"The relevant law on the personal service of a claim form can be summarised as follows: (i)CPR 6.3 (1) provides for service of a claim form by various means, including 'personal service in accordance with rule 6.5.' (ii)CPR 6.5 (3) provides that 'a claim form is served personally on an individual by leaving it with that individual ...'. (iii) Service on an agent could not be good personal service - see for example Morby v Gate Luxembourg IV Sarl[2016] EWHC 74 . (iv) In what has been described as a 'concession to practicality', if the person upon whom service is being attempted will not accept the document, service can be affected either by handing the document to the person (what is often called a 'limb 1' case) or by telling the person what the document contains and leaving the document with or near the person (a 'limb 2' case) - see Kenneth Allison Ltd v A E Limehouse & Co[1991] 3 WLR 671 . (v) Knowledge of what the documents contains for this purpose is acquired by it being brought to the intended recipient's attention 'that it is a legal document which requires his attention in connection with proceedings' - see Hoffman LJ in Walkers v Whitelock, unreported,19 August 1994 , cited by Phillips J in Tseitline v Mikhelson[2015] EWHC 3065 (Comm) . (vi) 'The focus is on the knowledge of the recipient, not the process by which it is acquired' - per Phillips J in Tseitline. (vii) Once the intended recipient has 'a sufficient degree of possession of the document to exercise dominion over it for any period of time however brief, the document has been 'left with him' in the sense intended by the Rule' - see Waite LJ in Nottingham Building Society v Peter Bennet & Co, The Times,26 February 1997 cited by Phillips J in Tseitline. (viii) If the intended recipient has gained possession within the meaning referred to in the previous sub-paragraph, it makes no difference that the person seeking to effect service may subsequently remove the document, for example because the intended recipient has not taken the documents and has walked away from them - see Phillips J in Tseitline. (ix) The burden is on the Claimant to show a good arguable case that service was effected on the Defendant - see for example Tseitline. (x) Where an issue of fact arises as to whether there is such a good arguable case, the court must take a view on the evidence if it can reliably do so (Goldman Sachs International v Novo Banco SA[2018] UKSC 34 ). (xi) If the court is not able to make a reliable assessment of an issue on the evidence available, it is sufficient for the Claimant to show a plausible evidential basis on the issue (again, Goldman Sachs International v Novo Banco SA[2018] UKSC 34 )."
"61. On any version of events, Mr Guriev was a wealthy person. It is unsurprising that, when on the streets of London, there are people near him who can provide protection if that is necessary. When the exact role of the people is not identified in the witness statements, the overwhelming inference is that at least part of the reason for there being four associates or family members with him on the street is to protect him against unwanted contact with others. It takes very little analysis to think that this might include trying to avoid personal service of court proceedings taking place. 62. A careful study of the footage [I interpolate to say that this was shown to the court] shows a strong case that the people with Mr Guriev were acting in a concerted way to protect such contact here. One of the striking features of their movements during the incident, amply demonstrated by the helpful diagrams produced by the Defendant and annexed to Mr Micklethwaite's second witness statement, is that Mr Guriev starts the incident in the middle of the group of men, but as the confrontation with Mr McDonagh-Allen proceeds all four other men come to be between him and Mr McDonagh-Allen. 63. I have no hesitation in finding on the basis of the events as apparent from the footage, that those with Mr Guriev were trying to stop Mr McDonagh-Allen getting any closer to him. 64. There was some debate during submissions about whether when Mr Soliman starts to open the car door, he can properly be described as 'corralling' Mr McDonagh-Allen away. Whether that is the correct term or not, the overwhelming inference from the evidence is that this was an attempt to make it hard for Mr McDonagh-Allen to get near Mr Guriev. The overall impression from the footage is that Mr McDonagh-Allen got as near to Mr Guriev as he could have done without assaulting someone and/or risking his own safety. I fail to see how Mr McDonagh-Allen could, by the time he let go of the documents, have got any closer to the Defendant. 65. The Defendant draws attention to the act that Mr McDonagh-Allen might have leant into the car to deposit the document inside or indeed might have stayed on the scene until the roof was retracted and deposited the documents in the car from above. As to the first of these, I consider that to be unrealistic. It would not have been easy for Mr McDonagh-Allen to reach into the car through the partially open door and, had he done so, he would have risked injury through the door being closed on him ... The second of course supposes that Mr McDonagh-Allen should have anticipated that the roof would be retracted. No doubt the pleasure in driving a car of this kind lies in retracting the roof when possible, but I doubt whether the roof would have been retracted had Mr McDonagh-Allen remained on the scene attempting to serve the papers - my assessment of the conduct of the men referred to above would suggest that this would have been unlikely. Certainly Mr McDonagh-Allen could not have expected that they would have done so. 66. It follows from the analysis above that Mr McDonagh-Allen left the papers as near to Mr Guriev as was reasonably practicable at the time he let go of them. I leave for another day the argument of whether that would be sufficient to allow a finding of personal service if the documents were not dropped in the eyesight of the person to be served. But these documents were so deposited. In my submission, where the Claimant is able to show that the person to be served had sufficient knowledge of the nature of the documents and where, within the sight of the person to be served, the process server left the documents as close to that person as was possible given the attempts by those with the Defendant to prevent him getting any closer to the Defendant, the court has sound material to conclude that the documents were left sufficiently near to the person to render the service good. 67. It follows from the analysis above that I am satisfied that the Claimant effected personal service of the Claim Form on the Defendant on19 October 2018 ."
"An order for delivery of the goods under subsection (2)(a) or (b) may impose such conditions as may be determined by the court, or pursuant to rules of court [and then there some further words which I need not read]"
"A court of equity has never hesitated to use the strongest powers to protect and preserve a trust fund in interlocutory proceedings on the basis that, if the trust fund disappears by the time the action comes to trial, equity will have been invoked in vain."
"The Court of Appeal approved of the exercise of this jurisdiction against third parties in aid of tracing claims."
"What are the limits of the Bankers Trust jurisdiction? They must, I think, be deduced from the reasoning upon which that jurisdiction, like the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction, is distinguished from the 'mere witness' rule. It rests upon the proposition that unless the assets in question can be located and secured, the ultimate determination of ownership of those assets may be frustrated by their removal or dissipation and there will be no point in calling on the third party at the trial to produce the required documents or give the requested information. In my judgment, therefore, the first principle of the Bankers Trust case is that the plaintiff must demonstrate a real prospect that the information may lead to the location or preservation of assets to which he is making a proprietary claim."
"In the light of the jurisprudence cited above it seems to me to be impossible to submit that the court lacks jurisdiction, whether under section 37 of the 1981 Act or under its own inherent jurisdiction, to do what is just and convenient, and necessary, to protect its own orders and to give effect to the interests of justice. AJ Bekhor & Co Ltd v Bilton[1981] QB 923 specifically considered these matters, and the question has never been doubted since. There is no doubt that the bank has a legal or equitable right, namely the causes of action which it has deployed in its claim forms, to entitle it to seek freezing orders from the court; and there is no doubt that the court thereafter has the power to do what is just and necessary to give effect to such orders."