Cross-Border Asset Recovery & Freezing Orders
Preserving value before it disappears.
Freezing orders, receivership and enforcement against assets, in support of foreign judgments, arbitral awards and pending proceedings — coordinated with local counsel wherever the assets are.
Before the assets move —
and after they have.
ME Law acts for claimants, judgment creditors and award creditors who need to preserve and recover assets across borders — freezing orders before and after judgment, receivers, and execution against bank accounts, receivables, shares and property — and for respondents facing orders that go too far. Court applications in other countries are made with local counsel there.
In serious commercial disputes the real question is often not whether liability can be proved but whether anything will be left to recover. Funds, sale proceeds, securities and digital assets can be moved, layered or encumbered faster than ordinary litigation runs. A freezing order is not a judgment and transfers nothing to the claimant: it preserves assets so that the eventual judgment or award is not hollow.
- Freezing (Mareva) injunctions
- Worldwide freezing orders
- Receivers and execution
- Relief in aid of foreign proceedings
Speed without haste, force without overreach. A freezing order has to preserve value — and survive scrutiny.
The most effective order
is rarely the broadest one.
A freezing order is powerful because it changes the dispute at the outset, and exacting because it is intrusive, urgent and closely scrutinised. We frame orders that preserve what matters, on evidence that holds when the other side is heard.
Dissipation, concealment or diversion
Is value being moved, hidden, diverted through affiliates or insulated in structures? The answer decides the first step — a freezing order, a receiver, disclosure or tracing.
Where value actually sits
Bank and brokerage accounts, receivables, shares, real estate, vessels and digital assets — identified precisely enough for an order to bite.
A record that survives the return date
A sufficiently strong case, a real risk of dissipation and, on a without-notice application, full and frank disclosure — prepared under time pressure without cutting corners.
Proportionate and workable
Scope, maximum sums, allowances for ordinary expenses, provisions protecting third parties, disclosure obligations and the undertaking in damages — drafted so that banks can comply.
From preservation to payment
Execution, receivership and recognition abroad, sequenced so that interim protection becomes recovery.
Preserving and recovering
assets across borders.
The right remedy depends on the risk, the assets and where they are. Select a category to see the typical matters and the related services.
Freezing (Mareva) Injunctions
Freezing injunctions before and after judgment, sought without notice where warning the defendant would defeat the order, with asset-disclosure obligations so that the order can be policed.
- Without-notice applications
- Asset-disclosure orders
- Return-date hearings
- Bank and brokerage accounts
Worldwide Freezing Orders
Freezing orders that extend to the defendant’s assets worldwide, with protections for third parties abroad, and their recognition or replication by the courts of the countries where the assets are — with local counsel.
- Worldwide freezing orders
- Protections for third parties abroad
- Recognition of orders abroad
- Parallel freezing applications
Relief in Aid of Foreign Proceedings
Interim relief from the courts where the assets are, in support of court proceedings or arbitrations in another country — before, during or after the main proceedings.
- Interim relief in aid of foreign courts
- Relief in aid of arbitration
- Freezing pending recognition
- Coordination with the main proceedings
Receivers & Receiver-Managers
Court-appointed receivers to take control of, investigate and realise assets that ordinary execution cannot reach — shares in private companies, interests held through structures, future receivables.
- Receivers by way of equitable execution
- Receivers over shares and interests
- Receiver-managers of a business
- Receivers’ investigations
Execution Against Assets
The execution remedies available once a judgment is given or recognised — orders against bank accounts and debts owed to the debtor, charging orders over land and shares, seizure and sale.
- Orders against bank accounts and debts
- Charging orders
- Seizure and sale
- Priority disputes
Digital Asset Recovery
Freezing and proprietary injunctions over crypto-assets, disclosure orders against exchanges and custodians, and recovery of misappropriated digital assets — where speed matters more than anywhere else.
- Freezing and proprietary injunctions
- Orders against exchanges
- Wallet tracing
- Persons-unknown claims
Fraud & Diverted Assets
Proprietary claims, tracing and claims against recipients where assets have been transferred to related parties, nominees or offshore structures to put them out of reach.
- Proprietary and tracing claims
- Transfers to defeat creditors
- Claims against recipients
- Constructive trusts
Defending Freezing Orders
Applications to discharge or vary freezing orders that go further than the evidence justifies — non-disclosure, insufficient risk, overbreadth — and claims on the undertaking in damages.
- Discharge for non-disclosure
- Variation and living expenses
- Third-party applications
- Claims on the undertaking
Freezing orders
and recovery across borders.
What a freezing order does
A freezing order — a Mareva injunction in many common-law jurisdictions, after a 1975 English decision — restrains a defendant from removing or dealing with its assets up to a specified value until judgment or enforcement. It gives the claimant no security or proprietary right over the assets; it preserves them so that a later judgment can be enforced. Courts treat it as exceptional relief, and fear that a judgment may be hard to collect is not enough on its own.
What the court needs to see
The tests vary between jurisdictions, but the core elements are consistent: a sufficiently strong case on the merits — a good arguable case in some systems, a strong prima facie case in others; assets of the defendant within the order’s reach; and a real risk that, without the order, the assets will be dissipated or removed so that a judgment goes unsatisfied. Applications are often made without notice to the defendant, which places a duty of full and frank disclosure on the applicant, and the applicant is usually required to undertake to compensate the defendant if the order proves to have been wrongly granted.
Worldwide freezing orders
The courts of England and Wales, and of several other common-law jurisdictions, grant freezing orders over a defendant’s assets worldwide, usually with asset-disclosure obligations and protections for third parties outside the jurisdiction. Such an order binds the defendant personally; to bind banks and other third parties abroad it generally has to be recognised or replicated by the courts of the country where the assets are.
Relief in aid of foreign proceedings and arbitrations
The main proceedings need not be in the country where the assets are. The English courts, for example, can grant interim relief in support of proceedings elsewhere under section 25 of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, and in support of arbitrations seated abroad under section 44 of the Arbitration Act 1996. Many other jurisdictions have equivalent powers; others do not — US federal courts, for example, do not grant pre-judgment freezing injunctions over assets in claims for money damages, and pre-judgment attachment under state law takes their place.
Receivers and execution
Where assets cannot be reached by ordinary execution — shares in private companies, interests held through structures, future receivables — the court may appoint a receiver to take control of them, investigate and realise value. Ordinary execution remedies include orders against bank accounts and debts owed to the debtor, charging orders over land and shares, and seizure and sale. Receivership is extraordinary relief: courts look for necessity and the absence of a less intrusive alternative.
Digital assets
Crypto-assets can be frozen, traced and recovered: courts in several jurisdictions have granted freezing and proprietary injunctions over them, including against persons unknown, and disclosure orders against the exchanges that convert them into money. Speed decides these cases — see international asset tracing.
When recoverability
is the real dispute.
We act where the central risk is not only wrongdoing but the disappearance of practical recovery — and for those who must answer orders that go too far.
Claimants Facing Dissipation
Companies and investors whose recovery is at risk before the merits are decided.
Judgment & Award Creditors
Preservation and execution against assets the debtor is moving or hiding.
Lenders & Financial Institutions
Recovery against borrowers and guarantors with assets in several countries.
Victims of Fraud & Misappropriation
Freezing and recovering diverted funds, including digital assets.
Respondents & Third Parties
Discharging, varying or narrowing freezing orders that overreach.
A strong claim should never become commercially empty because the assets disappeared first.
Assets at risk?
Move before they do.
If assets are being moved, or you hold a judgment or award the debtor is avoiding, speak with senior counsel now about preservation and the fastest realistic route to recovery.
Consultations are held in person or by video, wherever you are. Describe the matter briefly — no confidential details are needed until a conflict check is complete.