We’ve blogged about legal translation in the context of enforcing U.S. Judgments in Europe. Professional translation services performed by professional language translators are equally important for enforcing money judgments from foreign countries in the U.S. The Uniform Foreign-Country Money-Judgments Recognition Act (UFCMJRA) is a uniform statute for the recognition and enforcement by a state, of money judgments from foreign countries. For it to be recognized, first, the judgment must either grant or deny recovery of a sum of money. Second, the judgment must be final, conclusive and enforceable under the law of the foreign country. And judgment creditors have the burden of proving these merits.
As the process begins, the burden shifts to judgment debtors to avoid recognition. One of which is by proving a lack of due process regarding the judgment-of-origin in the case at issue. Another could be either the lack of subject matter jurisdiction over the dispute or lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendant.
But far more than the available defense options, there are several structural differences in the concept of law of obligations in the Civil Law that are susceptible of accurate translation in English legal vocabulary (David and Brierly 1985). Furthermore, a legal term may have a legal meaning, an ordinary meaning, a legal synonym, as well as several legal meanings from different branches of law. Cao (2007) cites some terms as having both ordinary and legal meanings, i.e. obligation, equity, offer, consideration, performance, remedy, and assignment. Especially in cases when the amount entails a hefty sum, due diligence should be exercised.
A professional foreign language translation by the online legal translation company can help clients identify the legal meaning and distinguish it from its ordinary meaning. This is important, since many languages and legal systems do not make the same distinctions as English does.