This Act applies to actions and distribution proceedings commenced after its effective date.
12-645.Transitional provision.
Article XII. Judgments - Enforcement · Part 6. Foreign Judgments and Foreign-Money Claims · Not amended since adoption on record · Last verified July 20, 2026
In one sentenceLimits the Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act to actions and distribution proceedings commenced after its effective date, leaving earlier-filed cases to whatever law applied before the Act took effect.
Full Text of 735 ILCS 5/12-645
Plain-English Summary
This closing section fixes the Act's starting line: it applies to actions and distribution proceedings commenced after its effective date. A case already underway before that date isn't pulled into the Act's rules.
Transitional provisions like this one are standard in uniform legislation, giving courts and litigants a clear cutoff rather than leaving them to guess whether a pending matter is governed by the new rules or the law that came before.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Act apply to cases already pending when it took effect?
No. It applies only to actions and distribution proceedings commenced after its effective date.
What does “commenced after its effective date” mean in practice?
It ties the Act's application to when the action or distribution proceeding was filed or initiated, not to when the underlying transaction or loss occurred.
Why do uniform acts typically include a transitional provision like this?
To give courts and parties a clear line between cases governed by the new uniform rules and cases still subject to whatever law preceded them.
Does a distribution proceeding opened before the effective date fall under the Act?
No, this section limits coverage to proceedings commenced after the effective date.
What governs a foreign-money claim commenced before the Act's effective date?
Whatever law applied to foreign-money claims in Illinois before this Act took effect, since this section keeps such earlier-commenced matters outside the Act's scope.
Amendment History
(Source: P.A. 86-1291.)
Source & verification. Section text and amendment history are
reproduced verbatim from the Illinois Compiled Statutes, published by the
Illinois Compiled Statutes, Illinois General Assembly / Legislative Reference Bureau. Last verified July 20, 2026.
· Official source
Also known as: effective date of the foreign money claims act Illinoistransitional provision uniform act Illinoiswhen does the foreign money claims act apply to a pending casedoes the act apply to a case filed before 1990