Thank you so much for this information.

Thank you for commenting on this post. You can find a good list of the most common situations where FRCP 60(b)(6) is applied in 11 Wright & Miller § 2864. They include: (1) breach of a settlement agreement that included a consent judgment; (2) fraud by the party’s lawyer or a third-party witness; and (3) (prior to the adoption of FRAP 4(a)(6) in 1991) the movant does not receive notice of the judgment in time to take an appeal. The discussion in Wright & Miller mentions other uncommon situations as well.

The only statistics for Rule 60(b) cases that I know of are in John L. Costello, Summary Denials of Relief Under Procedural Rules of Preclusion are Deprivations of Due Process of Law, 2 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L. J. 215, 233 (1992), which go through 1990 and which focus on claims of attorney error. The Administrative Office of the US Courts may or may not be able to provide better and more current statistics.

Thank you very much for discussing my Paper. I apologize that I did not discover this and reply to the posts earlier.

1. Regarding whether the Mainland Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Bill passed in 2008 solves all finality issues of Mainland judgments in Hong Kong, the answer is negative; because, as Ted pointed out, the Statute only covers a small number of judgments.

Here is an incomplete statistics that I have found currently: totally two Mainland judgments (KFE HONG KONG CO., LTD v. EXTRACT GROUP LTD, HCA457/2010; FUSHAN CLOTHING COMPANY v. FIRST DRAGON FASHION (HONG KONG) LTD, HCCW41/2010) have applied to be recognized and enforced in Hong Kong. However, neither of them is enforceable in Hong Kong because no choice of Mainland court agreement exists. Totally five Hong Kong judgments have applied to be recognized and enforced in Mainland China. The results of JRE have not been released yet. The empirical evidence regarding Mainland-Hong Kong Arrangement shows that the scope of the Arrangement is too narrow. If any one has more empirical evidence regarding how the Arrangement is implemented in practice, I would be grateful if I can share with that.

2. Thank you very much for pointing out that the finality issue is actually not a civil/common law issue. I agree with this. Finality is a difference between domestic laws of different regions in China. The Paper is part of my new book “Interregional Recognition and Enforcement of Civil and Commercial Judgments: Lessons for China from US and EU Law”, which may come out in 2013 by Hart Publishing. I will certainly move the finality from the distinction of civil/common law issue. Twofish, thank you again for the comment.

3. Thank you for pointing out the weakness of the analogy between Mainland China and the US JRE law. Ted, do you know any judgment was vacated on the ground of FRCP Rule 60(b)(6)? Is there any statistics of the implementation of Rule 60 (b) in practice, for example, what percentage of judgments applied for vacating is in fact vacated in the US federal courts? I would be grateful to exchange views regarding this with you.

Thank you again for your comments.

Twofish, as I suspected, the statute applies only when the parties have chosen a Mainland court as the forum. See in particular section 5 of the statute, and the definitions of “chosen court” and “designated court” in section 2. So the statute, it seems to me, does not apply generally to Mainland judgments. I’ll be curious to know your thoughts.

Thanks for the comment, Twofish. I don’t know the answer to your point. I’ll try to correspond with the author of the article and see whether I can get a clarification, and I’ll do a little digging. I’ll leave a comment here if I learn anything. Simply looking at the title of the law your cite, is it possible it relates only to cases where the parties have entered into a choice of court agreement.

I agree with you that the PRC provisions on reopening cases seems unique. The author analogizes it with Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, though for the reasons I give in the post, I am not sure that this is a successful analogy.

Also the issue of “final judgment” is not a civil/common law issue. The provision that allows a case to be reopened is uniquely PRC.