on the basis of a foreign judgment include lack of jurisdiction, breach of natural justice, fraud, and contrary to public policy. However, a separate legal action for debt must be commenced in Hong Kong in order to recover such debt from the judgment debtor. Similarly, the judgment of United States courts may not be directly enforced in Macau.
There are currently no treaties or other arrangements providing for reciprocal enforcement of foreign judgments between Macau and the United States. However, Macau’s civil procedure law permits an action to be brought to the Macau Second Instance Court for the recognition of a judgment obtained in a foreign jurisdiction. That is to say, upon recognition, a foreign judgment itself would be treated by the courts of Macau as a cause of action in itself so that no retrial of the issues would be necessary. In an action for recognition of a foreign judgment in Macau, the recognition is subject to various conditions, including but not limited to, that the foreign judgment is a final judgment conclusive upon the merits of the claim, the judgment is not in respect of taxes, fines, penalties, or similar fiscal or tax revenue obligations, the proceedings in which the judgment was obtained were not contrary to natural justice, the enforcement of the judgment is not contrary to public policy of Macau, and interest charged to the debtor does not breach usury laws. Such a judgment must be for a definite sum and must also come from a “competent” court as determined by the private international law rules applied by the Macau courts. The defenses that are available to a defendant in an action brought for the recognition of a foreign judgment include lack of jurisdiction, breach of natural justice, fraud, inobservance of due process, improper service of process to the defendant, and contrary to public policy. However, a separate legal action for enforcement of the foreign judgment must be commenced in Macau in order to recover a debt from the judgment debtor, in case the debtor does not make voluntary payment of its debt upon recognition of the foreign judgment by the Courts in Macau.
There are currently no treaties providing for reciprocal recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters between Singapore and the United States and a final judgment for the payment of money rendered by any federal or state court in the U.S. based on civil liability, whether or not predicated solely upon the federal securities laws, would, therefore, not be automatically enforceable in Singapore. Therefore, to enforce a judgment of the United States courts, or U.S. Judgment, in Singapore, the judgment creditor would have to commence fresh proceedings at common law. If it satisfies the Singapore law requirements, the U.S. Judgment creates a fresh obligation to pay the judgment debt, different from that being adjudicated before the U.S. courts. As a matter of practice, the judgment creditor would commence a common law action for debt. The Singapore court’s in personam jurisdiction over the judgment debtor must be established in accordance with Singapore’s rules for establishing jurisdiction (including personal service, submission to jurisdiction and, given the right circumstances, service out of jurisdiction). To be enforceable at common law, a U.S. Judgment must be (a) from a court of law of competent and international jurisdiction over the judgment debtor (based on Singapore’s conflict of laws principles), (b) final and conclusive on the merits and (c) for a fixed or ascertainable sum of money. In addition, the U.S. Judgment must not have been (i) procured by fraud, (ii) obtained in breach of natural justice or (iii) inconsistent with a prior local judgment to give effect to the U.S. Judgment. Further, the enforcement of the U.S. Judgment must (I) not be contrary to Singapore’s public policy and (II) not be tantamount to the direct or indirect enforcement of foreign penal, revenue or other public laws.
Furthermore, it is uncertain whether such Cayman Islands, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines or Cyprus courts would be competent to hear original actions brought in the Cayman Islands, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines or Cyprus against us or such persons predicated upon the securities laws of the United States or any state.
We have appointed Cogency Global Inc. as our agent to receive service of process with respect to any action brought against us in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York under the federal securities laws of the United States or of any state in the United States or any action brought against us in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the County of New York under the securities laws of the State of New York.
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