Powerful, urgent, and demanding of the applicant
In short
- Obtained urgently, usually without notice to the other side.
- The applicant's duties are as serious as the relief itself.
- We apply for freezing orders, and we act for parties served with them.
A freezing order stops a party from dealing with its assets before the court decides the case. Because Cyprus companies sit inside international structures, a Cyprus freezing order often matters to a dispute being fought somewhere else entirely, and the law allows for that expressly: orders can be sought before an action is filed, and in support of proceedings running outside Cyprus.
Both sides of the experience make the advice better. Having discharged other people's orders, we know what the respondent will attack; having obtained our own, we know what the judge needs to see.
If assets are about to move
Write to us first and mark it urgent. Tell us the names, so we can run a conflict check, what is owed, where the assets sit and what suggests they are moving. The documents follow as soon as we confirm we can act, and the number is below if you would rather speak to someone. A freezing application is prepared in days, and the preparation is mostly evidence.
The legal test
Three conditions, and a fourth in practice
All three must be satisfied together, and in a freezing case the third has a concrete shape.
The power itself is in section 32(1) of the Courts of Justice Law 14/1960: the court may grant an interim order, prohibitory, perpetual or mandatory, or appoint a receiver, where it considers it just or convenient, even where no damages or other relief is claimed alongside it. The proviso to the same subsection is where the three conditions come from, and they are cumulative. No interim order is granted unless the court is satisfied that there is a serious question to be tried at the hearing, that there is a probability the applicant is entitled to relief, and that it will be difficult or impossible to do complete justice at a later stage if the order is not made.
In a freezing application, the third condition takes the form of dissipation risk: a real prospect that, by the time judgment comes, the assets will have been disposed of or moved beyond the reach of the Cyprus courts. That risk is the heart of the application, and it must be concrete. A defendant who is merely foreign, or merely rich, is not enough: transfers to related parties, restructurings after the dispute surfaced, assets whose nature makes them movable overnight, that is the material the court acts on.
The power is flexible in time and place, and the statute says so in terms. Section 32(A1) gives the court jurisdiction to hear an application for interim relief at any time, including before a claim is filed and after judgment has been given, in relation to judicial or arbitral proceedings held, being held, or to be held inside or outside the jurisdiction. Where those proceedings are outside Cyprus, section 32(AB1) sets out the connecting factors, any one of which will do: the respondent is within the jurisdiction, or the property or the subject matter of the relief is within the jurisdiction, or there is such other connection with the Republic as makes the court appropriate to hear and decide the application.
The price of ex parte
Full and frank disclosure, and the undertaking
Relief obtained without notice comes with obligations the applicant cannot negotiate away.
Freezing relief is usually sought without notice, because notice defeats the purpose. In exchange, the applicant owes the court full and frank disclosure: every material fact goes before the judge, including everything that hurts the application. A material omission gives the respondent a ready ground to have the order set aside, with costs, and with the applicant's credibility spent, although the court retains a discretion to vary rather than discharge where the omission was innocent and the facts still justify relief. It is not a gamble worth taking.
The applicant is also normally required to undertake to compensate the respondent if the order proves to have been wrongly granted, and section 32(3) separately allows the court, where an interim order was based on insufficient grounds, or where the claim fails or judgment goes against the applicant and it appears there was no probable ground for bringing it, to order reasonable compensation for the costs and the damage caused by the execution of the order. Payment of that compensation bars any separate action for damages for anything done under the order, and an action already brought may be stayed. Under section 32(2) the order may be granted on such terms and conditions as the court thinks just, and the court may at any time, on proof of reasonable cause, set it aside or vary it. Freezing relief is powerful precisely because it carries obligations this serious.
If you may need a freezing order, or one has been served on you, tell us what proceedings it supports and whether they are in Cyprus or abroad, at office@kleanthousplatis.com, or the enquiry form. We reply within one business day.
What the order can reach
Accounts, shares, property, and information
An order that freezes unknown assets is a blunt instrument, so disclosure usually travels with it.
Orders can cover bank accounts, shares in Cyprus companies, immovable property and other assets, within limits the court sets, and they routinely carve out ordinary living and legal expenses.
The court can also order the respondent to disclose what assets exist and where. That power is real but not automatic: its scope is measured against what the freezing order actually needs, and orders drawn wider than their purpose have been struck down.
Where the information sits with a third party that is innocently mixed up in the wrongdoing, most often a bank, Cyprus courts grant Norwich Pharmacal orders compelling that third party to reveal what it knows. That remedy has its own article: see Norwich Pharmacal orders in Cyprus. Where the freezing order is part of recovering money lost to deceit or conspiracy, the whole sequence is set out on Fraud and Asset Recovery in Cyprus.
The other side of the order
If you have been served with one
Comply immediately, then attack. Improvisation in the first week is what loses these fights.
The order binds you from the moment you know of it, and breach is contempt. The response has a sequence: comply, then attack on the established grounds: material non-disclosure at the ex parte stage, no real risk of dissipation, an undertaking that is worthless, delay by the applicant, or an order wider than any legitimate purpose requires.
The living and legal expense provisions can usually be renegotiated even where the order itself survives. What loses respondents these fights is improvisation: transfers in the first week that look like exactly what the applicant predicted.
Common questions
How quickly can a freezing order be obtained in Cyprus?
In genuinely urgent cases, within days. The preparation is mostly evidence: tracing the assets, documenting the dissipation risk, and drafting the disclosure. If the case justifies moving, we say so and move; if it does not, we say that too, because an application that fails on discharge costs more than it ever protected.
Can assets be frozen before I file my claim?
Yes. Section 32(A1) of the Courts of Justice Law 14/1960 allows an application for interim relief at any time, including before a claim is filed and after judgment, and rule 25.4 of the Civil Procedure Rules 2023 says the same on the procedural side. The order is then maintained through the proceedings it protects.
The main case is abroad. Can Cyprus assets still be frozen?
Yes. Section 32(A1) of the Courts of Justice Law 14/1960 extends the power to judicial or arbitral proceedings held, being held or to be held outside the jurisdiction, and section 32(AB1) sets out when a Cyprus court will take such an application: where the respondent is here, or where the property or the subject matter of the relief is here, or where there is such other connection with the Republic as makes this court the appropriate one. Any one of the three will do. This is one of the most common reasons foreign teams bring us in.
I have been served with a freezing order. What do I do first?
Comply, immediately and visibly, and take advice the same day. The grounds for discharge are established and are argued properly or not at all. What you must not do is move assets: breach is contempt, and early transfers become the applicant's best evidence.
What does the court have to be satisfied of before it freezes anything?
Under the Civil Procedure Rules 2023 (13/2023) an interim injunction is weighed on whether there is an arguable case, whether damages would be an adequate remedy for the respondent, where the balance of convenience lies, and what preserves the status quo. A freezing order asks one thing more, and it is the thing that decides most applications: a real risk that the assets will be moved or dissipated before a judgment can be enforced against them. An arguable case without that risk is not a freezing order, it is an ordinary claim.
Can the court order a search of premises as well?
It can, and it is the most intrusive order the rules provide. A search order is granted where the claim is very strong, where serious damage would follow if the other side were told first, and where there is reasonable ground to believe that documents or property are there and would not survive notice. Execution is carried out under the supervision of an advocate, which is a condition of the order rather than a courtesy. Search orders are rare, and rightly.
Can an order reach assets that are in someone else's hands?
Yes. The rules provide for protective and prohibitory orders against third parties holding property, which is how a bank, a nominee or a company holding an asset for the respondent is brought inside the order. There is a separate power to order documents or property to be delivered up. Which of them fits depends on where the asset actually sits, which is why the tracing work is done before the application rather than after it.
Can a freezing order be suspended once it has been made?
Yes, on application. Rule 25.8 of the Civil Procedure Rules 2023 allows an interim order to be stayed on application, and section 32(2) of the Courts of Justice Law 14/1960 lets the court set aside or vary any interim order at any time on proof of reasonable cause. Separately it can be discharged on the established grounds, of which the one most often relied on is a failure to make full and frank disclosure at the stage when the respondent was not there to answer. That is why the disclosure in the supporting affidavit is drafted as carefully as the order itself. An application that succeeds on the day and is discharged three weeks later has cost the client twice.
Is freezing the only interim order worth considering?
No, and choosing wrongly is expensive. The schedule to Part 25 of the rules sets out three forms: an order appointing an interim receiver, a freezing order, and a search order. They answer different problems. A freezing order stops assets moving. A receiver takes control of something that has to keep running or keep its value. A search order preserves evidence that would not survive notice. The choice is made from the facts about the asset, not from the strength of feeling about the respondent.
Who leads this work
Between them the partners bring more than 40 years of practice in Cyprus. Every matter is run by one of them.
Andreas Kleanthous
Partner
Litigation, personal injury and insurance claims, debt recovery, administrative law, real estate, wills and probate.
Klitos Platis
Partner
Litigation, corporate and commercial matters, property and construction, including pleadings, interim applications and trial preparation.
Written on this subject
Norwich Pharmacal Orders in Cyprus: Disclosure Against a Third Party
LitigationEnforcing Foreign Judgments and Arbitral Awards in Cyprus
LitigationDirectors' Duties When a Cyprus Company Is Insolvent
CorporateAll our writing is on the writing index. Related: Litigation & Arbitration, Restructuring & Insolvency and Trusts, Wills & Succession.
Before instructing, tell us who is involved, what has happened and any deadline you are working to. Once the conflict check is clear we will ask for the claim or draft application, a chronology, what you know about the assets, and anything showing they are being moved.