In all areas of commercial life, fraud might intrude and it is when we lawyers say that we have to deal with a commercial fraud case. Usually such cases are complex and their complexity is heightened because they often involve much more than just a claim based on fraud. Therefore, inevitably in cases of this nature the “victim” will find himself digging into any sort of document evidencing fraud and his lawyers dipping into many different areas of the law, considering numerous forms of potential claims. The complexity of commercial fraud has been put well by Lord Millett in the foreword he provided in the book ‘Commercial Fraud in Civil Practice’:

“The sophistication of the modern fraudster and the ease and speed with which he can transmit the proceeds to other jurisdictions and conceal or launder them make the facts complex and their discovery difficult.”

Once fraud is revealed then the “victim” should inevitably react fast in order to avoid the cause of irreparable damage and to maintain, to the best possible extend, the status quo pending the final determination of his claim. In order to do so one needs to employ within his substantive claim, and usually as a matter of urgency, the issue of any available interim injunctions, such as a freezing injunction (‘Mareva Injunction’).

Since it is admittedly very difficult in most of the cases to prove fraud due to “the sophistication of the modern fraudster…” and the cunning ways in which he moves, in order to gather up evidence and plead adequately the claim one may consider to apply to the Court for a discovery order or even a search order (‘Anton Piller’ order).

In conclusion, when it comes to recovery, our Dispute Resolution team is experienced enough to cope with commercially complex high-stakes fraud cases and successfully support such a claim before the Cypriot Courts by committing ourselves to resolve such disputes as efficiently as possible.