When a creditor seeks enforcement of a foreign judgment in Korea, the debtor usually wants to reargue the case. Korean law doesn’t allow that. Under the Civil Execution Act, an execution judgment is given “without examining whether the foreign judgment was right or wrong.” The rule isn’t absolute, though. Public policy, fraud, excessive damages, and events after judgment each open a narrow door, and the Supreme Court has drawn clear lines around them.
The Principle: No Second Trial
What the Statute Says
The Korean court decides only whether the judgment qualifies for recognition and enforcement, not whether it was correctly decided. The same principle applies to foreign arbitral awards.
What It Rules Out
A debtor can’t block enforcement by arguing that the foreign court:
- got the facts wrong;
- weighed the evidence differently than a Korean court would;
- misread the contract or misapplied the governing law;
- chose the wrong governing law;
- calculated damages more generously than Korean law would, as long as the damages are genuinely compensatory.
How Far the Courts Take It
In 2015, the Supreme Court enforced in full a US patent judgment of more than $11 million. The US court had attributed almost the entire sales value of the product to the infringed patents. Because the award was compensatory, the Korean court could not substitute its own view of how damages should have been calculated.
What the Korean Court Does Review
The Recognition Requirements Themselves
The court examines jurisdiction, service, public policy, and reciprocity on its own initiative. It can make its own findings on these, including on the facts the foreign court relied on to take jurisdiction. That is a review of whether the judgment qualifies, not of its merits.
Finality and Enforceable Content
In 2017, the Supreme Court held that a foreign order too vague to be enforced even where it was issued can’t be enforced in Korea. A difference in format from Korean judgments, on the other hand, is not a reason to refuse. The same decision treated the attorney’s fee award as a separate claim, so parts of one judgment can succeed or fail independently.
Exception One: Public Policy
The Main Gateway, Narrowly Construed
Courts look at the judgment’s order, its reasoning, and the actual effect recognition would have in Korea, weighed against the case’s connection to Korea. The test is whether that effect would be intolerable to Korea’s fundamental legal order, not whether a Korean court would have decided differently. A foreign court applying a rule that is mandatory in Korea differently is not, by itself, a public policy violation.
Excessive and Punitive Damages
The Supreme Court limits Article 217-2 to damages that go beyond compensation, not generous compensatory awards. In 2022 it enforced US treble damages because Korean law provides comparable remedies. Lower courts have occasionally refused part of an award, for example enforcing the economic loss but declining non-economic damages that lacked any rational basis. After the Supreme Court decisions, refusing part of an award needs damages that are clearly punitive rather than compensatory, not just a large number.
Procedural Public Policy
This covers fundamental failures such as a serious denial of the right to be heard. It does not cover procedures that simply differ from Korean practice.
Exception Two: Fraud, Within Strict Limits
The General Rule
Under the Supreme Court’s leading 2004 decision, an allegation that a judgment was obtained through forged documents or perjury is in principle not a ground for refusal. A full inquiry into the alleged fraud would amount to the retrial the statute forbids.
The Narrow Exception
Recognition can be refused for fraud only when both of these are true:
- the defendant could not have raised the fraud in the foreign proceedings;
- there is a high level of proof of punishable fraud, such as a criminal conviction.
Exception Three: What Happens After the Judgment
Events the Foreign Court Never Considered
Payment or other extinction of the claim after the judgment doesn’t reopen the merits. It goes to whether the judgment can still fairly be enforced. Korean practice generally lets debtors raise these points in the enforcement case.
The 2018 Arbitration Decision
A foreign award had calculated damages from tax assessments that were later substantially reduced. The Supreme Court held that objections arising after the award can be considered in the enforcement case. Where something equivalent to a ground for reopening a judgment has emerged, enforcement can be an abuse of rights or contrary to public policy. The Court refused enforcement of the part of the award that no longer reflected the parties’ actual position. The reasoning also bears on foreign court judgments.
Conflicting Korean Judgments
A foreign judgment that conflicts with an existing Korean judgment between the same parties on the same matter can be refused on public policy grounds.
Practical Implications for Creditors and Debtors
- Creditors: build the case around Article 217, not around defending the merits.
- Creditors: make sure the judgment’s operative terms are specific, and treat separable parts such as attorney’s fees as independently at risk.
- Creditors: check any damages beyond compensation against comparable Korean remedies.
- Debtors: raise merits objections, including fraud, in the foreign proceedings.
- Debtors: focus the Korean defense on jurisdiction, service, and damages that are genuinely punitive.
- Both sides: document anything that happened after the judgment, such as payments, settlements, or changed facts.