The moment when litigation has been successful in court and a judgment or award is handed down should be a time for celebration. An award or judgment represents the culmination of years of time, effort, energy and capital; in a perfect world payment would follow swiftly. Unfortunately the world is far from perfect and in reality actual cash may still be a long way off when a judgment or award is issued.
Despite what most people believe claimants frequently don’t see the full value of litigation judgments and awards. All too often individuals and even corporations will go to great lengths to avoid paying the full value of judgments and awards. This is why professional judgment enforcement services and asset tracing services exist, to assist claimants in getting what the court has decided they are due. However, this process of securing payment can be made far simpler if a basic step is taken during the proceedings.
The first thing to determine is the attitude of the defendant. Can they be reasoned with and brought to the negotiation table or if asset seizure will be necessary? This is not a short process and the first step is to determine the extent of the defendants assets and whether or not any have been concealed. If it is determined assets have been hidden or are in the process of being hidden, several things need to be done. First a freezing order will have to be sought from the court so what assets remain cannot be moved. This commonly requires litigation in multiple jurisdictions depending on the location of assets. Freezing orders can be used in either the pre-judgment or post-judgment phase.
After the freezing order is in place investigative work must be conducted to locate the hidden assets and effect the freezing order upon them. To accomplish this, firms which specialize in this field are commonly employed to identify and locate assets which have been hidden. In recent years defendants have been using increasingly complex methods and exotic locations to conceal assets so ensuring the party who is tasked with asset identification and location is skilled is of paramount importance.
Now of course these services are not without cost and it is always preferable to maintain an air of civility as long as is possible. However, it is always better to be safe than sorry and as the saying goes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If there is a possibility that assets will be hidden it is always better to act sooner rather than later and obtain a preemptive freezing order to prevent a costly investigation later. In some jurisdictions it is easier to obtain freezing orders if it can be demonstrated that the defendant is working to dissipate their assets. For all these reasons monitoring a defendants assets during proceedings is a good practice whenever possible.
To meet the needs of clients seeking to collect on judgments and awards some litigation financing companies have brought collections specialists in house to advise clients throughout the proceedings. Burford Capital for example has a team of collections specialists who are available to clients throughout the proceeding to minimize the possibility of further action being required.
