10 January 2015, and the Standing Committee under the Convention has agreed to consider an adaptation in the light of the recast.¹ Under the Convention, judgments from other contracting states are recognised without any special procedure and declared enforceable on application, with review of the grounds for refusal only on appeal by the debtor. For Zurich’s financial centre the Convention matters above all for claims by and against German, Austrian, Italian and French parties, which together account for much of the cross-border litigation involving Zurich banks and companies.

The United Kingdom ceased to be bound by the Convention when it left the European Union. Its application to accede in its own right, submitted in 2020, did not receive the consent of the European Union.² English judgments are therefore recognised in Switzerland under the general rules of the PILA, which require the jurisdiction of the foreign court to be recognised under Swiss rules, the judgment to be final and no ground for refusal to apply.³ In practice English money judgments are frequently enforced in Zurich, but the path is longer and more uncertain than under the Convention. The same general rules apply to judgments from the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Gulf states, which makes the choice of forum at the drafting stage particularly important for parties that expect to enforce against Swiss assets.

Arbitral awards and the New York Convention

For arbitral awards the picture is simpler. The New York Convention of 1958 entered into force for Switzerland on 30 August 1965. Switzerland at first made a reciprocity reservation, which it withdrew in 1993, so that the Convention now applies to awards from any state, whether or not that state is itself a party. Article 194 PILA incorporates the Convention into Swiss law for all foreign awards.⁴ Swiss courts apply the grounds for refusal under Article V of the Convention narrowly, and enforcement of a foreign award for a sum of money is usually sought in the debt enforcement procedure described below, where the award serves as a title for the definitive setting aside of the debtor’s objection. The chapter on mutual legal assistance and asset recovery discusses the interaction between civil enforcement and the forfeiture of assets in criminal proceedings.

Notes

1. Federal Office of Justice (BJ), “Das Lugano-Übereinkommen 2007”, https://www.bj.admin.ch/de/das-lugano-uebereinkommen-2007. ↩
2. The United Kingdom applied to accede to the Lugano Convention 2007 on 8 April 2020, and the European Commission recommended on 4 May 2021 that consent be withheld: Burges Salmon, “European Commission recommends rejection of UK’s application to accede to 2007 Lugano Convention”, 21 May 2021, https://www.burges-salmon.com/articles/102gyqc/european-commission-recommends-rejection-of-uks-application-to-accede-to-2007-lu. On the formal note verbale in which the EU declared that it was “not in a position to give its consent”, see Michael McParland, “No Go Lugano”, 39 Essex Chambers, https://www.39essex.com/no-go-lugano-the-eu-formally-withholds-its-consent-to-the-uk-joining-the-lugano-convention-2007/. ↩
3. PILA, Arts. 25 (jurisdiction, finality, no ground for refusal), 26 (indirect jurisdiction) and 27 (grounds for refusal), consolidated text reproduced by lexaris, https://lexaris.de/book/version/documentflat/head/2776778. ↩
4. Global Arbitration Review, The Guide to Challenging and Enforcing Arbitration Awards, 4th edn., chapter “Switzerland”, loc. cit. (entry into force for Switzerland on 30 August 1965; withdrawal of the reciprocity reservation in 1993; Art. 194 PILA). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.