Rubin & anor v Eurofinance SA & ors and New Cap Reinsurance Corporation (In Liquidation) & anor v A E Grant & ors as Members of Lloyd's Syndicate 991

The Supreme Court gave judgment in these appeals on 24 October 2012. A key question raised by both appeals was whether, and if so in what circumstances, an order or judgment of a foreign court in proceedings to set aside prior transactions (e.g. avoidance proceedings) will be recognised and enforced in England and Wales. In both appeals the parties against whom the foreign judgments were made were neither present in the foreign country (the USA in Rubin and Australia in New Cap) nor (allegedly) had they submitted to the jurisdiction. Both judgments were in personam and so the question for the Supreme Court was whether to adopt separate rules for judgments in personam in avoidance proceedings, where the judgments were central to the insolvency proceedings or part of the mechanism of collective execution. By a 4:1 majority (Lord Clarke dissenting) the Supreme Court allowed the appeal in Rubin (holding that there should not be special conflict of laws rules regarding the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments for avoidance judgments) but dismissed the appeal in New Cap (finding that the Syndicate had submitted to the Australian Court's jurisdiction).

Pushpinder Saini QC, Adrian Briggs and Shaheed Fatima of Blackstone Chambers were part of the team instructed by an Intervener - Irving H Picard, the Trustee in respected of the consolidated liquidation of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC and Bernard L Madoff.