§ 36A.008.Stay of Proceedings Pending Appeal of Foreign- Country Judgment

A discretionary stay, and its third limb is what distinguishes it.

If a party establishes that an appeal from a foreign-country judgment is pending or will be taken, the court may stay any proceedings with regard to the judgment until one of three things happens.

The stay is permissive — "may stay" — where the sister-state chapter makes a stay mandatory on its conditions.

The difference is deliberate. A Texas court cannot readily assess what an appeal in another legal system involves, how long it takes, or what security it requires, so the question is left to discretion rather than to a formula.

Note also what is absent: any security requirement. The sister-state provision conditions a stay on the debtor furnishing the rendering state’s security; this one does not, because there may be no comparable requirement to import.

"Any proceedings with regard to the judgment" is broad, covering the recognition proceeding itself as well as enforcement of a judgment already recognized.

Three end points are given. The appeal is concluded; the time for appeal expires; or the appellant has had sufficient time to prosecute the appeal and has failed to do so.

The third is the important one, and it has no counterpart in the sister-state provision. It answers the debtor who files an appeal abroad and lets it sit — obtaining a stay in Texas and then doing nothing to bring the appeal on.

"Sufficient time to prosecute" is left to the court, which is right, since what counts as diligent prosecution varies enormously between legal systems.