California Court of Appeal

In this case, defendant appeared in and defended a shareholders' derivative action brought against him in Korea for securities fraud during his term as CEO of plaintiff Hyundai. The Korean court entered judgment against defendant and in favor of plaintiff for approximately $24M, plus prejudgment and postjudgment interest. Plaintiff then filed an action in California pursuant to California's Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act (MJRA) seeking recognition of the unpaid portion of the Korean judgment plus prejudgment and postjudgment interest. Summary judgment in favor of plaintiff is: 1) affirmed as to the trial court's decision to recognize the foreign judgment, where under the MJRA, a trial court may recognize a foreign judgment for indemnification of a criminal penalty paid by plaintiff to an agency of the foreign government; but 2) reversed as to the imposition of a 20 percent post judgment rate of interest, where the trial court, in recognizing a foreign judgment, may not impose a post judgment interest on the California judgment at a rate greater than 10 percent as provided by California law.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/13/2015
• Published 01/13/2015

Judges

• Mosk

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel