Foreign Judgments in U.S. Courts

American law on foreign judgments is at an inflection point. For over a century, the doctrine has been shaped by concerns about outgoing U.S. judgments seeking asset collection in the civil law countries of continental Europe. But shifting trade flows and changing litigation tactics have carved a new landscape, demanding a return to foreign judgments law’s conceptual and doctrinal underpinnings. This Article first maps the new landscape, in which China is rapidly rising as a foremost foreign judgments interlocutor.

Meanwhile, litigants are increasingly pursuing parallel litigation in multiple countries. The impact of incoming judgments and the interactions between related litigations are more important than ever. Next, this Article presents the most comprehensive study to date of the relationship at the center of the new landscape—that between the United States and China. It shows that there are two types of foreign judgments that existing doctrine fails to adequately distinguish: (1) those in the absence of parallel litigation that seek judicial assistance to collect on a judgment debtor’s U.S.‑based assets and (2) those stemming from parallel litigation that seek judicial yielding to short‑circuit ongoing adjudication in U.S. courts through preclusion.

Each type has distinctive patterns in political economy, comity implications, and sovereignty costs that are not unique to the U.S.-China dyad but reflect inherent differences. Finally, this Article argues that modern foreign judgments law should account for these differences. Asset collection needs to be fully decoupled from international preclusion; references to sister-state judgments and full faith and credit on which current law relies need to be eliminated from the international context; and, ultimately, U.S. law needs a body of preclusion rules tailored to foreign judgments.