Enforcing Foreign Judgments in Ukraine: Why Brussels I bis Does Not Reach You

Cross-border disputes | JVS Law

Since 10 January 2015 a judgment given in one EU Member State has been enforceable in another without any intermediate court procedure. The exequatur — the ritual by which the enforcing state’s court blessed a foreign judgment before it could touch anything — was abolished outright.

That reform is quoted at Ukrainian creditors more often than any other. It does not reach them. Understanding precisely why is what tells you which route your judgment actually travels.

Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of 12 December 2012 replaced Regulation 44/2001, the instrument everyone still calls Brussels I, which had in turn replaced the 1968 Brussels Convention. It applies to proceedings instituted on or after 10 January 2015; anything opened earlier stays under the old Regulation.

Under the old regime a creditor did two things: obtained a declaration of enforceability from a court in the state of enforcement, then went to the bailiff. The new Regulation removes the first step. A judgment enforceable in its own Member State is enforceable in the others (Article 39), on the same conditions as a domestic judgment (Article 41). Two documents — a copy of the judgment and a certificate confirming enforceability — go straight to the enforcement authority (Article 42).

The debtor is not defenceless. He may apply for refusal of enforcement, and the court may refuse only on the closed list in Article 45: manifest conflict with public policy, a default judgment where the originating document was not served in time or in a manner allowing a defence, irreconcilability with an earlier judgment between the same parties, and a handful of jurisdictional grounds. No review of the merits, in any of them.

What was abolished was not the debtor’s protection. It was the presumption that one sovereign’s court must formally bless another’s before anything can happen.

All of the above governs judgments given in EU Member States. For judgments from third states — states outside the Union — the question is answered by the national procedural law of whichever state is asked to enforce.

Two consequences, and neither is intuitive if you have only read the headlines.

A Ukrainian judgment taken to Germany or Poland is a third-state judgment. Brussels I bis does not carry it; German or Polish procedural law does.

An EU judgment brought to Ukraine is, from Ukraine’s side, simply a foreign judgment. Brussels I bis governs nothing here. Ukrainian law does.

The abolition of exequatur is real, and it is one of the more consequential things the Union has done in civil procedure. It is also a members-only arrangement.

Section IX of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine. Two provisions carry most of the weight.

Article 462 — the gateway. A foreign judgment is recognised and enforced in Ukraine if that is provided for by an international treaty binding on Ukraine, or on the principle of reciprocity. And then the part that is routinely missed: where recognition depends on reciprocity, reciprocity is presumed to exist unless the contrary is proved. The burden sits on the party resisting enforcement, not on the creditor. The absence of a treaty is therefore not the dead end it is often taken for.

Article 464 — the venue. The application for leave to enforce is heard by the court at the debtor’s place of residence or location; if the debtor has neither in Ukraine, by the court where the debtor’s property is. In practice that usually means a local court in the debtor’s own town — not a specialised bench, and this is exactly the bottleneck that the 2017 procedural reform left untouched while it concentrated arbitration cases in the appellate courts.

The treaty route, absent for decades between Ukraine and the Union, now exists.

The 2019 Hague Judgments Convention entered into force for Ukraine and for the European Union on the same day — 1 September 2023. Ukraine ratified on 29 August 2022; the Union acceded on the same date.

It does what its name says: it makes judgments in civil and commercial matters circulate between Contracting States on an agreed list of jurisdictional bases, with a closed list of refusal grounds. Unlike the 2005 Choice of Court Convention, it does not require the parties to have agreed on a court in advance — which is what makes it useful in the cases where nobody thought about dispute resolution when the contract was signed.

For a judgment given after that date, in a matter within the Convention’s scope, a Ukrainian creditor in the EU — and an EU creditor in Ukraine — now argues from a treaty rather than from a presumption.

• Where was the judgment given, and where do you want it enforced? Both inside the EU — Brussels I bis, no exequatur. One of them Ukraine — everything below.
• Is there a treaty? Since 1 September 2023, between Ukraine and the EU, usually yes: the 2019 Hague Convention. Ukraine also has bilateral treaties on legal aid with a number of states — sometimes a shorter route than the Convention, and worth checking case by case.
• If there is no treaty — reciprocity. It is presumed. That changes who has to prove what, and it is the single most useful sentence in Article 462.
• Where does the debtor sit? Article 464 sends the application to that court. The answer determines your timeline more than the merits of the judgment do.

Based on the author’s analysis of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, first published as “Вводная процедура” in Yurydychna Praktyka, issue No. 11 (847), 2014. Rewritten and extended in August 2026 with the Ukrainian enforcement route and the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention; the law is stated as at that date.

The firm’s work on the enforcement side includes the textbook International Civil Procedure and research on the recognition of foreign judgments and arbitral awards — the stage at which a judgment either turns into money or does not.