ADGM Freezing Orders & Injunctions

The ADGM Courts grant the full common-law range of urgent relief – freezing injunctions (including worldwide freezing orders), search and asset-disclosure orders, and prohibitory, mandatory and anti-suit injunctions – often without notice. The power comes from section 41 of the ADGM Courts Regulations 2015 (which mirrors section 37 of the UK Senior Courts Act 1981), and the test is the familiar English one: a good arguable case, a real risk of dissipation, and that it is just and convenient. In A17 v B17 & Others [2025] ADGMCFI 0001 the Court confirmed it can grant a worldwide freezing order, including to support enforcement of a foreign arbitral award. Without-notice relief carries heavy duties: full and frank disclosure and a cross-undertaking in damages.

At a glance

• Statutory basis: Section 41, ADGM Courts Regulations 2015 (mirrors s.37 Senior Courts Act 1981)
• Test: Good arguable case · real risk of dissipation · just and convenient
• Reach: Worldwide freezing orders available (A17 v B17 [2025] ADGMCFI 0001)
• Without notice: Available, with full and frank disclosure + a cross-undertaking
• In support of: Litigation and arbitration (including before the tribunal is constituted)
• Not security: Restrains dealing up to a value; gives no priority over other creditors

1. What interim relief the ADGM Courts grant

Beyond freezing injunctions, the ADGM Courts can grant search orders (to preserve evidence at risk of destruction), asset-disclosure orders, prohibitory and mandatory injunctions, anti-suit injunctions (to restrain proceedings brought in breach of a jurisdiction or arbitration agreement), and security for costs – the full common-law menu of interim relief, granted in appropriate cases without notice to the other side. For a claimant worried that a defendant will move money or destroy documents before judgment, this toolkit is the single most important practical reason to be in the ADGM Courts rather than a forum without it.

2. The statutory basis

The jurisdiction derives from section 41 of the ADGM Courts, Civil Evidence, Judgments, Enforcement and Judicial Appointments Regulations 2015, which is modelled on section 37 of the UK Senior Courts Act 1981 (the source of the English freezing-order jurisdiction), supplemented by the ADGM Court Procedure Rules on interim remedies. Because the ADGM applies English law directly, the substantial body of English freezing-order jurisprudence – from Mareva onwards – is highly persuasive, which gives both applicants and respondents a deep, predictable set of principles to work from. That is a real advantage over forums where the law on interim relief is thin or untested. The DIFC Courts offer a closely equivalent freezing-order jurisdiction.

3. The test for a freezing order

An applicant must generally show three things: a good arguable case on the substantive merits; a real risk that assets will be dissipated or moved beyond the Court’s reach (more than mere suspicion – there must be solid evidence, often of concealment, evasiveness or a history of moving assets); and that it is just and convenient to grant the order in all the circumstances. The order restrains the respondent from dealing with assets up to a stated value, usually with an allowance for ordinary living and legitimate business expenses and legal costs. Critically, a freezing order is not security: it does not give the applicant any proprietary interest in or priority over the frozen assets as against other creditors – it simply holds the position pending judgment.

4. Worldwide freezing orders

The reach can extend beyond the ADGM. In A17 v B17 & Others [2025] ADGMCFI 0001, the Court confirmed its jurisdiction to grant a worldwide freezing order – reaching the respondent’s assets wherever they are – including in support of enforcing a foreign (LCIA) arbitral award, deriving the power from the Founding Law and the ADGM Regulations rather than any institutional rules. A worldwide order carries the usual protections: the standard Babanaft-type provisos protecting third parties and foreign assets, and an acknowledgement that steps to enforce it in another country generally need that country’s permission. For a creditor chasing assets spread across jurisdictions, the worldwide order is the difference between a paper win and a recoverable one.

5. Without-notice applications and the applicant’s duties

Where giving notice would simply let the assets be moved first, the application is made without notice (ex parte). In return, the applicant owes a heavy duty of full and frank disclosure – it must fairly put before the Court the points against it, not just its own case – and gives a cross-undertaking in damages to compensate the respondent (and affected third parties) if the order turns out to have been wrongly granted. The Court may require that undertaking to be fortified by a payment into court or a bank guarantee, particularly where the applicant is foreign or of uncertain means. A material non-disclosure is one of the most common reasons a freezing order is later discharged – so the without-notice hearing must be prepared with real care.

6. Ancillary and supporting orders

A freezing order rarely travels alone. It is usually accompanied by an asset-disclosure order requiring the respondent to disclose the nature, value and location of its assets on affidavit – without which the freezing order is hard to police – and it is served on relevant banks and third parties, who are bound the moment they are notified and risk contempt if they knowingly assist a breach. The order carries a penal notice warning of the consequences of disobedience. Getting the ancillary package right – disclosure, service on the right banks, and clear carve-outs for living and business expenses – is as important as the freezing order itself.

7. Freezing relief in support of arbitration

The ADGM Courts can grant freezing and other interim relief in support of arbitration, including before the tribunal is constituted – the point at which a tribunal cannot yet act and assets are most at risk – complementing the tribunal’s own powers once it is in place. As A17 v B17 shows, that support extends to securing assets pending the enforcement of an award. For parties who have chosen an ADGM seat, or who simply have assets within reach of the ADGM, this court-ordered backstop is a major part of the ADGM’s appeal as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction; we cover the award side on enforcing arbitral awards in the ADGM.

8. Enforcing the order – abroad and against third parties

An ADGM freezing order binds the respondent personally and binds any notified third party within the Court’s reach. Enforcing it against assets in another country, however, generally requires a fresh, supporting order from the courts of that jurisdiction – the worldwide order is an in personam restraint, not a self-executing seizure abroad – so a cross-border freeze is often a coordinated exercise across two or more sets of lawyers, run to a tight timetable. Onshore in the UAE, an ADGM order takes effect through the ADGM’s enforcement framework and, where it crystallises into a judgment, through the reciprocal-enforcement memoranda with the Dubai and Abu Dhabi courts (covered on enforcing an ADGM judgment). Planning the enforcement route at the same time as the application – not after – is what turns an order into recovered assets.

9. Common pitfalls

The issues that sink applications are predictable, and avoidable. Thin dissipation evidence – mere suspicion, or the bare fact that a defendant is foreign, is not enough. Non-disclosure on a without-notice application – the single most frequent ground for discharge. A vague or over-broad asset schedule that the respondent can attack as oppressive. Overlooking the cross-undertaking and fortification, or offering one the applicant plainly cannot honour. And treating the order as the end of the matter rather than the start: a freezing order needs to be policed, varied as circumstances change, and backed by an enforcement plan in the jurisdictions where the assets actually sit.

10. The ADGM injunctions practice

ATB Legal brings and resists urgent applications in the ADGM Courts – freezing injunctions, worldwide freezing orders, search and disclosure orders, and interim relief in support of arbitration – and acts to discharge or vary orders wrongly obtained, coordinating cross-border freezes with counsel in the jurisdictions where the assets sit.

Frequently asked questions