Emerging Trends in Offshore Interim Relief

The evolving landscape of interim relief in the context of offshore litigation came under the spotlight at an event in the Cayman Islands recently, with JTC Special Situation’s Director of Investigations and Forensics, Jasmine Herrod, providing insights into emerging trends in the sector.

Jasmine was speaking with fellow panellists Katie Pearson, founder of Claritas, Nicholas Fox, Partner at Mourant and Shelley White, Partner at Walkers as moderator at an International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC) Technical Session on Interim Relief in Insolvency Proceedings event, held on 18 June at the Camana Bay Cinema.  The event was attended by a broad cross-section of insolvency and litigation professionals in Cayman.

Over the course of the discussions, Jasmine and her fellow panellists explored how freezing and proprietary injunctions remain a critical string in the litigator’s bow, how a litigator can obtain an injunction to protect assets and the role of receivers may have in securing assets.

In relation to foreign proceedings, the panel touched on freezing injunctions, highlighting the Cayman Court’s flexibility on listing applications at short notice and co-ordinating with other jurisdictions. Commenting on freezing digital assets, Jasmine argued in favour of adopting parallel disclosure strategies to assist access and identification of assets and potentially a worldwide asset freeze to compel the release of keys or payment, with injunctive relief often not securing recoveries in time.

From a practical perspective Jasmine also discussed the “clean hands” rule and how anti-suit and anti-enforcement injunctions can be aimed at restraining foreign proceedings or foreign enforcement steps that undermine jurisdiction or arbitration agreements – an example being Al Jomaih Power Limited et al v IGCF SPV 21 Ltd ([2025] UKPC 54), where an injunction was upheld because the appellant breached the exclusive jurisdiction clause of a Cayman Islands law governed shareholder agreement by bringing injunction proceedings in Pakistan. Jasmine explained the importance of the Privy Council decision in clarifying when a defence of submission to a foreign court might apply and the ramification that the same appellant was refused subsequent injunctive relief in the Cayman Islands because of this breach in Al Jomaih Power Limited et al v IGCF SPV 21 Ltd et al  [2025] CICA (Civ) 20 (Court of Appeal).

Commenting on practical considerations for insolvency practitioners, Jasmine said: “The real battleground for insolvency practitioners is around evidential quality and necessity. In this rapidly evolving landscape, we need to be strategic about what it is we need both in bringing and defending injunctive relief with a view as to whether the costs of the proceedings are proportionate or unavoidable, how we can mitigate any risks and whether there are any alternatives that might produce a more efficient outcome.”