Recognition and Enforcement of a Foreign Award in Bulgaria Against a Sovereign: Mission Possible or Impossible?

Bulgaria is rarely the forum of choice when a foreign investor seeks to monetize an arbitral award against a sovereign. Yet as the enforcement campaign of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine and Others v. The Russian Federation has demonstrated, creditors of states routinely find themselves chasing assets across Europe, and Bulgaria is one of the jurisdictions where Russian property has been identified. This article examines, against the backdrop of the Partial Award of 22 February 2019 and the Final Award of 12 April 2023 rendered under the Russia–Ukraine Bilateral Investment Treaty, whether and how a foreign arbitral award against a sovereign can be recognized and enforced in Bulgaria. It maps the tripartite hurdle that any such creditor must clear – exequatur, interim relief, and forcible execution – and analyses each stage through the prism of Bulgarian procedural law, customary international law on state immunity, the European Union sanctions regime, and the emerging debate on judicial countermeasures. The conclusion is that enforcement against a sovereign in Bulgaria is not a legal fiction, but is also neither straightforward nor predictable: the outcome will depend heavily on how Bulgarian courts reconcile a thin and partly contradictory body of case law with treaty obligations they rarely have occasion to apply.