The term \`enforceable' in the first paragraph of Article 31 of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as amended by the Convention of 9 October 1978 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, by the Convention of 25 October 1982 on the Accession of the Hellenic Republic and by the Convention of 26 May 1989 on the Accession of the Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic, is to be interpreted as referring solely to the enforceability, in formal terms, of foreign decisions and not to the circumstances in which such decisions may be executed in the State of origin. It is for the court of the State in which enforcement is sought, in appeal proceedings brought under Article 36 of the Brussels Convention, to determine, in accordance with its domestic law including the rules of private international law, the legal effects of a decision given in the State of origin in relation to a court-supervised liquidation.

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A foreign judgment recognized under Article 26 must, in principle, have the same effects in the State where enforcement is sought as in the State where it was given. A foreign judgment whose enforcement was ordered under Article 31, and that remains enforceable in the State where it was given, must stop being enforced in the State where enforcement is sought when, under the law of that State, it ceases to be enforceable for reasons outside the scope of the Convention. A foreign judgment ordering a person to make maintenance payments to a spouse by virtue of conjugal support obligations is irreconcilable, within the meaning of Article 27(3), with a national judgment pronouncing the spouses' divorce. A party who did not appeal the enforcement order referred to in Article 36 cannot, at the execution stage, rely on a valid ground that could have been raised in that appeal. The courts of the State where enforcement is sought must apply that rule of their own motion. That rule does not apply when it would require the national court to make the effects of a national judgment outside the scope of the Convention conditional on its recognition in the State where the foreign judgment at issue was given.

The Brussels Convention bars a party who has obtained, in one Contracting State, a judgment that can be enforced in another Contracting State under Article 31 from asking a court in that other State for a new judgment against the other party on the same terms.