Interim relief and asset preservation

A creditor who waits for judgment before acting on interim relief and asset preservation often finds the debtor's accounts empty and the assets already sold. This page sets out how SOLUTIO assesses, structures and pursues freezing measures across borders, before the underlying claim is even filed, so the eventual judgment is not an empty piece of paper.

When creditors come to us

Most instructions arrive at the moment the debtor's conduct changes, not at the moment the invoice falls due. A director liability claim against the same individual, running in parallel, is often the signal that assets are being moved out of corporate reach: see director liability claims for how the two tracks interact.

• The debtor has started moving funds or selling assets after being notified of a claim.
• A bank transfer, a vessel or a shipment is about to leave the jurisdiction where it can still be reached.
• A competitor creditor has already filed for an attachment and the pool of assets is shrinking.
• The contract or the invoice is sound, but the debtor's balance sheet is deteriorating visibly.
• An arbitration or court claim is being prepared, but a final award or judgment is far off.
• A first judgment exists, and the concern is that the assets it names have already moved.

What we do

Interim relief sits inside a wider recovery strategy, not apart from it. Where the file also calls for cross-border debt recovery, the two workstreams are planned together from the first assessment.

• Assessment of whether the debtor holds assets in a jurisdiction where a freezing measure is realistically available.
• Preparation of the application for an attachment, injunction or account preservation order.
• Coordination with admitted lawyers and licensed providers in the jurisdiction concerned.
• Structuring the security or the undertaking a court may require before granting the measure.
• Monitoring compliance once the measure is granted, including bank and registry responses.
• Sequencing interim relief with the substantive claim so the two do not conflict procedurally.
• Advice on lifting, varying or defending against a measure brought by the opposing side.

How the work runs

The sequence is short by design, because urgency is the point of the measure. At intake, the client decides whether the facts justify moving before the debtor is on notice, based on an early view built from a targeted asset tracing report where one does not already exist.

• Assessment: the facts, the asset, and the forum are matched against each other before anything is filed.
• Instrument selection: the applicable procedure is chosen, and the client decides on the level of exposure to costs if the measure is later set aside.
• Filing: in most systems the application proceeds without notice to the debtor, so the client decides on timing rather than on tactics.
• Execution: the order is served on the bank, registry or carrier holding the asset, and compliance is checked directly.
• Review: the measure is provisional and must be converted into, or reconciled with, the main proceeding within the period the local court sets.

Freezing an asset is not the same as recovering it

Clients frequently treat a granted freezing order as the end of the risk, as though the money were already theirs. In practice the order only preserves what exists at the moment it bites, and it must still be followed by a substantive claim that proves the debt and by an enforcement step that converts the preserved asset into payment.

SOLUTIO treats the interim measure as one stage in a sequence, not as the result itself. The assessment we give at the outset states what the measure can and cannot secure, so the client is not deciding on an incomplete picture.

What it costs

The fee basis for an interim relief instruction is agreed before we act, and it is set out separately from any figure quoted elsewhere on this site. Court fees, any security or counter-undertaking a judge requires, and the fee of the local correspondent handling the filing are each identified and quoted on their own terms once the jurisdiction and the instrument are known. We do not bundle these costs into a single estimate before that point, because the amount a court demands as security varies with the measure requested and the asset targeted.

When we are not the right firm

• The claim value is too low to justify the security or the correspondent cost the measure would require.
• No identifiable asset exists in a jurisdiction where a freezing measure could actually be enforced.
• The debtor is a state entity protected by sovereign immunity and no waiver of that immunity has been recorded.
• The underlying claim is weak or already outside its limitation period, in which case no limitation period in cross-border claims analysis will rescue an interim application built on it.

Where we work

Within the European Union, an application can often proceed under Regulation (EU) 655/2014, which created a common European account preservation order procedure precisely for cross-border claims of this kind. Outside that framework, the route runs through the national law of the jurisdiction where the asset sits, and the measure is only as strong as the local court's willingness to grant it without notice.

Where an arbitration underlies the dispute, interim measures granted by the tribunal or by a supporting court sit alongside the framework the New York Convention 1958 provides for the eventual award, though the two instruments serve different stages of the same file. Once a measure has done its work, converting it into payment is a separate question, addressed under enforcement of foreign judgments. In every jurisdiction, the filing itself is handled by admitted lawyers and licensed providers in the jurisdiction concerned, coordinated from a single point of contact.

Common questions

What is interim relief in a cross-border claim?

It is a provisional court order that freezes or preserves a specific asset, account or shipment before the underlying claim is decided. It protects the target of a future judgment; it does not itself establish or pay the debt.

How quickly can an asset freezing order be obtained?

Speed depends on the jurisdiction, the instrument used and how quickly the asset and its location can be identified with enough precision for a court to act. We assess this on the facts of each file rather than on a fixed timetable.

Does interim relief ensure that assets will still be there at judgment?

No. It preserves what is identified and reached at the time the order bites, and it must be maintained, complied with and eventually converted into enforcement. Assets not covered by the order remain exposed to being moved.

A creditor who files the substantive claim first and thinks about the debtor's assets afterward is often filing against a shell. The window in which a bank account, a vessel or a receivable can still be reached closes the moment the debtor learns that a claim is coming.