Consultation outcome

Annex B: Exclusions from scope

Updated 23 November 2023

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/hague-convention-of-2-july-2019-on-the-recognition-and-enforcement-of-foreign-judgments-in-civil-or-commercial-matters-hague-2019/annex-b-exclusions-from-scope

Hague-19 does not apply to the following civil and commercial judgments as per Article 2 of the Convention:

  • The status and legal capacity of natural persons;
  • Maintenance obligations;
  • Other family law matters, including matrimonial property regimes and other rights or obligations arising out of marriage or similar relationships;
  • Wills and succession;
  • Insolvency, composition, resolution of financial institutions, and analogous matters;
  • The carriage of passengers and goods;
  • Transboundary marine pollution, marine pollution in areas beyond national jurisdiction, ship-source marine pollution, limitation of liability for maritime claims, and general average;
  • Liability for nuclear damage;
  • The validity, nullity, or dissolution of legal persons or associations of natural or legal persons, and the validity of decisions of their organs;
  • The validity of entries in public registers;
  • Defamation;
  • Privacy;
  • Intellectual property;
  • Activities of armed forces, including the activities of their personnel in the exercise of their official duties;
  • Law enforcement activities, including the activities of law enforcement personnel in the exercise of their official duties;
  • Anti-trust (competition) matters, except where the judgment is based on conduct that constitutes an anti-competitive agreement or concerted practice among actual or potential competitors to fix prices, make rigged bids, establish output restrictions or quotas, or divide markets by allocating customers, suppliers, territories or lines of commerce, and where such conduct and its effect both occurred in the State of origin;
  • Sovereign debt restructuring through unilateral State measures.
  • This Convention shall not apply to arbitration and related proceedings.
  • Privileges and immunities of States or of international organisations, in respect of themselves and of their property.
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