Egypt - Enforcement of Money Judgments

Provided the party holding the foreign judgment can obtain the necessary enforcement order from a competent Egyptian court, the Egyptian government and courts will give full support to its enforcement in a way similar to the support given to Egyptian money judgments.

The principle of reciprocity is all-important to obtaining enforcement in Egypt. Enforcement of a money judgment issued by a United States court may often encounter difficulties with regard to a finding of reciprocity because each of the various states have different enforcement laws. A foreign money judgment will only be enforced in Egypt if the country (or state) in which the judgment was rendered would enforce a similar money judgment rendered by an Egyptian court.

B. Briefly describe recent illustrative attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful, to enforce a foreign money judgment in your country, particularly with regard to enforcement of any judgments from United States courts.

The following two examples illustrate the enforcement of foreign money judgments in Egypt. The two enforcements took place under the Arab League Treaty for Enforcement of Judgments of 1952. In 1981 a judgment was rendered in the United Arab Emirates by the Abu Dhabi Civil Court. The dispute in the UAE court concerned a judgment debtor which was a company with a branch in Egypt, and the judgment creditor sought to enforce the judgment for 1,127,520 Dirhems in Egypt. The Egyptian court granted enforcement of the UAE judgment, and the final enforcement order was obtained by the judgment creditor after a year and a half.

In 1997 a bank in Abu Dhabi sought to enforce in Egypt a money judgment from a court in Abu Dhabi for 68,360,609 Dirhems. The Egyptian court of Appeal granted enforcement. However, the Court of Cassation (Supreme Court) reversed the judgment on the grounds of nullity of service.