No treaty on the enforcement of judgments is in force between France and Canada: the convention signed in Ottawa on 10 June 1996 never took effect. A Canadian judgment is therefore enforced in France under the ordinary exequatur rules and their three conditions. What sets Canada apart is its federal structure, Quebec civil law and language: a Quebec judgment written in French is filed without translation.
A Montreal company obtains from the Superior Court of Quebec a judgment ordering a French distributor to pay 1.4 million Canadian dollars for the termination of an exclusive distribution agreement, a decision upheld by the Quebec Court of Appeal. The distributor has no assets in Canada. It does, however, own a warehouse near Paris, hold accounts with two French banks and invoice a portfolio of customers who pay it every month. Its Montreal counsel, who ran the entire trial in French, wants to know what this judgment is worth on the other side of the Atlantic, and whether a mechanism exists between the two countries comparable to what Quebec enjoys with the other provinces.
The answer comes in two parts. As to the regime, Canada is, for France, a country without a treaty, on the same footing as the United States: the judgment goes through the ordinary exequatur procedure and the review defined by the Cour de cassation. In practice, however, a Canadian file resembles no other, because Canada brings together ten provinces, two legal traditions and two official languages, and because a Quebec judgment arrives in Paris in the language of the French judge. This page sets out what the Canadian creditor, or the French debtor, needs to know: the absence of a treaty and its consequences, the Canadian judicial map, the three ordinary conditions as applied to these decisions, the documents and the translation question, the procedure and its timeline, the reverse route towards Quebec and the common law provinces, and the strategy to adopt.
1. A convention signed in 1996 that never entered into force
A reader looking for a treaty basis will eventually come across a text: the Convention between Canada and France on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters and on Mutual Assistance in Maintenance, done at Ottawa on 10 June 1996. The text exists, it was negotiated and signed, and several Canadian provinces even passed implementing statutes reproducing it in a schedule. It nonetheless never entered into force. It was to take effect after an exchange of notifications between the two States, and that exchange never happened: on the Canadian side, implementation fell to the provinces and was never proclaimed; on the French side, no statute authorising its approval was ever adopted. Thirty years after its signature, the 1996 convention remains a dead letter, and relying on it before a French court is a mistake that costs time.
Two other texts create the same illusion. The agreement concluded on 9 September 1977 between France and Quebec organises a programme of judicial cooperation in civil, commercial and administrative matters: transmission of documents, letters rogatory, legal aid, civil status records. Its Title VII does provide for the automatic recognition of certain decisions, but only those concerning the status and capacity of persons, child custody and maintenance obligations; a commercial judgment finds no support there. The France-Canada mutual legal assistance treaty in criminal matters concerns another field altogether. Finally, Canada is a party neither to the Hague Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements nor to the Hague Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, which has applied to British judgments since 1 July 2025. A jurisdiction clause in favour of the courts of Toronto or Montreal therefore opens no treaty regime, unlike what happens for Singapore.
The consequence is clear: in France, a Canadian judgment falls under the ordinary exequatur rules, the ones the Cour de cassation settled in the Cornelissen decision of 20 February 2007 (Cass. 1re civ., 20 February 2007, no. 05-14.082). The French court verifies the indirect jurisdiction of the Canadian court, the conformity of the decision with substantive and procedural international public policy, and the absence of fraud, without reviewing the merits. That regime is described in the article on American and English judgments. What follows sets out what Canada adds to it.
2. One country, ten provinces, two legal traditions
Canada is a federation in which the administration of civil justice belongs to the provinces. Each province has its superior trial court and its court of appeal: the Superior Court of Quebec and the Quebec Court of Appeal, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, and so on. The Federal Court hears a limited range of matters, including intellectual property and maritime law, and the Supreme Court of Canada sits above them all. A creditor coming to France must therefore first identify precisely which court ruled, because the procedure followed, the form of the judgment and the documents available all depend on it.
The most important dividing line separates Quebec from the nine other provinces. Quebec is a civil law jurisdiction: its Civil Code and its Code of Civil Procedure follow the continental model, its judgments are reasoned in the manner of French judgments, with a statement of facts, a discussion of the arguments and an operative part, and proceedings are conducted in French in the vast majority of commercial cases. The other provinces are common law jurisdictions: their judgments take the form of an order accompanied by reasons for judgment, they know the default judgment entered for want of appearance, the summary judgment given without a full trial, and costs orders that shift part of the winner’s legal fees onto the loser. The French judge is familiar with both forms, but they are not proved in the same way.
This duality produces a useful paradox. A judgment of the Superior Court of Quebec is, for a French judge, the most readable foreign decision there is: same language, same architecture, largely the same legal categories, and reasoning that already contains everything needed to show the connection of the dispute with Quebec and the respect of adversarial process. An Ontario judgment requires more work of presentation, but it benefits from the reputation of Canadian common law courts, whose procedural guarantees raise no public policy difficulty.
3. Indirect jurisdiction and procedural public policy
The first ordinary condition is the jurisdiction of the Canadian court, assessed under the Simitch test: the dispute must have a characterised connection with the province whose court ruled, the choice of forum must not be fraudulent, and French jurisdiction must not be exclusive (Cass. 1re civ., 6 February 1985, no. 83-11.241). In Canadian commercial cases, that connection is read in the contract: the seat of the Canadian counterparty, the place of delivery or performance, the currency of payment, a jurisdiction clause in favour of the courts of the province. The Cour de cassation recently applied this framework to a decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, approving the court of appeal for having found a characterised connection of the dispute with Canada (Cass. 1re civ., 14 November 2024, no. 23-50.016); the case concerned the law of persons, but the reasoning is the same in commercial matters.
The second condition, procedural international public policy, focuses on the service of process on the French defendant. Canada is a party to the Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial Documents, and so is France: the originating document addressed to a French company must have travelled through one of the channels it provides, the French central authority, a French judicial officer approached directly, or postal service, which France has not excluded. The creditor must keep proof of that service and of its date, because the French judge checks that the defendant was served in time to defend. An Ontario default judgment obtained after a mere exchange of emails, or a Quebec default judgment entered after service at an outdated address, runs into this requirement.
Reasoning raises no difficulty, whether in Quebec or in the common law provinces, where reasons for judgment are detailed. Consent judgments, frequent in Ontario when the parties settle during the proceedings, are enforced in France like judgments once they have been endorsed by the court. Costs orders are enforceable, subject to the reservation laid down in the Pordea decision of 16 March 1999 where their amount is such that it obstructs access to the court, a rare hypothesis in Canada, where assessment scales remain measured.
4. Substantive public policy: Canadian punitive damages
Canada knows punitive damages, but the two traditions do not practise them in the same way, and the French judge looks at them closely. In the common law provinces, the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld substantial punitive awards, reserving them for conduct marked by bad faith or malice and requiring that they remain proportionate to the objective of punishment. In Quebec, the Civil Code allows punitive damages only where a statute provides for them, the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms or the Consumer Protection Act for instance, and its article 1621 requires that they be assessed in light of the gravity of the fault, the debtor’s financial situation and the compensation already awarded. They are therefore rare and modest in Quebec commercial disputes.
For the French judge, the question arises in the terms of the Fountaine Pajot decision: an award of punitive damages is not, in itself, contrary to international public policy, but it becomes so where the amount awarded is disproportionate to the loss suffered and to the breaches of contract (Cass. 1re civ., 1 December 2010, no. 09-13.303). A Canadian judgment that clearly separates the compensatory part from the punitive part makes exequatur easier: the creditor can seek exequatur of the former and argue the latter, partial exequatur being accepted. A judgment whose operative part blends the two without separate figures exposes the creditor to a challenge on the whole, and it is better, while the Canadian proceedings are still pending, to obtain from the court a breakdown in the operative part.
Interest calls for the same care. A Canadian judgment bears interest at the rate fixed by provincial statute, before and after judgment, and those rates are enforceable in France as they stand, the exequatur judge having no reason to substitute the French statutory rate. A creditor who wants to recover them must produce the applicable provincial text and a computation, because the French enforcement officer will not calculate foreign interest on his own.
5. Documents, apostille and the translation question
The file consists of a certified copy of the judgment issued by the registry of the court, a certificate attesting that no appeal was lodged within the time limit, which is generally thirty days in Quebec as in Ontario, or that the appeal was dismissed, proof of service of the originating document where the defendant did not appear, and, for a default judgment, proof that the judgment itself was served. Canada acceded to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, which entered into force for Canada on 11 January 2024. The apostille therefore replaces the consular chain; it is issued by Global Affairs Canada for federal documents and by the designated authorities of five provinces (Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan) for documents issued by their courts; judgments from the other provinces go through the federal authority.
Translation is where Canada differs from every other common law country. A judgment of the Superior Court of Quebec rendered in French is filed before the tribunal judiciaire without translation, which removes the heaviest cost item of a North American exequatur and does away with any argument over the accuracy of the translation. Quebec judgments rendered in English, which happens when the parties chose that language, and judgments from the other provinces, must be translated by a translator sworn before a French court of appeal. Practice accepts a translation limited to the operative part and to the reasons needed to establish the conditions of exequatur, but a translation that is too partial leads to a request for completion, hence an adjournment. Decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada and of the Federal Court are published in both languages, and the official French version is filed as it stands.
One detail is worth anticipating: Canadian judgments express the award in Canadian dollars, and the French judge grants exequatur in that currency. Conversion into euros takes place at the enforcement stage, at the rate of the day of payment, which the creditor must build into its computations and into the drafting of attachment documents.
6. The French procedure and its timeline
The application for exequatur is brought before the tribunal judiciaire by writ of summons, with mandatory representation by a lawyer, under articles 509 and following of the French Code of Civil Procedure. The competent court is in principle that of the defendant’s domicile or, failing that, that of the place of enforcement. The procedure is adversarial and follows the ordinary rhythm of a case on the merits: six to ten months where the debtor raises no serious challenge, twelve to eighteen months where it argues service or the disproportion of the damages, then one to two years on appeal. The exequatur judgment, once final or accompanied by provisional enforcement, gives the Canadian judgment the value of a French enforceable title.
These timelines make it essential to secure assets from day one. The Canadian judgment, even before recognition, establishes a claim that appears well founded in principle within the meaning of article L. 511-1 of the French Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, and the enforcement judge authorises on application a protective attachment of bank accounts, an attachment of receivables owed by French customers, or a protective judicial mortgage on the warehouse, without the debtor being told. Exequatur proceedings must then be brought within one month. That sequence, and the means available to the French debtor to resist it, are set out in the overview of the six points that determine whether a foreign title will be enforceable and in the firm’s page on exequatur.
7. The reverse route: enforcing a French judgment in Canada
The absence of a treaty works both ways, and the French creditor who has to recover in Canada discovers the country’s duality in turn. In Quebec, the recognition of foreign decisions is governed by articles 3155 and following of the Civil Code of Quebec. The principle is recognition, save in six exhaustively listed cases: lack of jurisdiction of the authority of origin, a decision still subject to ordinary review or not final, breach of the essential principles of procedure, a dispute already pending or decided in Quebec or in a third State, manifest inconsistency with public order as understood in international relations, and a decision enforcing foreign tax obligations. Article 3158 prohibits review of the merits, article 3164 assesses the jurisdiction of the foreign court under Quebec rules insofar as the dispute is substantially connected with the State of origin, and article 3168 lists the connecting factors accepted in personal actions of a patrimonial nature: the defendant’s domicile, an establishment connected with the dispute, fault and injury suffered in the State, contractual obligations to be performed there, submission to or recognition of jurisdiction. A French judgment rendered in French is filed without translation before the Superior Court, and no reciprocity requirement applies.
In the common law provinces, France is not among the jurisdictions designated by the provincial reciprocal enforcement of judgments statutes, which are essentially reserved for the other provinces and for certain Commonwealth countries; the United Kingdom, for its part, benefits from a convention with Canada signed in Ottawa on 24 April 1984 and in force since 1987. The French creditor must therefore bring an action on the foreign judgment, most often decided by summary judgment, under the principles laid down by the Supreme Court of Canada: the French court must have had a real and substantial connection with the dispute or the defendant, the judgment must be final and for a definite sum, and the defendant may only raise fraud, a breach of natural justice or public policy, the threshold of which is high. One trap lies in the limitation period: in Ontario, an action on a foreign judgment is time-barred two years after the expiry or exhaustion of the avenues of appeal, not after the discovery of assets in the province. A French creditor who lets its judgment sit loses its Ontario remedy without noticing.
8. Strategy: read the province, freeze first, plan for arbitration
A Canadian file is prepared in three stages. The first is to locate the judgment: which province, which language, which form, which operative part, and whether a punitive component or a costs award is added to it. The second is to gather, while still in Canada, the apostilled documents and proof of service, asking the registry for the certificate of no appeal as soon as the time limit expires. The third, in France, is to identify the assets and apply to the enforcement judge before serving the summons, so that the ten to eighteen months of the procedure do not serve the debtor to organise its insolvency. A mortgaged warehouse and frozen accounts often lead to a settlement before the hearing.
For future contracts, comparing the two regimes points to a simple solution. Canada and France are parties to the New York Convention of 10 June 1958, and an arbitral award rendered in Montreal or Toronto is enforced in France by ex parte application to the tribunal judiciaire of Paris, within a few weeks, under articles 1514 and following of the Code of Civil Procedure, while an award rendered in Paris is enforced in each Canadian province under the same text. For a French-Canadian partnership with assets on both sides, the arbitration clause advantageously replaces the convention that never came to life. The regime of awards is detailed in the article on the exequatur of arbitral awards.
The firm’s page on the enforcement of foreign judgments in France sets out the conditions of recognition according to the origin of the decision, the documents to assemble and the timeline of protective and enforcement measures. It works with the Quebec and Canadian counsel of creditors seeking to recover in France, in French as in English, and with French companies targeted by a Canadian decision; its page on international commercial litigation describes these engagements, and the contact form allows a matter to be outlined in a few lines.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a treaty between France and Canada on the enforcement of judgments?
No, none is in force. A convention on the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters was indeed signed in Ottawa on 10 June 1996, but it never took effect, for want of the notifications required on both sides. The France-Quebec agreement of 9 September 1977 provides for recognition only in matters of personal status, child custody and maintenance, and Canada is a party neither to the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements nor to the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention. A Canadian judgment therefore falls under the ordinary French exequatur rules.
Does a Quebec judgment have to be translated to be enforced in France?
No, when it was rendered in French, which is the case for the great majority of judgments of the Superior Court and of the Court of Appeal of Quebec. It is filed as it stands before the tribunal judiciaire, together with the certified copy, the certificate of no appeal and the apostille. A Quebec judgment rendered in English, or a judgment from another province, must on the other hand be translated by a translator sworn before a French court of appeal.
Is a Canadian default judgment enforceable in France?
Yes, provided the defendant was served properly and in good time. Canada and France are parties to the Hague Convention of 15 November 1965, and the creditor must produce proof that the originating document was served in France through one of the channels it provides, then that the judgment itself was served. A default judgment obtained after irregular service runs into procedural international public policy and exequatur is refused.
Are punitive damages awarded in Canada enforceable in France?
They are not contrary in themselves to international public policy, but the French judge refuses exequatur where their amount is disproportionate to the loss suffered and to the breaches found, under the Fountaine Pajot decision of 1 December 2010. Quebec punitive damages, framed by article 1621 of the Civil Code of Quebec, are generally modest and pass without difficulty. Where the judgment separates the compensatory part from the punitive part, partial exequatur of the former remains possible in any event.
How is a French judgment enforced in Canada?
It depends on the province where the assets are located. In Quebec, recognition is governed by articles 3155 and following of the Civil Code of Quebec, without review of the merits or reciprocity requirement, and the French judgment is filed without translation. In the common law provinces, France not being a jurisdiction designated by the reciprocal enforcement statutes, the creditor brings an action on the foreign judgment, generally decided by summary judgment, showing the real and substantial connection of the dispute with France. In Ontario, that action is time-barred two years after the exhaustion of appeals in France.
On the same subject, on the ordinary exequatur rules: enforcing an American or English judgment in France; on the regime applicable to each decision: the six points that determine whether a foreign title will be enforceable; on the French original of this page: faire exécuter un jugement canadien ou québécois en France.