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Annulment of freezing order and recovery of €5 million bank guarantee

Bank guarantee freezing order Cyprus law

About This Case

An injunction obtained on the grounds of alleged fraud preventing the redemption of a bank guarantee was later set aside by the Court following a hearing.
AreaDispute Resolution, Fraud
LawyersKatia Kakoulli, Costas Georgiades

The Claimants were the main contractors for one of Limassol’s most significant construction projects. After issuing an interim certificate, the project’s architect certified that the Claimants must return the amount of €5.139.230 to the Defendants. The Claimants filed an ex-parte (without notice) application and obtained an order preventing the Defendants from redeeming the performance guarantees issued by the Claimants’ banking institutions. The claim was based on allegations of fraud regarding the interim certificate issued by the architect.

Challenge

The main ground of our opposition was that the evidence for fraud was insufficient even for this interim stage of proceedings. We focused on convincing the Court that the Claimants had failed to prove a prima facie good cause of action against the Defendants, which is the threshold for satisfying the first requirement for obtaining a freezing order from the Cypriot Courts.

Result

The Court upheld our arguments and cancelled the injunction, allowing our clients to proceed with redeeming the bank guarantees.