BRITISH Judge, Lord Denning, MR (Master of the Rolls) was the Revolutionary judge, who had introduced that special type of Injunction, known as “THE MAREVA INJUNCTION’.

THE MAREVA INJUNCTION has since become one of the pillars of injunctive Law.

Senior Counsel Mr. Oliver Valz, adverted to this in a recent case, when agreeing with a High Court judge that injunctions should not be granted in every case.
According to Mr. Valz, a veteran lawyer, MAREVA is a special type of injunction known to the judges of the High Court of England, when an injunction could not be granted to reach out to property outside of the United Kingdom and which was owned by the defendant.
Lord Denning held contrary to the established practiced when the Court had power to prevent a defendant from disposing of his foreign assets pending the hearing and determination of an action.
He felt that in a proper case the Court should forbid a defendant from disposing of either his local or foreign assets if the circumstance merited it.

To make this Order effective, it was competent for the Court to order such a defendant not to leave the jurisdiction, unless he provided adequate security against disposing of such property (whether in or out of the jurisdiction.
It was a landmark ruling.
Judges did not make provision for the defendant who might dispose of assets, cheating the successful plaintiff of the fruits of his judgements by deliberately stripping himself of all his tangible assets.

Lord Denning put a stop to that. And that type of injunction is now called “The Mareva Injunction’, Mr. Valz disclosed.
At this stage, Mr. Valz referred to a moment in legal history during the 1970’s when he had the opportunity to meet in Guyana the most ‘influential judge in the 20th century’ … Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls and author of the famous ‘MAREVA INJUNCTION’.
According to Mr. Valz, his intellectuality and fearlessness were demonstrated so often, that there were times when his opinions differed from established dicta (judicial decisions) of previous Courts of Appeal.

But, Mr. Valz declared that matters did it stop there.
He added, “In several cases, new rules of Court were formulated by the British Parliament, to adopt his views which are more commensurate with request of modern day justice.
Mr. Valz said that he was fortunate to be photographed in conversation with Lord Denning, MR, during the visit of the great man himself.
Also in that picture was Chief Justice Mr. Harold Bollers and Guyanese lawyer, Mr. A. Shakoor Manraj.

Valz went on to point out, that as a matter of interest, Lord Denning, who recently died at the age of 100, had handed down many revolutionary judgements.
THE MAREVA INJUNCTION was one of the revolutionary judgements”, Mr. Valz explained.

According to Mr Valz, that decision was considered so revolutionary, that it was not published in the All England Law Report that year nor the following year, as it was being considered to be too divergent from previous opinions, on the matter of the granting of injunctions to restrain debtors within the jurisdiction of the court, from making adequate provisions by way of Security for the payment of a possible judgement in favour of the plaintiff, when the plaintiff had established that the defendant had sufficient property or means to furnish such security,” Valz said.

And, he pointed out that Lord Denning’s decision was subsequently published two years later and has since become one of the pillars of Injunctive Law.

According to legal statistics, Chapter 2 of “The Mareva Injunction” disclosed that since the introduction of the Mareva Injunction in 1975, the Mareva Injunction has become a well-established feature of civil litigation.

“No civil practitioner should be unfamiliar with its use. It has now been extended to include orders of ‘worldwide’ effect, and to cover assets of all varieties.
“But the fundamental principle of the jurisdiction remains essentially as Lord Denning MR stated it in the original Mareva case:

“If it appears that (a) debt is due and owing – and there is a danger that the debtor may dispose of his assets so as to defeat it before judgement – the Court has jurisdiction in a proper case to grant an interlocutory judgment, so as to prevent him disposing of those assets.”