SB 642

This bill incorporates into Wisconsin law the 2005 Uniform Foreign-Country

Money Judgments Recognition Act adopted by the Uniform Law Commission. The

bill requires the courts of this state to recognize a judgment of a court outside the

United States that grants or denies the recovery of a sum of money. Under the bill,

to receive recognition by this state's courts, the foreign country's judgment must be

final, conclusive, and enforceable. The bill excludes foreign-country money

judgments that are for taxes, for forfeitures or fines, or for support, maintenance, or

a property division in connection with a domestic relations case.

Under the bill, this state's circuit courts are prohibited from recognizing a

foreign-country money judgment that was rendered by a judicial system that does

not provide procedures compatible with the due process of law or that did not have

jurisdiction over the subject matter. In addition, a circuit court may not recognize

a foreign-country money judgment if the foreign court did not have personal

jurisdiction over the defendant, but for purposes of the bill, personal jurisdiction

exists if any one of a number of criteria are met, including that the defendant was

personally served with process in the foreign country, the defendant voluntarily

appeared in the foreign court, the defendant had agreed to submit to the jurisdiction

of the foreign court, the defendant was domiciled in the country where the foreign

judgment was rendered, or the defendant was a business that was organized under

the laws of, or had its principal place of business in, that foreign country.

The bill allows the circuit courts to refuse to recognize a foreign-country money

judgment for a number of reasons, including if the defendant did not receive

sufficient timely notice of the proceedings, if the judgment was obtained by fraud, if

the claim for relief that resulted in the judgment is repugnant to the public policy of

this state, if the judgment conflicts with another final and conclusive judgment, or

if the circumstances of the rendering of the judgment raise substantial doubt about

the integrity of the foreign court that rendered the judgment.

The bill requires the circuit court, if it determines that the foreign-country

money judgment deserves recognition, to give the judgment full faith and credit in

this state, and to enforce that judgment in the same manner as a judgment rendered

by a court in this state.