from Wikipedia:
The Mareva injunction (variously known also as a freezing order or
Mareva order), in Commonwealth jurisdictions, is a court order
which freezes assets so that a defendant to an action cannot
dissipate their assets from beyond the jurisdiction of a court so
as to frustrate a judgment. It is named for Mareva Compania Naviera
SA v International Bulkcarriers SA [1975] 2 Lloyd's Rep 509,
decided in 1975, although the first recorded instance of such an
order in English jurisprudence was Nippon Yusen Kaisha v
Karageorgis in 1975, decided very shortly before the Mareva
decision; however, in the UK the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 now
define a Mareva order as a "freezing" order. It is widely
recognised in other common law jurisdictions and such orders can be
made to have world-wide effect. It is variously construed as part
of a court's inherent jurisdiction to restrain breaches of its
process.
