Briefing

High Court draws jurisdictional limits on Chabra relief in Gilbert v Broadoak

The scope of the court’s jurisdiction to award Chabra relief now appears more limited and will apply only where the underlying claim is ongoing. A recent judgment has clarified certain issues considered in Commercial Bank of Dubai v Al Sari [2024] EWHC 3304 (Comm), which held (obiter) that applicants may in principle rely upon the ‘Enactment Gateway’ in order to utilise the Chabra relief against non-parties and preserve international assets held by them to the order of the judgment debtor.

What is the Chabra jurisdiction?

Since the 1990s, the so-called “Chabra” relief has enabled victims of fraud and misfeasance to restrict the ability of non-parties (i.e. those persons against whom no underlying cause of action exists) to dissipate assets capable of satisfying a judgment debt.

Although the Chabra jurisdiction can in principle extend to overseas non-parties and assets, the recent English High Court judgment in Gilbert v Broadoak Private Finance Ltd [2026] EWHC 153 (KB) (Gilbert v Broadoak) demonstrates that the relief is subject to clear jurisdictional limits. In particular, the court will not grant Chabra relief internationally without a valid gateway for service out of the jurisdiction — even where there is evidence of asset dissipation and conduct capable of frustrating the administration of justice.

Overview

On 30 January 2026, David Quest KC sitting in the London Circuit Commercial Court handed down judgment following the return date hearing in a without notice (ex parte) worldwide freezing order (WFO) made by Bird J in August 2025, pursuant to the court’s Chabra jurisdiction. The court ruled that the judge at the without notice hearing had erred in granting the application to serve the WFO outside the jurisdiction on the respondents in Spain because none of the service gateways specified in Practice Direction 6B of the Civil Procedure Rules (the PD6B Gateways) had been satisfied. The court accordingly discharged the WFO.

Background to the Chabra jurisdiction

In the 1992 judgment of TSB Bank v Chabra [1992] 1 WLR 231, the court recognised that where an applicant has a good arguable cause of action against defendant A, and provided that there is good reason to suppose that assets held in the name of non-party defendant B can be used to satisfy a judgment against A, it has the power to grant a freezing order against B, notwithstanding that the applicant has no cause of action against B. Subsequent case law confirmed that the Chabra jurisdiction is not limited to circumstances where the non-party holds assets in which the defendant has a proprietary interest, such as those arising out of a trust.

As with the court’s powers of injunction generally, the Chabra jurisdiction may only be exercised where it is just and convenient to do so. It is reserved for exceptional circumstances and must be exercised with caution so that innocent third parties who are not substantive defendants and have not acted to frustrate the administration of justice are not oppressed.

In plain terms, the Chabra jurisdiction is a powerful tool for victims of fraud and misfeasance. As both an interim remedy and means of enforcing a final judgment, Chabra relief ensures that judgment debtors cannot put assets out of reach of judgment creditors by transferring them to third parties who may not otherwise be directly liable to the judgment creditor.

However, for parties seeking to enforce a final judgment (as opposed to an interim injunction pending judgment on the underlying claim), there was uncertainty as to whether the Chabra jurisdiction extended to non-parties resident outside the jurisdiction with no assets in the jurisdiction. Gilbert v Broadoak appears to answer that question in the negative.

Case background

The applicants to the WFO proceedings were an investor and his company (the Applicants). The Applicants had previously obtained an unsatisfied judgment of approximately £4.2 million owed by Broadoak Private Finance Limited (the Defendant). The Applicants had only recovered approximately £600,000 of the judgment debt. Accordingly, they sought to preserve assets which they alleged had been diverted from the Defendant to the wife of the Defendant’s shareholder (the First Respondent) and a Spanish company in which the First Respondent was an officer (the Second Respondent) (together, the Respondents). The court at the without notice hearing granted the WFO in accordance with the Chabra jurisdiction.

At the return hearing, the Respondents applied to discharge the WFO on several grounds, including that none of the PD6B Gateways had been met.

Judgment

At the return hearing, the Applicants submitted that the following PD6B Gateways were satisfied, which the court ruled on as follows:

In determining whether the court should continue the WFO, the essential question was whether the court could exercise jurisdiction over the Respondents in Spain. To succeed on the jurisdictional issue, the Applicants had to show that at least one of the PD6B Gateways was satisfied.

Jurisdictional gateway	Applicants position	Court’s ruling
Gateway 2: ‘the injunction gateway’	A claim is made for an injunction ordering the defendant to do or refrain from doing an act within the jurisdiction; freezing orders accordingly fall within the scope of a claim making such an order.	Case law confirms that freezing injunctions are excluded from the scope of this gateway because “injunction” in this instance refers only to final, substantive relief and not to interim remedies.
Gateway 3: ‘necessary or proper party’	The Respondents were necessary or proper parties to the claim against the Defendant, being necessary parties to any further enforcement claims that may be brought against the Defendant in England.	This gateway requires that there must be a common issue to be investigated between the Defendant and the Respondents. The court had already entered final judgment against the Defendant, and therefore there were no pending issues, which remained to be tried.
Gateway 10: ‘enforcing a judgment’	The Applicants made the application to facilitate enforcement of judgments and costs entered by the English courts against the Defendant (as an English-registered company), which remained unsatisfied.	Previous case law confirms that this gateway is not available for relief ordered under the Chabra jurisdiction because the purpose of a freezing injunction is not in itself enforcement but to prevent the right of enforcement from being rendered ineffective by asset dissipation.
Gateway 11: ‘property within the jurisdiction’	The subject matter of the application related to the Defendant’s judgment debt, which is a chose in action payable in England.	The subject of the WFO was not the judgment debt but rather assets held by the Respondents (as non-parties), which were not within the jurisdiction.
Gateway 20: ‘the enactment gateway’	A claim is made under an enactment which allows proceedings to be brought and those proceedings are not covered by any of the other PD6B Gateways; accordingly the WFO application was made under s.37 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 i.e. an enactment, which therefore empowers the court to grant injunctive relief.	S.37 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 is not an enactment which allows proceedings to be brought. Instead, s.37 is “concerned only with remedies available in proceedings that are otherwise properly brought”.

Although the court accepted that the substantive conditions for Chabra relief were met, including evidence that funds paid out by the Defendant were misapplied and that there was a risk of dissipation, it departed from the commentary in the earlier case of Commercial Bank of Dubai v Al Sari [2024] EWHC 3304 (Comm) (Commercial Bank of Dubai), which suggested (obiter) that applicants may in principle rely upon the Gateway 20 (the ‘Enactment Gateway’) to avail themselves of Chabra relief in respect of foreign non-parties holding assets to the order of the judgment debtor. Here, the court ruled that neither the Enactment Gateway nor any other PD6B Gateways operate in these circumstances. Accordingly, in the absence of a jurisdictional link, a Chabra order could not be made because permission to serve the application out of the jurisdiction upon the Respondents in Spain should not have been granted. The court therefore discharged the WFO in full.

In closing, the court acknowledged that the outcome may appear harsh given that the English judgment remained unsatisfied and there was a body of evidence which supported freezing relief. However, the court emphasised that any expansion of the court’s jurisdiction to assist enforcement against overseas non-parties would be a matter for the Civil Procedure Rules Committee and not for judicial discretion.

Key takeaways

For victims of fraud or misfeasance in possession of a final judgment seeking to prevent dissipation by the judgment debtor where the assets are held by non-parties residing outside the jurisdiction, Gilbert v Broadoak represents a significant constraint on extra-territorial asset protection and underlines that there are limits to the extent to which the courts are prepared to establish jurisdiction against extra-territorial non-parties.

Following Commercial Bank of Dubai, Gilbert v Broadoak also reflects the importance of undertaking asset investigations at an early stage so that any actionable interim relief can be sought and awarded before the substantive proceedings are concluded. This is because Gateway 3 (‘necessary or proper party’) requires there to be a live ‘anchor issue’ with the defendant against whom the cause of action exists. When in possession of a final judgment, it now appears unlikely that the court will be persuaded that there is such a live ‘anchor issue’.

We do however understand that an appeal has been granted and so it remains to be seen as to whether the reasoning and decision will be upheld. In the meantime, the court when granting permission to appeal also allowed the WFO to remain in place, pending determination of the appeal. We will write further once the appeal decision has been published.

Maria Alexandroff, Associate, assisted in the preparation of this briefing.