ENGLAND & WALES Law and Practice Contributed by: James Herring, Nathalie Allen and David Wigg, Addleshaw Goddard
1. Identifying Assets in the Jurisdiction 1.1 Options to Identify Another Party’s Asset Position Before considering enforcement options in England and Wales, it is important to assess the judgment debtor’s asset position in the jurisdiction. There are a number of options available to identify the judgment debtor’s asset position, including the following. • Enquiries of the following publicly available sourc - es: (a) the Land Registry – to confirm the ownership of real estate along with information about any registered charges over the property; (b) the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Register – to ascertain whether an individual is recorded to be involved in a form of insolvency process or the subject of any related orders (it is also possible to carry out searches for sole traders using the trading name); (c) Companies House – company accounts are available, as well as details about the com - pany’s directors, shareholders and registered charges relating to the company (Companies House also details whether the company is subject to an insolvency process, and it is now possible under the Economic Crime (Transpar - ency and Enforcement) Act 2022 to search at Companies House for information relating to the beneficial ownership of overseas corpora - tions owning UK real estate); (d) the attachment of earnings order index – this is used to ascertain whether a party has a pre- existing attachment of earnings order against them; (e) the Insolvency and Companies List of the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales provides some information about active proceedings; and (f) the Aircraft Registration section of the Civil Aviation Authority and the UK Register of Air - craft Mortgages. • Instructing an enquiry agent to carry out a lawful investigation to identify any further assets in the jurisdiction. • Applying to court for an order that the judgment debtor (or director of a company judgment debtor)
attends court and sets out its financial position under oath. Having identified that a judgment debtor has assets in the jurisdiction, in some cases it will be possible to obtain a post-judgment freezing order, which restrains the judgment debtor from dissipating its assets and can require the judgment debtor to deliver up informa - tion regarding its assets. 2. Domestic Judgments 2.1 Types of Domestic Judgments The types of judgment most commonly available from the courts of England and Wales are: • money judgments – the defendant is ordered to pay a sum of money; • final injunctions – the defendant is ordered to take a specific action or to not take or stop taking spe - cific action; and • declaratory relief – the court makes a declaration as to the parties’ respective rights. Money judgments and final injunctions are judgments in which the court determines the respective rights of the parties and orders one or both to act in a particular way. These can be directly enforced in England and Wales. Judgments for declaratory relief do not order any party to act in a particular way that is enforceable. However, if a party subsequently acts in a way that is inconsist - ent with the court’s declaration, the other party can start proceedings to enforce their rights based on the declaration. Judgments in England and Wales usually follow a full trial on the merits of the dispute, with the following exceptions: • early determination might be obtained without full trial in a very clear case (through an application for summary judgment or strike-out); • interim remedies may be granted pending full trial – eg, an interim injunction freezing a person’s assets; and
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