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Charlotte Hill & Harriet Campbell examine the Supreme Court’s decision in Drelle: what does it mean for creditors seeking to turn unrecognised foreign judgments into insolvency action?
- The Supreme Court has confirmed that an unrecognised foreign judgment can constitute a qualifying debt for an English bankruptcy petition, without the creditor first having to pursue separate recognition or enforcement proceedings.
- The decision strengthens the hand of foreign judgment creditors in cross-border debt recovery, while increasing insolvency risks for debtors with assets or other connections to England and Wales.
The Supreme Court has held that an unrecognised and unregistrable foreign judgment can nevertheless constitute a qualifying debt for the purposes of presenting a bankruptcy petition under s 267 of the Insolvency Act 1986, in Drelle v Servis-Terminal LLC (in liquidation in the Russian Federation) [2026] UKSC 29.
In overturning the Court of Appeal’s earlier ruling, the court has removed a significant hurdle for creditors seeking to recover debts arising from foreign judgments in England and Wales. A creditor
