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An issue which often causes a lot of concern is injunctive relief.
From time to time, bank accounts may be frozen and other precautionary measures put in place by the Omani court. Application is often made to the Judge in charge of Emergency Measures, which is an ex parte, paper application which involves no court hearings.
A typical scenario works like this: a Claimant sues a Defendant and becomes worried that the Defendant may have meagre assets against which to enforce a final, non-appealable court judgment.
This fear is perhaps justified given that it may take one or two years from the date of filing a case to actually obtaining a court judgment which can be enforced.
In such circumstances, the Claimant applies in writing to the Judge in charge of Emergency Measures, explaining the circumstances, and the traditional request is for all the bank accounts of the Defendant in Oman to be frozen, so that monies can flow into those accounts, but not out.
The Judge makes a decision on this application without informing the Defendant.
Indeed, it is often the case that the Defendant's first knowledge of an injunction being granted is when a representative of the Defendant attends the Bank to perform a routine transaction and is alerted by the Bank that an injunction has been put in place by court order.
However, the injunction can be challenged by the Defendant, but to do so, a fresh court case has to be filed against the Claimant, and in the meantime, the injunction remains in place.
A Claimant may also seek an injunction as regards property in the hands of a third party. For instance, if A sues B and comes to know that C is about to pay a large sum of money to B, a request might be made to the Judge in charge of Emergency Measures to injunct the monies so that C has to retain them and cannot pay them over to B.
Lawyers are often asked what is the standard of proof required to convince a Judge to issue an injunction order? The answer, unsatisfactory as it is, is that what is required is whatever documentary evidence and skilled written argument it takes to persuade the Judge! From experience, it does seem that the Judges are especially concerned about litigant parties who could be perceived to be a "flight risk" or who have strong ties with overseas countries, especially with countries outside the GCC region. It could well be that the Judges are mindful that an Omani court judgment may not be enforced by countries outside the GCC.
So, what is the first thing to do if your assets are injuncted? The starting point is for a lawyer to go to court to peruse the file and to obtain a copy of the injunction order.
The next step is to file a court case against the beneficiary of the injunction.
There are a number of statutory provisions which provide technical, procedural reasons as to why the injunction should be cancelled by the judiciary.
By way of example, Article 375 of Royal Decree 29/02 (as amended) states: "The judgment debtor should be notified of the attachment minutes and the relevant order within ten days from the date of levying it, otherwise it shall be considered null and void."
Accordingly, the Courts have a right to cancel the injunction if a Court official does not serve the injunction order on the affected party within 10 days after the Judge in charge of Emergency Measures signed that order.
In conclusion, the area of injunctive relief and precautionary measures under Omani law is an intricate and complex subject. It is also little-known that a party can still apply to the Omani courts for injunctive relief even when the contract in question states that any dispute will be settled by arbitration. This is because courts always have the right to make injunction orders because an injunction request is considered to be an ancillary request, which is separate and distinct from the issue of which body has jurisdiction over the substantive dispute.
-James Harbirdge, Partner (Oman)
