11.02.2026
On 11 February 2026, in a judgment handed down by His Honour Judge Baumgartner in the London Circuit Commercial Court, PCB Byrne secured for the purposes of enforcement in England the recognition of judgments of the courts of the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) worth more than RMB 240 million (equivalent to about £25million).
We understand this to be only the second reported case of the recognition of PRC judgments for enforcement in England.
PCB Byrne acted for four PRC citizens and a company in securing the recognition of five PRC judgments against a husband and wife who have moved to and currently reside in England (“the Defendants”). The PRC judgments arose from the Defendants' breach of loan and guarantee agreements entered into with our clients (“the Claimants”).
The recognition for enforcement was based on the treatment of the PRC judgments as a common law debt claim, and the well-established legal criteria that they are (a) final and conclusive, (b) for a fixed sum of money, and (c) granted by a court regarded by English law as having jurisdiction.
The main issue in dispute between the parties to be determined by the English Court was of whether the relevant PRC Court granting the judgments was to be regarded by English law as having jurisdiction. For two of the five judgments, HHJ Baumgartner was satisfied that the PRC Court had jurisdiction because of a term within the relevant underlying loan or guarantee agreement whereby the parties had previously agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of the relevant PRC Court.
However, there was a second issue relevant to all five judgments of whether jurisdiction of the PRC Court was established because of the Defendants’ physical presence or residence in the PRC at the time of the commencement of the proceedings. The Defendants argued that they had relocated to Cyprus before the proceedings began. HHJ Baumgartner rejected this, finding strong evidence to suggest that the Defendants remained resident and had a physical presence in the PRC at the time of the commencement of the proceedings.
In reaching that conclusion, and helpfully for future determinations of whether the PRC Court is to be regarded as having jurisdiction under English law, HHJ Baumgartner placed considerable reliance on the Defendants remaining registered as habitual residents on the statutory Hukou register and PRC law requiring individuals to cancel their registration if they move to settle outside the PRC. He therefore considered that the PRC Court had jurisdiction to determine and grant the judgment on all five claims.
Nick Ractliff, Harley Freemantle and Nana Adu of PCB Byrne LLP acted for the Claimants, with Hugh Miall of XXIV Old Buildings instructed as counsel.
The judgment in the matter of Qing Li & Ors v Fan Yuan & Anor [2026] EWHC 242 (Comm) can be found here.
This follows the first reported case of the English Court recognising PRC judgments for enforcement in England at the end of 2022 in the matter of Hangzhou Jiudang Asset Management Co. Limited and Another v Kei Kin Hung (see [2022] EWHC 3265 (Comm)), in which PCB Byrne also acted for the judgment creditors. In this case, as well as recognising the PRC judgments for enforcement in England, the English Court also permitted the judgment creditors the right to enforce the claim for default interest on the judgment debt pursuant to Article 253 of the Civil Procedure Law of the PRC.
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