CAYMAN ISLANDS Law and Practice Contributed by: Alan Bercow, Jae Shin and Ross McLeod, Appleby
2.9 Compelling Witnesses to Give Evidence The Cayman Islands courts have the power to issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to give oral evidence in legal proceedings. Further, where a person (whether or not a party to the proceedings) swears an affidavit in the liti - gation, the court has the power to order that per - son to attend the court for cross-examination in respect of their affidavit evidence. In fraud pro - ceedings, it can be important to cross-examine a defendant on their asset disclosure affidavit – for example, where it is incomplete or inaccurate, as part of the policing of the freezing injunc - tion. However, the court does not have power to compel a witness who is not within the Cay - man Islands to attend for cross-examination (In The Matter of a Company [2025] CIGC (FSB) 13). The Hague Convention on the Taking of Evi - dence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters has been extended to the Cayman Islands by the UK. In respect of witnesses who are out - side the Cayman Islands, the Cayman Islands courts will grant letters of request for information and testimony, and likewise will receive letters of request and make orders for a witness in the Cayman Islands to be examined in relation to proceedings in another convention state. 3. Corporate Entities, Ultimate Beneficial Owners and Shareholders 3.1 Imposing Liability for Fraud on to a Corporate Entity In the Cayman Islands, the attribution of an indi - vidual’s knowledge to a corporate entity follows English common law principles – primarily, the “identification doctrine” articulated in Meridian
ings, and for courts to award injunctive relief, against defendants identified other than by name ( “persons unknown” ) (Ernst & Young Ltd v Department of Immigration, and v Tibbetts and Persons Unknown [2015] 1 CILR 151). Plead - ings against such “persons unknown” must be made with sufficient particularity that any per - son to whom any court order (against “persons unknown” ) is shown should be able to know whether or not it is descriptive of (and therefore directed to) that person. Due to the difficulties relating to service of docu - ments to “persons unknown” , claimants will gen - erally need to apply for: • dispensation of personal service; and • authorisation of alternative or substituted service by means that could reasonably be expected to notify the persons likely to be affected by the terms of any order. The Cayman Islands courts have broad powers and wide discretion to provide for substituted service (see 4.2 Service of Proceedings out of the Jurisdiction ). Examples of such methods from more recent English authorities (which will have persuasive effect in the Cayman Islands) in the crypto-fraud context are likely to be illustra - tive for similar cases in the Cayman Islands. In 2022, in the case of D’Aloia v Persons Unknown [2022] EWHC 1723 (Ch), the English High Court authorised service on unknown crypto-fraud - sters in the form of non-fungible tokens via Airdrop into the digital wallets into which the claimant had been fraudulently induced into transferring their crypto-assets.
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