Asset freezing

Asset freezing is an interim court order, granted as an interlocutory injunction in common law systems, that prevents a defendant from disposing of or transferring assets while litigation is pending. It protects a claimant who has won or may win a judgment by preventing the defendant from dealing with or dissipating assets so as to frustrate that judgment, ensuring that a successful claimant can actually collect an award rather than find that the defendant has hidden or transferred funds. In England and Wales the jurisdiction to grant such orders derives from the Judicature Act 1873, which allowed courts to grant an injunction in any case where it appeared just or convenient, and the doctrine was formalized through the 1975 case Mareva Compania Naviera SA v International Bulkcarriers SA, after which such orders became widely known in Commonwealth jurisdictions as Mareva injunctions or freezing orders. An asset freeze is not a proprietary remedy: it gives the claimant no ownership of the frozen assets and does not make the claimant a secured creditor, functioning purely as a procedural device to preserve assets pending judgment. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/