High Court sets aside default judgement over unenforceable Ohio ruling in Kang case

The High Court has set aside a default judgement worth over £2 million after finding that the underlying US ruling it sought to give effect to was unenforceable in England, having been obtained against a defendant who was never subject to the American court's jurisdiction.

In Premium Contractor Solution LLC v Ying Kang [2026] EWHC 2014 (KB), Mrs Justice Foster allowed Ms Kang's application to set aside a default judgement entered against her in November 2023, rejecting a late attempt by the claimant to recharacterise its claim once the jurisdictional flaw became apparent.

The dispute traced back to proceedings in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, in which Premium was found liable to 3M Company over allegedly counterfeit personal protective equipment sold during the pandemic. Premium had brought a third party claim against Ms Kang, alleging she had misrepresented the masks as genuine, and obtained default judgement against her in Ohio in March 2022, with damages later assessed at just over US$2.6 million.

Premium then issued proceedings in England seeking judgement in the equivalent sum so the debt could be enforced within the jurisdiction, relying on the Ohio judgement as the basis of the claim. Default judgement was entered in November 2023, followed by interim and final charging orders over a property in Bristol registered in Ms Kang's name, and ultimately a claim for an order for sale.

Ms Kang, a Chinese national who had spent time in various European jurisdictions, stated she had been resident in China from December 2020 until January 2025 and had never travelled to the United States since 2009. She said all proceedings had been served by post at the Bristol property, which had stood empty for years, and that she only discovered the paperwork on returning to England in January 2025.

The court examined the established conflict of laws principles governing recognition of foreign judgements, summarised in Dicey, Morris and Collins, which require that a foreign court have had jurisdiction over the defendant, whether through physical presence at the time proceedings commenced or through submission to that jurisdiction. Citing Sirdar Gurdyal Singh v Rajah of Faridkote [1894] AC 670 and Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] Ch 433, the judge held that Ms Kang's absence from the United States throughout the relevant period meant the Ohio judgement could not be enforced in England.

Faced with this difficulty, Premium argued in later evidence that its claim was not in fact one to enforce the Ohio judgement at all, but a free standing claim for the underlying debt, with the Ohio judgement serving merely as evidence of it. The judge rejected this recharacterisation as unsustainable given the wording of both the claim form and the particulars of claim, and declined to permit an amendment, holding that a default judgement obtained without jurisdiction was a nullity that could not stand as evidence of anything.

On the separate question of delay, the judge found that Ms Kang's application, made some sixteen months after judgement was entered, had not been prompt. However, she accepted there were cogent reasons for much of that delay, including Ms Kang's prolonged absence from the jurisdiction and apparent lack of awareness of the proceedings, and declined to infer any dishonesty on her part.

The application to set aside was granted, with the judge concluding that permitting enforcement of a judgement that was legally a nullity could never accord with the overriding objective, irrespective of any delay in challenging it.