Freezing orders: policing the nuclear option

• The practical implications of recent case law on freezing orders.

Lord Justice Donaldson memorably described freezing orders as one of the law’s ‘nuclear‘ weapons in Bank Mellat v Nikpour [1985] FSR 87. It follows that access to such a weapon in the court’s arsenal is strictly policed, subject to a number of checks and balances that govern the licensing of its use. A run of recent cases has developed the jurisprudence in this area, the practical implications of which are considered in this two-part article.

Distinguishing the relief sought

In the first instance, it is important to distinguish general freezing orders from:

(1) orders sought to preserve the subject matter of a claim where the applicant has a proprietary or tracing claim (proprietary injunctions); and

(2) notification orders.

Although each represents a form of a freezing order, the conditions governing access to and deployment of the three forms of relief will vary.

For