Recognition and Enforcement of a Decision of a foreign court, ICA in Belarus

Despite the bans and sanctions imposed, both foreign and Belarusian business entities continue to conclude civil law contracts. The international nature of the relationship imposes a double responsibility on the parties and forces them to carefully consider the choice of law applicable to their relations. The choice of applicable law in the future will affect the "rules of the game" under which the parties will act when a dispute arises. However, the basic principle remains unchanged: the decision of the foreign court must be enforced at the location of the debtor.

Thus, in a situation where the bad faith party is a resident of the Republic of Belarus, or his property is located on the territory of the Republic - the decision of the Polish court is subject to recognition by the Belarusian state economic court.

In order to recognise a foreign award, the foreign company has to prepare a statement (petition) of the recoverer and submit it to the competent court (the economic court at the debtor's registered office). Pursuant to Article 246 of the Code of Economic Procedure of the Republic of Belarus (hereinafter CCP), the following information shall be specified in the application:

• the name of the court to which the application is made;
• name and place of residence of the foreign court that issued the award or, in the case of a foreign arbitration, its composition;
• name and place of residence of the claimant and the debtor;
• information on the award that the recoverer requests to be recognised and enforced;
• request for recognition and enforcement of the award;
• list of attachments;
• signature of the recoverer.

The following documents must be enclosed with the application:

• The decision or a copy of it.
• A document stating that the decision has come into force or that it is enforceable.
• Arbitration agreement or a certified copy thereof
• Document certifying that the debtor has been duly notified in a timely manner of the proceedings in the foreign court.
• Power of attorney or other document certifying the authority of the person signing the application.
• Document confirming that a copy of the application has been sent to the debtor.

After preparing the application and its annexes, the claimant needs to have the entire package of documents translated into Russian or Belarusian languages.

Documents may be translated either in your country or in the Republic of Belarus. Here is a link to a list of notary translators in Belarus. Furthermore, all foreign documents must be properly legalised or apostilled before being translated.

The legal entity then appeals to a competent economic court with the whole package of documents to enforce the decision of the foreign court. The court does not consider the merits of the civil law dispute, it only determines the accordance/non-compliance of the decision with Belarusian legislation. After submitting the documents, it is necessary to pay a state duty of 10 basic units of Republic of Belarus (currently EUR 70.00).

The court hearings will last about 1 month. A positive result of the proceedings will be a decision to satisfy claims and to issue an court order, while a negative result will be a refusal to satisfy the claims.

The final stage in the long process of legalizing of a foreign court decision in Belarus is the submission of documents to the enforcing authority.

Thus, the exequatur procedure is one of the most complicated procedures in the Republic of Belarus. But the main difficulties arise at the stage of preparation of the package of documents, so choosing a competent lawyer at the initial stages will greatly influence the final decision on your issue. Our lawyers have an excellent command of the full range of necessary skills, including practical experience of many years working as judges in state courts. And our knowledge of Europe's foreign languages allows us to communicate with foreign customers without an interpreter.