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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

Nos. 13-CV-660 and 13-CV-1415

AHMAD HAMAD AL GOSAIBI & BROTHERS COMPANY, et al., APPELLANTS,

V. 

STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, APPELLEE.

Appeals from the Superior Court

of the District of Columbia

(CAF-1602-13)

(Hon. Anthony C. Epstein, Trial Judge)

(Argued April 10, 2014 Decided September 4, 2014)

Mark J. Leimkuhler, with whom Eric L. Lewis and A. Katherine Toomey

were on the brief, for appellants.

Christopher T. Handman, with whom Edward C. Dolan, Khang V. Tran, 

and Marc J. Gottridge were on the brief, for appellee.

Before FISHER and EASTERLY, Associate Judges, and REID, Senior Judge.

FISHER, Associate Judge: The Constitution of the United States and 

28 U.S.C. § 1738 (2012) require states of the Union to give full faith and credit to 

judgments rendered by other states. By contrast, judgments rendered in foreign 

countries are not entitled to full faith and credit, but they may be recognized by 

individual states as a matter of comity. The question presented in this case, an 
2

issue of first impression for us, is whether a New York judgment that simply

recognized a judgment issued in Bahrain is entitled to full faith and credit in the 

District of Columbia. We hold that it is not. 

I. Background

A. The Legal Context

Recognition of domestic judgments is governed by Article IV, Section 1, of 

the United States Constitution, which provides: “Full Faith and Credit shall be 

given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every 

other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in 

which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect 

thereof.” Exercising its power pursuant to this clause, Congress enacted 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1738, which states that the acts, records, and judicial proceedings “of any State, 

Territory, or Possession of the United States . . . shall have the same full faith and 
3

credit in every court within the United States . . . as they have by law or usage in 

the courts . . . from which they are taken.”1

Applying these provisions, the Supreme Court long ago recognized that, as a 

general matter, “the judgments of each State [have] the same conclusive effect . . . 

in all the States, as they ha[ve] at home.” Thompson v. Whitman, 85 U.S. 457, 462 

(1873). Put differently, “[a] final judgment in one State, if rendered by a court 

with adjudicatory authority over the subject matter and persons governed by the 

judgment, qualifies for recognition throughout the land.” Baker ex rel. Thomas v. 

Gen. Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 233 (1998). “This rule, if not compelled by the 

Full Faith and Credit Clause itself, . . . is surely required by 28 U.S.C. § 1738 . . . .” 

Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co., 448 U.S. 261, 270 (1980) (plurality 

opinion).

2

 

 

1

 The first Congress adopted the original version of this statute in 1790. See 

Law of May 26, 1790, ch. 11, 1 Stat. 122. The statute, as it pertains to this case, is 

substantively the same today as it was then. 28 U.S.C. § 1738 (2012). 

2

 Some scholars have suggested that the framers of the Constitution did not 

intend for the Full Faith and Credit Clause to be self-executing. See David E. 

Engdahl, The Classic Rule of Faith and Credit, 118 Yale L.J. 1584, 1588 (2009) 

(arguing that the first sentence of the clause was meant to state only “a 

constitutional principle of evidence, while the . . . federal statute dating from 

1790 . . . constitutes a congressional prescription of sister-state effect”); see also 

Ralph U. Whitten, The Original Understanding of the Full Faith and Credit 

Clause and the Defense of Marriage Act, 32 Creighton L. Rev. 255, 257 (1998) 

(continued...)
4

Importantly, however, “recognition of judicial decrees of foreign countries is 

based upon [principles of] comity and not . . . upon full faith and credit under the 

Federal Constitution.” Butler v. Butler, 239 A.2d 616, 618 (D.C. 1968); see Hilton 

v. Guyot, 159 U.S. 113, 227 (1895) (concluding “that judgments rendered in 

France, or in any other foreign country, . . . are not entitled to full credit and 

conclusive effect when sued upon in this country”). “Comity, in the legal sense, is

[not] a matter of absolute obligation . . . . [I]t is the recognition which one nation 

allows within its territory to the legislative, executive or judicial acts of another 

nation . . . .” Hilton, 159 U.S. at 163-64. “[I]n the absence of a federal statute or 

treaty . . . , recognition and enforcement of foreign country judgments is a matter 

of State law.” Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law § 481 cmt. a (1987) 

(citing Erie v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938)). 

 

(...continued)

(concluding “that the first sentence of the Clause was originally understood as a 

narrow evidentiary command”). This point need not concern us, since our 

obligation to recognize domestic judgments has been characterized by the Supreme 

Court as a constitutional command. See, e.g., Baker, 522 U.S. at 232 (quoting 

Estin v. Estin, 334 U.S. 541, 546 (1948)) (“[T]he Full Faith and Credit Clause 

„substituted a command for the earlier principles of comity and thus basically 

altered the status of the States as independent sovereigns.‟”). 
5

As a matter of “state” law, the District of Columbia has adopted two 

separate statutory schemes to govern the recognition of domestic judgments and 

foreign country judgments. The Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act 

(“UEFJA”) provides for the streamlined registration of “any judgment . . . that is 

entitled to full faith and credit.” D.C. Code §§ 15-351 to -357 (2012 Repl.). The 

Act makes the District‟s recognition of such judgments essentially automatic, as 

they may be registered “in the Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court” without 

the involvement of a judge and without prior notice to other interested parties. 

D.C. Code §§ 15-352 to -353 (2012 Repl.). Once filed with the Clerk, that 

judgment “shall have the same effect and be subject to the same procedures, 

defenses, or proceedings for reopening, vacating, or staying as a judgment of the 

Superior Court and may be enforced or satisfied in the same manner.” D.C. Code 

§ 15-352 (2012 Repl.).

The UEFJA does not apply to judgments rendered in a foreign country, 

which “are not entitled to full credit and conclusive effect when sued upon in this 

country.” Hilton, 159 U.S. at 227. See, e.g., Van Kooten Holding B.V. v. Dumarco 

Corp., 670 F. Supp. 227, 228 (N.D. Ill. 1987) (holding “that the judgments of 

foreign countries can not be registered for enforcement under” the UEFJA); 
6

Multibanco Comermex, S.A. v. Gonzales H., 630 P.2d 1053, 1053 (Ariz. Ct. App. 

1981) (same). 

In contrast to the UEFJA, the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments 

Recognition Act (“UFCMJRA”) requires a litigant seeking recognition of a foreign 

country judgment to raise the issue in a new or pending action before the Superior 

Court. See D.C. Code §§ 15-361 to -371 (2012 Repl.). A judge then substantively 

reviews the foreign country judgment. See D.C. Code § 15-364 (2012 Repl.). 

Under the UFCMJRA, “[a] court of the District of Columbia may not recognize a 

foreign-country judgment if” it was rendered under any one of three enumerated 

circumstances. D.C. Code § 15-364 (b) (2012 Repl.). Additionally, the statute 

enumerates eight conditions under which “the District of Columbia need not 

recognize a foreign-country judgment.” D.C. Code § 15-364 (c) (2012 Repl.). 

The UEFJA and the UFCMJRA were both modeled on uniform acts, and 

many of the states have adopted similar statutes. However, there are significant

differences between the District‟s provisions and their analogues in some states. 

The example most pertinent to this case is the New York statute governing 

recognition of foreign country judgments. N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 5304 (2012). That

statute provides New York courts with fewer grounds to withhold recognition of a 
7

foreign country judgment than are available to courts in the District of Columbia. 

Compare id. with D.C. Code § 15-364 (2012 Repl.). With this context in mind, we 

now turn to the facts of this case. 

B. The Factual and Procedural Background

Appellants—Ahmad Hamad Al Gosaibi and Brothers Company and 

nineteen of its individual partners (collectively “AHAB”)—are debtors on a

foreign country money judgment for $25 million plus interest and certain costs. 

That judgment, which is owed to appellee Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”), was 

entered by a tribunal in the Kingdom of Bahrain.3 The underlying dispute involved 

a foreign exchange transaction.

 

3

 The tribunal that entered judgment was the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute 

Resolution, which SCB describes as “a court” and which AHAB characterizes as 

“a center for binding alternative dispute resolution.” The record contains little 

information regarding the precise nature of the tribunal or the process it affords 

litigants, points which are not relevant to this appeal. Nevertheless, it appears that 

the tribunal was established under the laws of Bahrain “to create procedures for 

adjudicating significant commercial disputes.” Standard Chartered Bank v. 

Ahmad Hamad Al Gosaibi & Bros. Co., 957 N.Y.S.2d 602, 605 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 

2012). In each case it considers, the tribunal “is composed of three members, two 

of whom are judges . . . . The third [member] is a non-judge . . . , usually with 

specialized knowledge in an area relevant to the matter.” Id. Moreover, “much of 

the fact-finding at a proceeding before the Tribunal may be done, as was 

apparently done in this case, by experts appointed by the Tribunal.” Id. at 606. 
8

SCB sought recognition of the Bahraini judgment in New York state court

pursuant to New York‟s version of the Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments 

Recognition Act, which is a predecessor to the UFCMJRA. See N.Y. C.P.L.R. 

§§ 5301-5309 (2012). In December 2012 the New York trial court issued a 

decision recognizing the Bahraini judgment; the next month, it entered a judgment 

to that effect. See Standard Chartered Bank v. Ahmad Hamad Al Gosaibi & Bros. 

Co., 957 N.Y.S.2d 602, 603, 608 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2012). At that time, the court did 

not address the issue of whether it had personal jurisdiction over AHAB, since “a 

party seeking recognition in New York of a foreign money judgment (whether of a 

sister state or a foreign country) need not establish a basis for the exercise of 

personal jurisdiction over the judgment debtor by the New York courts.” 

Lenchyshyn v. Pelko Elec., Inc., 723 N.Y.S.2d 285, 289 (N.Y. App. Div. 2001). 

AHAB unsuccessfully appealed the New York judgment. See Standard Chartered 

Bank v. Ahmad Hamad Al Gosaibi & Bros. Co., 973 N.Y.S.2d 197 (N.Y. App. Div. 

2013). 

Shortly after the New York trial court entered its judgment, SCB registered

that judgment in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia pursuant to the 

UEFJA. In the document SCB filed to request this registration, it did not alert the 

Superior Court to the fact that the New York judgment was based on a foreign-
9

country judgment, nor did it attach a copy of the Bahraini judgment. However, it

did attach the New York judgment, which states that SCB‟s complaint sought 

“recognition of a foreign country money judgment.” 

Notably, SCB made no attempt in the District of Columbia to seek 

recognition of the Bahraini judgment under the UFCMJRA. Moreover, AHAB did 

not learn of SCB‟s filing in the District until after the Superior Court had already 

registered the New York judgment. At that point, AHAB moved to set aside the 

registration under Superior Court Civil Rule 60 (b). 4 AHAB argued that the 

New York judgment was not entitled to full faith and credit and that SCB had 

impermissibly tried to register a foreign country judgment through the UEFJA. 

The trial court denied the 60 (b) motion, concluding that SCB was “entitled to 

enforce . . . the judgment that it obtained in New York under New York law, even 

if it would not be entitled to enforce the Bahraini award or judgment under the 

District‟s version of the UFCMJRA.” AHAB noted an appeal to this court. 

 

4

 In Threatt v. Winston, we noted that “many jurisdictions implement their 

version of [the UEFJA] by holding that the proper way to attack a foreign 

judgment is by filing in the receiving jurisdiction a motion or independent action 

under Rule 60 (or the local equivalent).” 907 A.2d 780, 788 (D.C. 2006). AHAB 

maintains that a Rule 60 (b) motion was the proper vehicle for its claims in this 

case, and SCB does not contend otherwise. 
10

Subsequently, the New York trial court entered an order granting AHAB‟s 

motion to quash certain subpoenas that SCB had issued in proceedings to enforce 

the New York judgment. The motion to quash gave the court occasion to consider 

whether it had personal jurisdiction over AHAB, and the court ruled that it did not. 

Relying on this ruling, AHAB filed with the D.C. Superior Court a renewed 60 (b) 

motion to vacate registration of the New York judgment. In its motion, AHAB 

argued that full faith and credit is not owed to a judgment entered without 

jurisdiction. AHAB requested “a statement that, if the case is remanded from the 

District of Columbia Court of Appeals, [the Superior Court] will . . . vacate or set 

aside the registration of [SCB‟s] New York Judgment.” 

The Superior Court declined this request and instead issued an indicative 

ruling opining that AHAB had waived its jurisdictional argument by failing to raise

it in the initial Rule 60 (b) motion. The Superior Court also observed that AHAB‟s 

claim, even if it had been timely made, was not clearly supported by any of the 

case law AHAB had cited. Accordingly, the court stated that if it “had jurisdiction 

to do so, it would deny AHAB‟s Rule 60(b) motion to vacate registration of the 

New York judgment.” From this indicative ruling, AHAB noted its second appeal. 

II. Legal Analysis
11

The parties agree that the Bahraini judgment itself is not entitled to full faith 

and credit, but the agreement ends there. On the question of domestic court 

recognition of its foreign country judgment, SCB essentially argues that we must 

allow New York to speak for the entire country. AHAB claims, on the other hand, 

that because the New York judgment did nothing more than recognize the Bahraini 

judgment, SCB should not have been allowed to register it through the UEFJA. 

And because the UEFJA applies solely to “any judgment . . . that is entitled to full 

faith and credit,” D.C. Code § 15-351, the central question before us is whether the 

New York judgment is so entitled. The trial court‟s order denying AHAB‟s 60 (b) 

motion turned completely on this same question. It is a pure question of law, and 

we therefore review the trial court‟s order de novo. See Jones v. Hersh, 845 A.2d 

541, 545 (D.C. 2004) (reviewing de novo a question of law raised in a 60 (b) 

motion).

A. Relevant Precedent

AHAB and SCB recently litigated the same issue presented here before an 

intermediate state appellate court in Pennsylvania. See Standard Chartered Bank 

v. Ahmad Hamad Al Gosaibi & Bros. Co., __ A.3d __, 2014 WL 4088799, at *1 
12

(Pa. Super. Ct. Aug. 20, 2014). SCB had successfully registered the New York 

judgment in Pennsylvania pursuant to Pennsylvania‟s version of the UEFJA, and 

AHAB appealed the trial court‟s denial of its motion to vacate registration of that 

judgment. Id. The Pennsylvania appellate court affirmed, holding that the New 

York judgment is entitled to full faith and credit. Id. That decision, which is not 

binding on this court, does not address the considerations we discuss below and 

that we ultimately conclude are central to the disposition of this case. 

Aside from the recent Pennsylvania decision, we are aware of only two cases 

in the country that have addressed a question similar to the one now before us. 

Those cases appear to reach contrary conclusions, and—like the Pennsylvania 

decision—neither is binding on us. In Jaffe v. Accredited Sur. & Cas. Co., the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia declined to 

recognize a Canadian judgment because a Florida court had already refused to do 

so. 294 F.3d 584, 589-90 (4th Cir. 2002). On appeal, the Fourth Circuit 

acknowledged that “[n]either the full faith and credit statute, nor the Full Faith and 

Credit Clause of the Constitution, applies to judgments issued from foreign 

countries.” Id. at 591. However, the court held that the Florida judgment denying 

recognition was entitled to full faith and credit, and it concluded that the District 

Court was therefore precluded from recognizing the Canadian judgment. Id. at 
13

590-93. In its analysis, the Fourth Circuit considered “whether Congress ha[d] 

created a statutory exception to § 1738” that would allow for relitigation of issues 

decided by the Florida judgment. Id. at 592. The court did not consider the main 

exception to full faith and credit that the Supreme Court has specifically 

recognized, which we discuss below. 

In a second case even more analogous to ours, a Texas appellate court held 

that principles of full faith and credit did not require it to recognize a Louisiana 

judgment that did nothing more than recognize a Canadian judgment. Reading & 

Bates Constr. Co. v. Baker Energy Res. Corp., 976 S.W.2d 702, 712-15 (Tex. App. 

1998). The trial court had declined to recognize the Canadian judgment under the 

Texas version of the UFCMJRA, and the appellate court explained that it would 

“not permit a party to clothe a foreign country judgment in the garment of a sister 

state‟s judgment and thereby evade the . . . [Texas] recognition process.” Id. at 

715. According to the court, the party seeking recognition of the Louisiana 

judgment was trying “to enforce its Canadian judgment through the back door.” 

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

B. The Issue of Jurisdiction
14

None of the three cases noted above addresses an issue that is of critical 

importance here. The Supreme Court has made clear that “the full faith and credit 

clause is not an inexorable and unqualified command.” Pink v. A.A.A. Highway 

Express, Inc., 314 U.S. 201, 210 (1941). Instead,

the structure of our Nation as a union of States, each 

possessing equal sovereign powers, dictates some basic 

limitations on the full-faith-and-credit principles 

enumerated above. Chief among these limitations is the 

caveat, consistently recognized . . . , that a judgment of a 

court in one State is conclusive upon the merits in a court 

in another State only if the court in the first State had 

power to pass on the merits—had jurisdiction, that is, to 

render the judgment. Consequently, before a court is 

bound by the judgment rendered in another State, it may 

inquire into the jurisdictional basis of the foreign court‟s 

decree. If that court did not have jurisdiction over the 

subject matter or the relevant parties, full faith and credit 

need not be given. 

Underwriters Nat’l Assurance Co. v. N.C. Life & Accident & Health Ins. Guar. 

Ass’n, 455 U.S. 691, 704-05 (1982) (quoting Durfee v. Duke, 375 U.S. 106, 110 

(1963)) (footnote, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted); see also 

Thompson, 85 U.S. at 469 (holding, as a matter of first impression, that “the 

jurisdiction of the court by which a judgment is rendered in any State may be 

questioned in a collateral proceeding in another State, notwithstanding the 

provision of the fourth article of the Constitution and the law of 1790”); Nader v. 
15

Serody, 43 A.3d 327, 334 (D.C. 2012) (quoting Underwriters Nat’l Assurance 

Co.); Frank E. Basil, Inc. v. Guardino, 424 A.2d 70, 72, 78 (D.C. 1980) (holding 

that a California judgment was not entitled to full faith and credit because the court 

that rendered it lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendant). 

SCB argues that the jurisdictional exception to full faith and credit cannot 

apply where personal jurisdiction is not a necessary predicate to rendering the 

judgment at issue, as was the case here under New York law. We certainly 

acknowledge that the New York judgment is enforceable in New York. However, 

analyzing the underpinnings of the jurisdictional exception to full faith and credit 

reveals basic principles that will help us determine whether that judgment is 

enforceable in the District of Columbia as well.

Generally, “to subject a defendant to a judgment in personam, if he be not 

present within the territory of the forum, he [must] have certain minimum contacts 

with it such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend „traditional notions of 

fair play and substantial justice.‟” Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, Office of 

Unemployment Comp. & Placement, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945) (quoting Milliken v. 

Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 463 (1940)). In large part, the concept of “fair play and 

substantial justice” is informed by the connection between the forum and the 
16

underlying dispute—in other words, “the forum State‟s interest in adjudicating the 

dispute.” Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 476-78 (1985) (quoting 

World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 292 (1980)). 

These fundamental principles help explain why judgments entered without 

jurisdiction are not entitled to full faith and credit. Such a judgment is necessarily 

rendered by a state with limited (or no) interest in the matter being adjudicated, 

since personal jurisdiction is a function of the state‟s relationship to both the 

parties and to their dispute. These same principles guide us in determining 

whether the New York judgment in this case is entitled to full faith and credit. As 

previously noted, the New York trial court has ruled that it actually lacks personal 

jurisdiction over AHAB. SCB contends that we cannot consider that ruling, since 

AHAB‟s initial 60 (b) motion in Superior Court did not challenge New York‟s 

jurisdiction. Regardless of whether SCB is correct about this waiver argument, the 

jurisdictional issue we confront is systemic in nature rather than merely specific to 

this case. Put simply, our task is to determine whether full faith and credit attaches 

to a class of money judgments that—as a categorical matter—need not be based on 

the rendering court‟s personal jurisdiction over the parties. See Lenchyshyn, 723 

N.Y.S.2d at 289.
17

At its most basic level, the concept of full faith and credit acknowledges that 

each state has a strong interest in having its judgments enforced, and honoring 

those interests “promotes unification” of the country. Johnson v. Muelberger, 340 

U.S. 581, 585 (1951); see also The Federalist No. 42 (James Madison) (Clinton 

Rossiter ed., 1961) (characterizing the clause as a provision “for the harmony and 

proper intercourse among the States”). “The animating purpose of the full faith 

and credit command,” Baker, 522 U.S. at 232, was “to help weld the independent 

states into a nation by giving judgments within the jurisdiction of the rendering 

state the same faith and credit in sister states as they have in the state of the 

original forum.” Johnson, 340 U.S. at 584.

However, when a state does nothing more than recognize a foreign country 

judgment, it lacks the type of interest that drives full faith and credit jurisprudence. 

The instant appeal presents a case in point. At bottom, AHAB and SCB dispute 

whether a Bahraini money judgment is enforceable in the District of Columbia. It 

seems to us that the District‟s interest in this question clearly outweighs whatever 

interest New York may have. Consequently, “harmony and proper intercourse 

among the States” will not be compromised if the District chooses to take a fresh 

look at the Bahraini judgment. In other words, withholding recognition of the New 

York judgment will not frustrate the purposes of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. 
18

Requiring such recognition would, on the other hand, have troubling policy 

implications. AHAB rightly points out that if the New York judgment is entitled to 

full faith and credit, litigants may obtain recognition of foreign country judgments 

in any U.S. jurisdiction and then enforce those judgments throughout the country. 

Such litigants would be free to seek recognition in whichever state offers the most 

lax standards, with no federal requirement that the state of choice be able to 

establish jurisdiction over the parties. 

SCB does not deny that its position, if adopted, would facilitate this type of 

forum shopping. Instead, it invokes the Supreme Court‟s precedent in Williams v. 

North Carolina, characterizing that prospect as “part of the price of our federal 

system.” 317 U.S. 287, 302 (1942). This argument assumes its conclusion, since 

the very question presented here is whether recognition of the type of judgment 

rendered by New York is, in fact, “part of the price of our federal system.” 

Moreover, there is a crucial difference between this case and Williams. In 

Williams, the Supreme Court held that two Nevada divorce decrees were entitled to 

full faith and credit in North Carolina because Nevada‟s jurisdiction to enter those 

decrees was not in question on appeal. Id. at 292-93, 300. In a later case involving 
19

the same parties and arising out of the same set of facts, North Carolina found that 

Nevada had actually lacked jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court therefore 

concluded that the decrees were not entitled to full faith and credit. See Williams v. 

North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 227, 237 (1945). Both Williams I and Williams II 

therefore stand for the unremarkable proposition that a judgment entered without 

jurisdiction is not entitled to full faith and credit.

SCB cites Williams I for another proposition—that full faith and credit 

sometimes results in “one state‟s policy of strict control” being “thwarted by the 

decree of a more lax state.” 317 U.S. at 302. This undoubtedly happens. Still, as 

shown in Williams II, the “lax state” must have jurisdiction to enter judgment in 

the first instance. Consequently, the Williams cases do not satisfactorily answer 

the concern AHAB raises with respect to forum shopping. Here, where a court‟s 

power to recognize a foreign country judgment is unmoored from any 

jurisdictional requirement, one state‟s lax standards could thwart another state‟s 

“policy of strict control” in every instance. 

The problem is not purely hypothetical—it is manifest in the facts of this 

case. SCB obtained recognition of the Bahraini judgment in New York, where 

there are fewer statutory grounds for withholding recognition than are available in 
20

the District of Columbia under the UFCMJRA. We need not determine whether 

the Bahraini judgment is entitled to recognition under the standards set forth in 

District of Columbia law; indeed, such a determination would be premature. 

However, recognition policies particular to the District may be frustrated if full 

faith and credit attaches to the New York judgment, which—as a matter of law—

did not need to be, and in fact was not, predicated on personal jurisdiction. Taken 

to its logical conclusion, SCB‟s argument would favor the application of full faith 

and credit even if (as is possible) a state chose to give automatic recognition to 

foreign country judgments while having no jurisdiction over the judgment-debtors.

C. The Nature of the New York Judgment

Perhaps a simpler route to the same conclusion is to focus on the nature of 

the New York judgment. SCB insists that “a judgment is a judgment is a 

judgment.” But nothing we have found in Supreme Court jurisprudence forbids us 

to look behind the judgment issued by New York and appreciate that it is a 

fundamentally different kind of judgment than those given full faith and credit in 

past cases. Indeed, aside from the recent Pennsylvania decision (which involved

the same parties and the same question now before us), we know of only one other 

case in which a litigant has sought recognition of a state court judgment that itself 
21

merely recognizes a foreign country judgment. In Reading & Bates, a Texas court

did “not permit a party to clothe a foreign country judgment in the garment of a 

sister state‟s judgment and thereby evade the . . . [Texas] recognition process.” 

976 S.W.2d at 715. The dearth of precedent on this subject demonstrates, at the 

very least, that the argument made by SCB is not founded on a well-established 

understanding of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

In this case, New York did not resolve a dispute on the merits by exercising 

authority derived from jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter. Instead, 

it recognized the Bahraini judgment as a matter of comity according to standards it 

had adopted as a matter of state law. Consequently, it is not clear what (if 

anything) New York stands to gain by having its judgment recognized here. The 

District of Columbia, however, may lose the right to decide for itself whether to 

enforce a Bahraini judgment. We would show no disrespect to the courts of New 

York, nor would we defy any constitutional limits on our own authority, were we 

to conclude that the recognition judgment issued by New York may not be 

registered here under the UEFJA.

We acknowledge that, if the type of judgment rendered in New York is not 

entitled to full faith and credit, litigants will need to obtain recognition of foreign 
22

country judgments in each U.S. jurisdiction where they seek to enforce them. We 

likewise acknowledge that international comity may well be served by a policy that 

favors uniform enforcement of foreign country judgments across all of the nation‟s 

jurisdictions. However, we view this policy consideration as a matter to be 

addressed, if at all, by federal statute or international treaty. Regardless of whether 

uniform enforcement of foreign country judgments would serve the national 

interest, it simply is not required by the Constitution‟s Full Faith and Credit 

Clause.

 

In reality, the judgment at issue here is a foreign country judgment. The 

merits of the dispute and the amount of the judgment were resolved in the 

Kingdom of Bahrain. “[I]n the absence of a federal statute or treaty . . ., 

recognition and enforcement of foreign country judgments is a matter of State 

law.” Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law § 481 cmt. a (1987). As a 

matter of District of Columbia law, a foreign country money judgment must be 

presented for recognition under D.C. Code §§ 15-361 to -371 (2012 Repl.), the 

Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act. The constitutional 

command to give full faith and credit does not apply in these circumstances, and it 

therefore does not override the policy decisions embodied in these local statutes.
23

III. Holding and Conclusion

For these independently sufficient reasons—New York‟s lack of a 

jurisdictional requirement for recognition actions and the essential nature of its 

judgment—we hold that the New York recognition judgment is not entitled to full 

faith and credit and therefore does not fit within the scope of the UEFJA. 

Accordingly, we reverse the order denying AHAB‟s initial Rule 60 (b) motion and 

remand this case with instructions to set aside the registration of the New York 

judgment.5 Our holding of course does not preclude SCB from seeking recognition 

of the Bahraini judgment in the District of Columbia pursuant to the UFCMJRA. 

It is so ordered.

 

5

 The Superior Court did not have jurisdiction over the case when it issued 

its indicative ruling, but we need not decide whether we have jurisdiction over 

AHAB‟s second appeal. The only relief AHAB seeks in its second appeal is for 

this court to remand “with directions that the original motion to vacate . . . be 

granted.” Since we have done that in disposing of the first appeal, we need not 

consider the second.