London appeals court lifts worldwide freezing order in £415 million fraud case after finding that the claimant obtained privileged information through unlawful means

A London appeals court has lifted a worldwide freezing order (a court order preventing a defendant from moving or dissipating assets anywhere in the world, one of the most powerful interim remedies available in English law) that had been granted in a $415 million fraud case involving Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego as the alleged victim. The court ruled that Salinas had obtained privileged information belonging to his opponent by means described as both "unlawful as well as abusive", and that this misconduct justified setting aside the freezing order, according to Law360 reporting. The ruling is significant for several reasons. First, it demonstrates that English courts will refuse to maintain powerful interim remedies where the party that obtained them has itself acted improperly in the litigation process. Second, the use of what the court characterised as a "spy tactic" to extract privileged communications from a solicitor strikes at one of the most fundamental protections in English legal proceedings: legal professional privilege. The court's characterisation of the conduct as both unlawful and abusive suggests that the behaviour may have consequences beyond the immediate loss of the freezing order. For practitioners, the case reinforces that the integrity of the process by which freezing orders are obtained is itself subject to scrutiny, and that any party using covert or improper means to gather information risks not only losing the relief it has obtained but potentially exposing itself to further adverse costs orders or contempt proceedings. No law firm advisers were named in the Law360 report.