§ 9-12-116.Effect of recognition of foreign-country judgments

This is the payoff section of the article: it describes what recognition under Code Section 9-12-115 accomplishes. Once a court finds that a foreign-country judgment is entitled to recognition, the judgment does not remain a foreign curiosity — to the extent it grants or denies recovery of a sum of money, it takes on real legal force in Georgia.

That force has two dimensions. Under paragraph (1), the judgment becomes conclusive between the parties to the same extent as the judgment of a sister state entitled to full faith and credit would be — the same benchmark Georgia already uses for judgments from other American states. Under paragraph (2), the judgment becomes enforceable in the same manner and to the same extent as a judgment rendered in Georgia itself, meaning the judgment holder can pursue the same collection tools available for a homegrown Georgia judgment.

Recognition, in other words, converts a foreign-country judgment into something functionally equivalent to a domestic one for money-judgment purposes. That equivalence connects back to the article's opening definitions: because true foreign-country judgments fall outside the Full Faith and Credit Clause, this article exists to give them, once recognized, the same practical effect that clause already gives sister-state judgments.