› Deliberate act distinguished from intention to breach
Practice and procedure
› Freezing orders
› Unencumbered value threshold — enforcement difficulties
Quick Take
1Where a freezing order prohibits reduction of unencumbered asset value below a threshold, the applicant for contempt must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the impugned transaction reduced the value below that threshold; an uncross-examined expert valuation supporting a value above the threshold cannot safely be rejected to the criminal standard merely because it is an outlier or because a competing expert has criticised it in a report.
2A subjective belief that the value of the restrained asset was sufficient to absorb the encumbrance, or reliance on legal advice, does not negate the deliberate character of the act constituting the breach for the purposes of establishing civil contempt; such matters go only to the exercise of the contempt jurisdiction and penalty.
3A third party who is not personally served with a freezing order may nonetheless be liable for contempt as a knowing assister if, with knowledge of the substance of the order, the third party wilfully assists the party bound to disobey it, though the question was left undecided on the facts.
