INTRODUCTION Contributed by: Gareth Keillor and Simon Bushell, Seladore Legal
moved at the push of a button, and evidence by video link is commonplace and facilitated, certain of the fac - tors which previously anchored claims in a particular jurisdiction are of less weight. Enforcement and the Circulation of Judgments At the enforcement stage, recent developments in the international recognition of civil judgments have attracted attention – including the Hague Judgments Convention coming into effect in the United Kingdom in July 2025. The continuing expansion of international frameworks governing the recognition and enforce - ment of judgments suggests a gradual movement towards a somewhat more orderly environment for the circulation of civil and commercial judgments across borders, in particular, in the jurisdictions in which assets are commonly located. It would nev - ertheless be mistaken to assume that enforcement has become straightforward. Careful analysis is still required in each individual case and the enforceability of judgments and awards can vary significantly across the world. International civil fraud practice also extends beyond the straightforward enforcement of judgments. In some cases, litigation concerns the allegation that a judgment or enforcement instrument has itself been procured by fraud. Proceedings of that kind, whilst rare, illustrate that modern civil fraud practitioners have tools available to them even to challenge judg - ments and awards, an example being the English High Court overturning a USD11 billion arbitration award on the grounds that it had been obtained through false evidence and corrupt payments. Digital Assets as Part of Mainstream Recovery Work Digital assets now form part of this landscape, although they no longer warrant treatment as an exotic category. The more significant development is that digital assets are increasingly being treated within ordinary private-law frameworks. Legislative devel - opments in England, including the enactment of the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, have clarified that a digital asset is not prevented from being the object of personal property rights merely because it does not fall within the traditional categories of a thing in possession or a thing in action. The legal importance
of that clarification lies in its confirmation that novel forms of value may be protected, traced and litigated over within an established proprietary framework. The practical challenge for civil fraud practitioners lies not simply in recognising the existence of digital assets, but in addressing the jurisdictional, evidential and procedural questions that accompany them. This is still an evolving area, but one in which principles are starting to solidify. Transparency and Beneficial Ownership Beneficial ownership reform continues to play an important role in the wider evidential environment in which asset tracing occurs. Transparency initia - tives over the past decade have sought to address the longstanding difficulty created by the separation between legal title and actual control. In many jurisdic - tions, beneficial ownership registers now exist, and additional reforms have sought to improve the verifi - cation of corporate information and the identification of controlling individuals. In the United Kingdom, recent reforms have intro - duced identity verification requirements for directors and persons with significant control, forming part of a broader effort to strengthen the reliability of cor - porate information held on the public register. Such measures do not eliminate the use of corporate struc - tures to obscure ownership, nor do they resolve the uneven quality of transparency across jurisdictions. They do, however, represent a gradual movement towards a more transparent regime for corporate con - trol arrangements. Whether this will simply drive bad actors elsewhere remains to be seen. Developments within the European regulatory frame - work are also relevant. The establishment of the EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), created under the EU’s 2024–2025 AML legislative package, forms part of a broader attempt to reduce fragmen - tation within the European system and to improve supervisory co-ordination. Although these develop - ments arise primarily within the public law sphere, they influence the wider environment in which civil asset recovery takes place by shaping the availability and reliability of financial information.
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