Supreme Court: Domestic Enforcement Possible Even If Foreign Litigation Documents Delivered to Spouse, Not Principal

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The Supreme Court has ruled that there is no legal issue in enforcing a foreign court judgment in South Korea even if the lawsuit documents from the foreign court were delivered to the spouse instead of the person themselves through a 'supplementary service' method.

The Supreme Court Grand Bench (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) on the 23rd upheld the lower court's ruling in favor of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) in the appeal trial of an enforcement judgment claim lawsuit filed against the Korean-New Zealander couple A and B.

The couple A immigrated to New Zealand in 1993 and engaged in real estate business before returning to Korea in 2010. Three years later, ANZ filed a lawsuit at the Auckland High Court in New Zealand, claiming that the couple and their affiliated company failed to fulfill their obligations as debtors and guarantors despite receiving collateral and loans.

At that time, since the couple lived in Seoul, ANZ also applied for overseas service of process. The Seoul Central District Court received the lawsuit documents through diplomatic channels and attempted to serve the couple. However, there was an issue because the couple's addresses were different. The documents could not be delivered to the husband's address in Seocho-gu apartment due to 'recipient not residing,' and at the wife's registered address in Gangnam-gu apartment, the husband received the mail instead of the wife.

The New Zealand court ruled that the couple had been properly served with the lawsuit documents and ordered the couple to pay NZD 8,336,000 (approximately KRW 6.74 billion) in damages, ruling in favor of the plaintiff ANZ.

ANZ requested enforcement of the compensation, and Korean courts have been handling the case since 2014. Wife B argued in court that the method by which the process server delivered the lawsuit documents was not a 'proper service' based on Article 217 of the Civil Procedure Act, which governs the recognition of foreign judgments. This article stipulates that the losing defendant must be served with the complaint and other documents in a proper manner. B claimed that she was registered as residing in Gunsan, Jeonbuk, at the time the lawsuit documents were served to her.

The first and second trials judged that the lawsuit documents were properly served. However, since the Supreme Court had previously held that supplementary service was not a 'normal service' method, the case proceeded to the third trial.

The Supreme Court Grand Bench overturned all previous precedents in this case, ruling that "excluding supplementary service from the proper service methods does not conform to the literal interpretation of Article 217(1)(2) of the Civil Procedure Act, which only excludes 'service by public notice or similar service methods.'"

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.