Great Britain formally left the European Union on Jan. 31. While the impacts will be far reaching, one change will be the enforcement of court judgments between the U.K. and the rest of the EU. For a judgment in an EU member state to be enforced in the U.K., parties will likely have to follow the same procedures currently used for the enforcement of U.S. judgments in the U.K. By way of example, this article will discuss enforcing the guarantee of a U.K. parent company that secures a New York lease.
Often, when dealing with U.K. enterprises, New York landlords are forced to accept guarantees from U.K. parent companies with limited assets in the United States. More often than not, these foreign guarantors refuse to submit by agreement to New York jurisdiction.