Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska

CONVENTION ON THE INTERNATIONAL RECOVERY OF CHILD SUPPORT
AND OTHER FORMS OF FAMILY MAINTENANCE, (PDF Version);
An Outline of the above document; and the
PROTOCOL ON THE LAW APPLICABLE TO MAINTENANCE OBLIGATIONS
(PDF version)
The United States sent a delegation to The Hague to work on drafting the
Convention, and is a signatory to the Protocol and Convention. The US government
plans to utilize the convention to assist local CSE offices in working international cases
with other signatory nations (40 in total as of 2013), however the treaty has yet to be
approved by Congress. The individual states will also have to update their UIFSA laws
to dovetail with the provisions contained in the Convention, before it will be enacted.
A list of signatory nations to this convention includes the following states (as of
March 2013):
Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Bulgaria
Canada + Quebec
Chile
People's Republic of
China, (Hong Kong
and Macao)
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Estonia
European Community
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Israel
Japan
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
Mexico
Monaco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Paraguay
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovak Republic
Slovenia
South Africa
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States
IV. Currency Conversion issues
Federal court rulings have long held that all judgments set by courts in the United States
should to be paid in dollars, and not in foreign currency. This solves some potential problems,
but can lead to other issues. When we register foreign child support orders for enforcement, for
example, we are forced to convert the original judgment stated in euros, pound sterling or zlotys
to dollars. Many resources on the Internet offer currency exchange information, including
historical data. My favorite for ease of use is the Bank of Canada site at
www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/exchform.html
One problem you may encounter (this author did) is when the foreign jurisdiction
requires periodic updating of the currency exchange rates in their order. Germany requires
annual adjustments, for example, and this may be the preferred way to go (some jurisdictions
require monthly recalculation of conversion rates, and this can be extremely cumbersome). In a
UIFSA registration case you should take care to address this issue in the original order
confirming registration or risk having your order locked in at a set dollar ($) amount for the entire
term of the order. Of course, sometimes periodic adjustments will work to the benefit of the
person paying support. No one can tell at the time the order is registered which way the
exchange rate will trend in coming years. (If you could you would be doing that for a living,
rather than enforcing child support orders!)
There should be no need to “modify” a support order each time an adjustment in the
conversion rate is necessary. Just spell out in the original order in your court that there will be
periodic currency conversion adjustments (spell out when those will occur), and the manner in
which those adjustments will occur. You may need to submit to the clerk of court for filing a
statement of the changed currency conversion ratio each time a conversion is to take place.
- 163 -