The judge found the freeze justified. The rules on serving papers abroad said otherwise
Investors traced €2.55m from a commercial property lender to a Spanish bank account. England's Court of Appeal says the freezing order they won can't be served on the people in Spain.
Between 2017 and 2019, an individual investor and his company, BG Projects Limited, lent substantial sums to Broadoak Private Finance Limited. Broadoak was an English company that financed commercial property investment, and the investors also held a minority stake in it. The loans fell due and went unpaid.
They sued in November 2023 and won. A default judgment the following month awarded them £3,314,303.19. A trial in June 2025, in which Broadoak did not take part, added £2,186,240.22.
Collecting has been harder.
Following the money
The investors froze Broadoak's assets worldwide, up to £1m and later £1.4m. They then obtained a freezing order against Broadoak's majority shareholder, on the basis that assets in his name were really available to pay the company's debts. According to the judgment, he has not engaged with that order and has failed to provide the asset disclosure he was ordered to give.
Next came the bank records. Broadoak's bank showed the majority shareholder had removed some £5m from the company's account. The evidence suggests about £800,000 went on personal spending by him and/or his wife, and £3.8m went to an account at TT Moneycorp Ltd. Records obtained from Moneycorp showed €2.55m moving on to a Spanish bank account in the wife's name. Other sums may have benefited King Street Capital SL, a Spanish company her husband owns. The wife's evidence is that the couple separated in 2022. Her husband was not a party to this appeal.
In July 2025 a judge froze the assets of the wife and the Spanish company worldwide, before they had been heard. When they challenged the order, the High Court judge rejected every challenge but one. He found "good reason to suppose" that the husband, acting as a Broadoak director, had caused payments to be made to them "for no proper purpose." He also found "a strong inference" that they "knew that they had no right to receive or benefit from the money."
The one challenge he accepted was enough to set the order aside. He kept it in force pending the investors' appeal.
A door with no key
The problem was reach. English courts need a specific rule, known as a gateway, before court papers can be served on someone abroad. The judge found none fit. The wife had disclosed about £5,000 in an English bank account. However, the gateway for injunctions covers only final relief, not freezing orders, under a 1979 House of Lords ruling the judge said bound him.
On September 22, 2026, the Court of Appeal agreed with him. The investors argued the Senior Courts Act 1981, which lets courts grant injunctions where it is "just and convenient," opened a route. In a unanimous decision, the court rejected that. The lead judgment said the provision is a general statement of the court's power, not a law that hands claimants a claim they can bring against people overseas. The court also refused permission on two further arguments. One of them would have treated the English judgment debt itself as property in England.
The court acknowledged the outcome "might not be seen as entirely attractive," given that the High Court found every condition for a freeze was met. It called it "a curiosity" that the rules allow a freezing order to be served abroad to support a foreign judgment but not an English one. Whether to change that, it said, is for the Rules Committee, which sets court procedure.
Not the last word
The investors have since brought claims under the Insolvency Act 1986 and for constructive trust relief. The court said these "would appear to provide an appropriate vehicle" for their case. It said they can be served abroad on established authority and can provide a basis for seeking a new freezing order. "The NCADs' success on this appeal may yet prove to be pyrrhic," the lead judgment said, referring to the wife and the Spanish company. The existing order stays in place until the court finalises its ruling on next steps.
For lenders and investors pursuing a borrower's money overseas, the case shows that meeting every test for a freezing order does not guarantee an English court can serve it abroad.
Broadoak's debts to the investors are settled by the earlier judgments. The findings about the payments to the wife and the Spanish company were made at an interim stage, and no court has made a final ruling on whether they or her husband did anything wrong. The investors' newer claims have not yet been decided.
