Arbitration Injunctions, Asset Tracing and Award Enforcement
Even before arbitration is commenced, potential claimants must investigate the asset position of their intended defendants, and whether steps are necessary to preserve the defendant's assets, so they are available for enforcement at the end of the proceedings. This step (ideally taken before a defendant is on notice of any proceedings) is critical for assessing the commercial viability of any claim and safeguarding your future recoveries.
Our Asset Tracing and Enforcement team is well-placed to assist you in conducting those assessments. Its lawyers (drawn from Mishcon de Reya's renowned Asset Tracing and Civil Fraud groups) are part of the biggest team of international injunction specialists in the UK. We regularly obtain a variety of injunctions in support of arbitration proceedings. These court orders can include, worldwide freezing injunctions (which can be obtained before, during or after an arbitration - to prevent a defendant from dissipating their assets), search and computer imaging orders (to compel access to premises and seize documents or electronic evidence for use in the proceedings), and third-party disclosure orders (to force parties outside the arbitration to provide relevant information and documents). We are adept at navigating the complexities of obtaining these injunctions without notice to the defendants and at very short notice, often when new information comes to light which suggests that assets or evidence are at risk of being concealed, placed beyond our clients' reach or, in the case of evidence, destroyed.
Once you have won your arbitration and are seeking to enforce your award against the defendant, our Asset Tracing and Enforcement team will devise and implement a suitable multijurisdictional enforcement strategy. We routinely work closely with foreign asset recovery lawyers, trusted investigators (including our in-house Cyber Risk and Complex Investigations team), forensic accountants, insolvency practitioners and other experts to uncover and enforce against assets hidden or dispersed across multiple jurisdictions.
Mishcon de Reya is also a founder member of the International Fraud Group (IFG), a network of asset-tracing and enforcement specialists operating in over 55 jurisdictions globally. The IFG network allows us to work with trusted lawyers who have local knowledge to take quick steps in preserving or freezing assets globally, ensuring your interests are protected from the outset, and in some cases before the dispute even starts.