Post-Drelle, Harneys has successfully acted for a petitioner in obtaining a winding up order against a debtor company on the basis of an unpaid non-domesticated foreign judgment in the BVI. The judgment in Drelle  was specifically brought to the attention of the Judge who did not consider there was any need to alter the position adopted in the BVI.

This is unsurprising. BVI Courts have always permitted unrecognised foreign judgments or arbitration awards to establish an undisputed debt under the BVI Insolvency Act (see, for example, cases such as Pacific China Holdings Ltd v Grand Pacific Holdings Limited  and Vendort Traders Inc v Evrostroy Grupp LLC).

In the Cayman Islands, post-Drelle, this very issue has also been considered in the case of Re SIN Capital (Cayman) Ltd. The Grand Court ordered the winding-up of a company based on a statutory demand that derived from a foreign arbitration award, explicitly stating that no further steps were needed for recognition in the Cayman Islands.

The BVI and the Cayman Islands are known as creditor-friendly jurisdictions. As the law stands in the BVI and the Cayman Islands, unrecognised or unregistered foreign judgments and arbitration awards can form the basis of a winding up petition and the Courts have so far not shown a desire to follow the decision in Drelle.