English courts are meeting fraud claims head on, says Sophia Purkis
The English Courts have never shied away from addressing fraud claims head-on. The courts have responded to the trend for claimants to seek increasingly wide forms of freezing orders by taking a flexible approach to compel disclosure (thus assist the preservation of assets) while simultaneously seeking to protect the respondent’s position appropriately.
To reflect corporate ownership of assets, the court recently proposed modifying the standard form freezing order. In Lakatamia Shipping Co Ltd v Nobu Su & Ors [2014] EWHC 275 (Comm), [2014] All ER (D) 132 (Feb), the Court of Appeal held that the standard form order does not bring within an individual defendant’s assets those of a company which he owns and controls. While disposing of such assets might constitute a breach of the freezing order, as it would diminish the value of the individual’s shareholding in the company, the Court endorsed the suggestion in Group Seven v Allied Investments Corp [2013] EWHC 1509 (Ch), [2013] All ER (D)
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