Cross-border enforcement
Enforcing a Malta judgment in Germany
Answer
A Maltese judgment in a civil or commercial matter is recognised in Germany automatically under EU law. No German court has to declare it enforceable first. To actually collect against a debtor, the judgment still has to be presented to German enforcement bodies with the right certificate and translation attached.
Applicable regime
Malta and Germany are both EU member states, so this runs under Regulation 1215/2012 (Brussels Ia), not under national German rules and not under the jurisdiction profile for Germany that would apply to a non-EU judgment. Under this regime, a judgment given by a Maltese court in a civil or commercial matter is recognised in Germany without a separate procedure: no exequatur, no prior declaration of enforceability by a German court (N018, N144, N141). The critical date is when the Maltese proceedings were instituted. Proceedings started before the recast Regulation applied fall under the earlier Brussels I Regulation, with different formalities. The same automatic mechanism runs the other way too, covered separately on the Germany-to-Malta enforcement page.
What the destination court will check
The route only works if every one of the following holds:
- The judgment was given by a court of an EU member state; Malta qualifies on this point (N141).
- The matter is civil or commercial. Judgments on revenue, customs or administrative matters fall outside the regime regardless of how the underlying dispute arose.
- The Maltese court has issued the certificate confirming the judgment is enforceable at the place of origin.
- The judgment has not been successfully challenged in Germany for defective service, conflict with an earlier judgment, or breach of German public policy.
These conditions are cumulative. If any one is missing, the case falls outside the automatic Brussels Ia route and back into whatever regime, if any, does apply to it.
What will not go through
Judgments outside civil and commercial matters, such as tax assessments, customs penalties or administrative fines, do not travel under Brussels Ia, whatever the dispute behind them. Arbitral awards are excluded outright; those move under the New York Convention route instead (N016), a separate track entirely from this one. Interim or protective orders granted without the other side being heard commonly do not circulate under the automatic recognition mechanism, so a Maltese freezing order obtained without notice to the debtor is not something a German enforcement body will treat as directly enforceable. A judgment obtained by default, where service on the defendant is later shown defective, is the ground most often raised to resist recognition, a pattern relevant to non-enforcement refusals generally.
Documents
Because the judgment moves under Brussels Ia rather than a legalisation-based treaty, no apostille and no consular legalisation is required for it or for the certificate that travels with it. That is different from a judgment falling outside the Regulation's scope, where Germany's apostille regime under the Hague Convention, in force there since 13 February 1966, would apply instead (N409). What is required is a certified German translation of the certificate, and of the judgment itself if the German authority handling enforcement asks for one. The Regulation removes legalisation, not translation.
Timing
There is no exequatur suit under Brussels Ia, so the German court fee tied to that suit does not apply to this route. What an enforcement body or bailiff charges for actually taking enforcement steps is a separate matter, not covered by that fee position. The limitation period that matters is Germany's thirty-year rule for enforcing a right confirmed by a judgment (N516), running from the date the Maltese judgment became final, not from the date it reaches a German authority. The usual mechanism for suspending that period by filing an exequatur suit (N518) is not triggered here, because Brussels Ia does not require that suit; how German courts treat the point in practice for automatically recognised judgments is worth checking case by case, and is tracked more broadly on the limitation periods page.
If the primary route is closed
If a judgment falls outside Brussels Ia's scope, the next place to look is the Hague Judgments Convention 2019. Both Malta and Germany are bound through the EU's accession, in force since 1 September 2023 (N003, N151, N154). That convention only helps if the Maltese proceedings were pending, under the instrument applicable at the time, on or after the date the convention took effect between the two states (N012); proceedings started earlier get no benefit from it. If the debtor's assets sit outside Germany, direct enforcement where they actually are, following the approach set out for preparing a judgment from a different regime for use elsewhere, may matter more than the German route at all. For disputes not yet judged, an arbitration clause pointing to a New York Convention seat (N016) is a more predictable route than any judgment-recognition regime, including this one.
What to do before filing
Locate the debtor's assets in Germany specifically before relying on automatic recognition; recognition without exequatur does not by itself tell an enforcement body where to look, and the position for judgments originating in Malta more broadly is no different on that point. Whether an interim measure such as an EU-wide account freezing order under Regulation 655/2014 (N019) fits a given case is established by the facts of that case, not by a general presumption. A creditor moving into German enforcement should also expect the debtor to test service and public policy grounds, which costs time and money even where the outcome favours the creditor. An assessment against the actual documents, described on the cross-border recognition and enforcement service page, is what tells a creditor whether that cost is worth carrying, and it is not offered on a no-win-no-fee basis; the entity handling it can be checked against the public register linked from this site's footer.