I have a ridiculous judgement against me in Germany. (Complicated shenanigans around an inheritance where the authorities’ legal representatives did shady shit specifically to unload an estate that would have cost them.) Technically I owe the city of Frankfurt something like 50,000€ in fines.
I’m comfortable with this.
Why?
Because good fucking luck enforcing a European fine on a Canadian citizen resident in China. Even if they catch me out when I visit Germany (which I have done a couple of times without incident since the judgement was levied against me), watch the judge make grumpy-faces at attorneys who sent legal documents in German to a Canadian in China whose repeated requests for translated versions was denied. Their case will vanish in a puff of legal sanctions and I’ll make fucking sure on top of it that it becomes a press circus.
EU types are almost as bad as American types for thinking their laws are extraterritorial. I love rubbing the fact that they aren’t in their faces.