13 Mar 2017
Malaysia’s most senior judge, the Right Honourable Tun Arifin bin Zakaria was in Dubai to sign an agreement setting out the procedures for the mutual recognition and enforcement of money judgments between the DIFC Courts and Federal Court of Malaysia.
As Michael Hwang, Chief Justice of the DIFC Courts explained at the signing ceremony: “Memorandum of Agreements (MoGs) are a unique feature of judicial cooperation, without parallel in contemporary court practice. The MoGs that we sign do not involve promises between courts, so in that sense they differ from Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs). MoGs let both courts make a non-binding declaration, purely for the benefit of the international business community, as to what will happen when a money judgement, from one territory, arrives in the courts of another territory, and how that will be enforced and the procedure for doing so.”
This agreement helps to underpin the UAE’s business links with Asia and builds on the formal relationships the DIFC Courts have in place with many of the UAE’s main trading partners, including the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, China, Singapore and South Korea, to name just a few.
On March 7th as the DIFC Courts welcomed a new member to its judicial bench. A leading Singaporean judge of appeal, Justice Prakash adds further global experience to a bench that already includes justices from the UAE, UK, Malaysia and Australia.
Justice Prakash will serve on a part-time basis to hear appeals cases, while continuing her role as a siting Judge of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Singapore. She brings over two decades of experience as a judge and was the first woman to be appointed as Judge of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Singapore.
Justice Prakash’s expertise in complex commercial cases, arbitration, company, and trust law, as well as her global perspective, will give international and local corporations even more assurance when they choose the DIFC Courts’ jurisdiction.
With a key international MoG agreement signed, and a top global judicial talent added to the bench, it was a particularly connected 48 hours at the DIFC Courts.
