Qing Li & Ors v Fan Yuan & Anr [2026] EWHC 242 (Comm)

A claim for the enforcement of a foreign judgment in England at common law must satisfy certain well-established criteria. These include that the foreign judgment be final and conclusive, for a fixed sum of money, and that the court which pronounced it must be regarded by English law as having had jurisdiction to do so.

This jurisdictional requirement is presently understood to have four limbs. They are expressed in Dicey, Morris & Collins rule 47 as follows:

First Case: If the person against whom the judgment was given was, at the time the proceedings were instituted, present in the foreign country. For a natural person this requires physical presence in the territory, and for a legal person it requires a fixed place of business in the territory.

Second Case: If the person against whom the judgment was given was claimant, or counterclaimed, in the proceedings in the foreign court.

Third Case: If the person against whom the judgment was given, submitted to the jurisdiction of that court by voluntarily appearing in the proceedings.

Fourth Case: Subject to Rule 58, if the person against whom the judgment was given, had before the commencement of the proceedings agreed, in respect of the subject matter of the proceedings, to submit to the jurisdiction of that court or of the courts of that country.

In Li & Ors v Yuan & Anr¸ the claimants brought claims for the enforcement of five separate judgments given by the Courts of the PRC with a total value of almost £28.5m.

The defendant sought to defend the claim on various bases, including lack of jurisdiction, lack of actual notice and breach of natural justice, illegality and as being contrary to natural justice. At trial, after cross-examination of the defendants, all those grounds bar jurisdiction were abandoned.

The jurisdictional objections took two forms: (1) The defendants contended that for the PRC Courts to have jurisdiction over them, they needed to have been physically present in the PRC at the time of service of the claims. They contended that they had resettled in Cyprus by that point and also disputed that they remained resident in the PRC at the relevant times. (2) The defendants contended that jurisdiction clauses in the relevant agreements with the first and second claimants, ostensibly in favour of PRC Courts, failed to identify the specific court and were ineffective as a matter of PRC law.

The High Court rejected both objections, finding that the defendants had agreed to the jurisdiction of the relevant PRC Courts in relation to the claims of the first and second claimants, and that in any event the defendants were still resident in the PRC at the time the claims were commenced.

Critically, and of importance to future claims for the enforcement of judgments, the Judge analysed in some detail the legal basis for the first and fourth cases of jurisdiction in the Dicey Rule, above.

In relation to jurisdiction by agreement, the Court accepted the first and second claimants’ arguments that whilst a jurisdiction clause within an agreement will be relevant to this issue, a binding contractual agreement is not necessary; what matters is whether a defendant has consented in advance to the jurisdiction of the foreign court. Whether there is an agreement within a written contract may well turn on issues of construction, to which the foreign law will be relevant. Having considered PRC Law on contractual interpretation and the wording of the jurisdiction clauses, the Court concluded that the PRC court had jurisdiction in each case, including in circumstances where the named District (and therefore District Court) had ceased to exist by reason of its merger with another District. This was a simple error, and the parties had intended to refer to the court which existed in the physical place where the contracts had been signed.

As to territorial jurisdiction, the critical legal issue was whether the English law test required presence or residence in the foreign country. There was also a dispute as to whether the relevant time was commencement of proceedings or date of service.

Having considered the history of the caselaw and the development of the rule in Dicey, the Court accepted the claimants’ argument that, contrary to the apparent wording in Dicey and certain statements in academic commentary, residence remained a good basis to ground jurisdiction for the purposes of enforcement of common law (whilst acknowledging that presence was also sufficient). The relevant date for this purpose was when the action began. The Judge then considered the meaning of ‘residence’ before assessing the factual position based on the evidence before it. Having done so, the Judge rejected the defendants’ factual case that they had left the PRC permanently by August 2016, concluding that at the time the proceedings were issued in the PRC they were still resident there.

Judgment was entered for the claimants on each of their claims.

To read the full judgment please click here.

Hugh Miall was instructed by PCB Byrne LLP for the claimants.