Coordinated Transnational Interaction in Civil Litigation and Arbitration

About fifteen years ago, an English shipowner chartered his vessel, the Mareva, to time charterers. After a while, the charterers discontinued payment on the charter and the shipowner instituted court proceedings against them. The plaintiff, concerned about the ability and willingness of the defendants to satisfy an expected judgment, simultaneously applied for a preliminary injunction restraining the defendants from disposing of a subcharter which had been paid into their London bank account. The injunction was granted. Since then, injunctions of this kind have been denominated “Mareva injunctions,” although it was the second, rather than the first, case where such an injunction had been given.