A New Gateway Opens ' More English Court Options For Victims Of Overseas Fraud

• Published date: 24 November 2022
• Law Firm: Proskauer Rose LLP
• Author: Ms Dorothy Murray, Julia Bihary and Charles Bishop

Recent rule changes allow claimants full access to key English law mechanisms to discover the identity of defendants and location of assets, even where the wrongdoers and third parties are not based in England. This is highly relevant for victims of cyber-crime and crypto frauds.

To bring an English Court claim against a non-English defendant, a claimant must serve proceedings out of the jurisdiction. This typically requires permission of the English Court, who will consider - among other matters - if it falls within one of the defined sets of circumstances or service "gateways" listed in the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). These include where the contract is made in England or governed by English law, where one of a group of defendants is within the jurisdiction, or where a claim is made to enforce a judgment or arbitral award.

Victims of fraud often do not know the identity of the fraudster or the current location of their stolen assets, particularly in cases of cybercrime and crypto-asset litigation. English law contains a number of useful tools for such claimants, which can collectively be considered as "information orders":

• Norwich Pharmacal...