Why there is no counter at the Law Courts — and what actually works
George Lee | 李广田律师
Every few months someone brings me a judgment from a Chinese court. It is usually handsome: a red seal, bound pages, a case number like (2023) 鲁03民终1258号. The debtor has since moved to Vancouver. There is a house in Richmond or Coquitlam, sometimes two. And the question is always the same, always asked with a certain confidence: which counter at the Law Courts do I take this to?
For a judgment from mainland China, there is no such counter.
That judgment is not directly enforceable here on the day it arrives. It is not an order of our court, and it cannot be registered under British Columbia’s reciprocal-enforcement scheme. Until a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia recognizes it, it is a document with real evidentiary weight and no teeth.
That is not a reason to give up. Chinese judgments have been enforced in this province, including against millions of dollars of Lower Mainland real estate. But the creditors who succeed are the ones who understood, at the beginning, that they were starting a new lawsuit in Canada — not finishing an old one in China.
Where people go wrong
“It can simply be registered.” Part 2 of the Court Order Enforcement Act does allow certain foreign judgments to be registered rather than sued upon. That regime reaches only reciprocating states named by regulation — Canadian provinces other than Quebec, the Australian states, certain American states, Germany, Austria. The People’s Republic of China is not among them.
“There is no rush.” This may be the costliest of the four. Section 7(b) of the Limitation Act bars a proceeding on an extraprovincial money judgment after the earlier of two dates: expiry of the time for enforcement where the judgment was made, and ten years after it became enforceable there. Chinese law generally allows two years to apply for enforcement, subject to rules on suspension and interruption — and what a Chinese enforcement step does to the BC clock is a question for expert evidence, not assumption. Check the Chinese enforcement record before you check the land title.
“Send a demand letter first.” A polite letter to a debtor who has already left one jurisdiction is an early-warning system. Houses get transferred to relatives; accounts get emptied. If the assets can move, secure them before the debtor knows you are here.
“Translate it and file it.” A certified translation is necessary and nowhere near sufficient. A BC judge has no independent way of knowing whether your judgment is final under Chinese law, what a 再审 petition does to it, or what happens when a procuratorate lodges a protest. If you do not explain that through a qualified expert, the judge will not guess in your favour.
What the law actually requires
The usual route is a fresh action in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The creditor pleads the Chinese judgment as a debt, and the underlying obligation in the alternative where that is available. Summary trial under Rule 9-7 is efficient where the necessary facts can fairly be decided on the record — which is not every case.
Our court is not sitting on appeal from the Chinese court. It will not retry the loan, the guarantee, or the distribution agreement. Since Beals v. Saldanha, the enforcing court asks a narrow set of questions:
- Did the Chinese court have jurisdiction by our standards — a real and substantial connection, or attornment by the defendant?
- Is the judgment final and conclusive where it was made?
- Is it for a definite sum, and not penal, revenue, or otherwise a public law claim?
If those are met, the defendant may still resist on the established defences of fraud, denial of natural justice, and public policy. They are narrow, but they are real, and in British Columbia it is ordinarily proof of notice and a genuine opportunity to be heard that decides the case. Non-money orders are a separate conversation: since Pro Swing Inc. v. Elta Golf Inc., equitable relief can in principle be enforced here, but only if it is precise enough for our court to supervise.
What the cases teach — including the ones that lost
Wei v. Mei remains the reference point. A Tangshan coal trader lent money to a company whose shareholders, a husband and wife, guaranteed the loans and later lived in British Columbia. The Chinese proceeding ended in a 民事调解书 — a civil settlement statement — which our court treated as enforceable. The creditor first froze roughly $20.5 million in BC assets by Mareva injunction, and only then moved to enforce. The debtors had participated at every stage in China, including filing a retrial petition, so jurisdiction was not seriously arguable. On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld enforcement but trimmed the penalty interest from roughly 73 percent to 60 percent, applying notional severance to keep the award inside the then-applicable criminal rate under section 347 of the Criminal Code; leave to appeal was dismissed.
The criminal interest rules have since changed. From January 1, 2025, the general criminal rate is an annual percentage rate (APR) exceeding 35%, replacing the former 60% effective annual rate (EAR). Specific commercial-loan exemptions apply where the borrower is not a natural person and the borrowing is for a business or commercial purpose: for credit exceeding CA$10,000 and not exceeding CA$500,000, the exemption requires an APR no greater than 48%; credit exceeding CA$500,000 is exempt from section 347. That is an exemption from this criminal provision, not from every law governing interest. Check the agreement date, applicable transitional provisions and each exemption condition before applying the current rules to an older debt. Do not simply reuse the 60% figure from Wei.
The finality cases are cautionary. In Xu v. Yang, the court refused summary judgment because the record — including the absence of expert evidence on Chinese law — did not establish that the decision was final and conclusive. In Yang v. Kong, the court adjourned the application because the evidence did not adequately explain the effect of retrial proceedings and a procuratorate protest. These are evidentiary failures, and they are avoidable.
Family files behave differently. In Cao v. Chen, the court recognized the Chinese divorce and the spousal support order, and declined to recognize the custody and child support provisions. That split is the point: a Chinese family judgment is not recognized or refused as a single object, and children’s issues are governed by our own statutory framework rather than by comity.
Then there is the case every creditor should read before instructing counsel. In the Lonking litigation, two members of a large Chinese group sought to enforce more than $7 million in default judgments from the Intermediate People’s Court of Longyan City against two retired individuals in British Columbia. An early attempt at summary trial failed because fraud and natural justice could not be decided on a paper record. At trial the action was dismissed, the court unpersuaded on credibility and on whether the defendants ever had actual notice of the Chinese claims. Costs followed: ordinary costs to the defendants, then double costs from the date of a settlement offer the plaintiffs had refused years earlier. A Chinese judgment is not a collection exercise with a foreign flavour. It is litigation, and either side can lose it.
A practical checklist
- Check the clock first. Obtain the Chinese enforcement file and confirm what remains of the enforcement period there; section 7(b) imports that deadline.
- Find the assets quietly — land title, corporate and company searches before any correspondence.
- Secure before you serve. Where assets can be dissipated, a Mareva or preservation order at the outset is what makes the eventual judgment worth having. A certificate of pending litigation is ordinarily unavailable on a pure money claim.
- Build the record deliberately: authenticated judgment, certificate of effectiveness, enforcement notice, certified translation, and an affidavit from a qualified PRC law expert on finality, appeal rights, retrial and protest. Assume the judge knows nothing about Chinese procedure.
- Prove notice, not merely service. The Canadian question is whether the defendant had adequate notice and a real opportunity to be heard. Address service under the Hague Service Convention head-on if the defendant was in Canada when the Chinese action began.
- Audit the interest before you plead it. If the Chinese rate exceeds the criminal rate, plead notional severance rather than inviting the defendant to raise it first.
- Choose the procedure honestly, and make a formal offer under Rule 9-1 early. Where the case turns on credibility, expect a full trial — and price the costs risk accordingly.
Confirm what you are actually holding. A CIETAC or other arbitral award travels a different and far friendlier road under the New York Convention and the Foreign Arbitral Awards Act. A Chinese divorce or support order runs through section 22 of the Divorce Act and the Family Law Act, not through Beals.
If you are holding a Chinese judgment
Your judgment is portable, but it is not self-executing, and the window is shorter than it looks. The creditors who recover here move early, secure the assets first, and put a proper expert record in front of the judge. The ones who arrive with a sealed judgment, a translation, and an expectation of a rubber stamp tend to leave with a costs order.
Our office acts on cross-border enforcement in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, and reads both the Chinese file and the BC one. If there are assets in the Lower Mainland, the first conversation should be about timing.
George Lee Law Corporation | 李广田律师事务所 · gleelaw.com · 604-681-1611 · info@gleelaw.com
This article is general information about British Columbia law and is not legal advice. It does not create a solicitor-client relationship. Case law described here may be under appeal or subject to later decisions, and legislation may have changed since publication. Anyone facing a limitation deadline or an enforcement question should obtain advice on their own facts without delay.