The High Court discharges a worldwide freezing order after finding no legal basis to serve parties abroad
The High Court has discharged a worldwide freezing order against two overseas respondents after ruling that it lacked personal jurisdiction to maintain the injunction.
In a judgment handed down on 30 January 2026, the High Court of Justice set aside permission to serve proceedings out of the jurisdiction, concluding that none of the applicable jurisdictional gateways had been met.
The case arose from enforcement efforts by investor Benjamin Gilbert and his company, BG Projects Limited, following an unpaid judgment debt of approximately £4.2 million owed by Broadoak Private Finance Limited. Broadoak, an English company formerly involved in secured commercial property finance, had failed to repay loans made between 2017 and 2019. Judgment was ultimately entered against the company, partly in default and partly following a trial it did not attend.
After recovering around £600,000, the claimants sought to preserve assets they alleged had been diverted from Broadoak to third parties. In August 2025, a worldwide freezing order was granted without notice against Shahena Bleakley and King Street Capital SL, a Spanish company, under the Chabra jurisdiction. That jurisdiction allows freezing relief against non-defendants where there is good reason to suppose their assets may ultimately be available to satisfy a judgment against the main debtor.
At the return hearing, the respondents applied to discharge the order, arguing that the claimants had breached their duty of full and frank disclosure and that the court lacked jurisdiction to serve the application on parties based in Spain.
Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, David Quest KC found that there had been shortcomings in the presentation of the original without-notice application, particularly in relation to the complexity of the jurisdictional gateways relied upon. However, the court held that those failures alone did not justify discharge.
The decisive issue was jurisdiction. After a detailed analysis of each gateway relied upon by the claimants under CPR Practice Direction 6B, the court concluded that none applied. The judge rejected arguments based on enforcement, property within the jurisdiction, necessary or proper party status, and statutory enactments. As a result, permission to serve the application out of England and Wales should not have been granted.
Although the court accepted that the substantive conditions for Chabra relief were met, including evidence suggesting that funds paid out by Broadoak were misapplied and that there was a risk of dissipation, it ruled that these findings could not overcome the absence of jurisdiction.
The worldwide freezing order was therefore discharged in full.
In closing, the court acknowledged that the outcome may appear harsh, given the existence of an unpaid English judgment and evidence supporting freezing relief in principle. However, it emphasized that any expansion of jurisdiction to assist enforcement against overseas third parties would be a matter for procedural reform, not judicial discretion.