Summary
The dispute involved a company, Tritan Enterprise, that was incorporated in the Marshall Islands. Money was lent by Tritan to D’Hoker’s husband.
Tritan filed a request for registration of a provisional order rendered by the Athens Court of First Instance. The provisional order restrained Trisha D’Hoker from dealing with assets up to the value of €1,977,958.00.
The foreign judgment was registered in England by an order of Master Eyre made on 2nd March 2009.
This was an appeal against the Master’s order. The High Court allowed the appeal. Mr Justice Jack held:
“12 I intend here to take a pragmatic approach to the problem and to use Article 34(1) of the Regulation to rule that the present order should not be recognised because it would be contrary to public policy to do so, because it is no longer in force, or is no longer in force in the form in which it is registered.
[…]
20 When the First Instance Court of Athens made its order on 14th October 2008, it did not know that the appellant, Trisha D'Hoker, was resident in England and had no assets in Greece. It is unclear to me whether the Athens court then considered whether or not an order intended to have worldwide effect was appropriate or whether an order limited to Greece was appropriate. As I have said, if Tritan wish to institute substantive proceedings against the appellant in Greece, the English court has jurisdiction to grant a freezing order to support those proceedings. How that jurisdiction would be exercised is not of course something which I can now say. However, the present position where the appellant's finances in England are, in effect, subject to the control of the Greek court through registration of the Greek order here, has complications and difficulties and considerable expense, as these proceedings demonstrate. It is, in my respectful view, unsatisfactory. That is particularly so by reason of the appellant's involvement in complex proceedings in the Family Division of the London High Court, which have to be paid for. I would simply ask that my judicial colleagues in Athens should consider whether the position might not be better arranged if the order of the Athens court was limited in its effect to Greece, leaving it to the English court to determine what order was appropriate here.” [12 and 20].