Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE MAREVA INJUNCTION OR FREEZING ORDER
Michael Howard *
Fifty years ago, in 1975, a revolutionary innovation occurred in English procedural law, the introduction of what is officially named the freezing injunction, formerly and to some extent even now known as the Mareva injunction.
1
It was the consequence of two decisions of the Commercial Court, the Karageorgis and Mareva cases. The thesis of this article, lightly camouflaged, is that these cases and this change were brought about by a combination of four factors which are present in most such developments of the common law: the personal, the institutional, the technical legal and the accidental. It is an attempt to present all of them and to show that the first and particularly the last were disproportionately large contributors.
* KC, Quadrant Chambers. I am very grateful to the Rt Hon Sir Bernard Rix, who gave me his recollections of how the decision in the Mareva case (infra, fn.3) came about and his part in it. He does not necessarily agree with and is certainly not responsible for that or any other part of this article. I am also grateful to Ms Belinda Bucknall KC, who, as ever, read my draft with an eagle eye for infelicities, catachreses and typos.
We are grateful to Professor Adrian Briggs KC for the photograph on this page, which he recently took in Paris. His research did not lead him to a Café Freezing in the 18th Arrondissement.
1. Cf “Haddocks’ Eyes”, in L Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), ch.VIII.
608