Asset recovery and enforcement against a former Soviet state

Company challenge

Following a straightforward trade dispute, the client had received an international arbitration award. But by the conclusion of the lengthy proceedings, the trading arm had been wound down—so recourse lay with the state, which refused all attempts to pay. Local courts similarly refused to recognize the award. The client was faced with the prospect of having to abandon its claim and write off its legal costs.

Burford legal finance solution

Burford’s asset recovery team located significant assets attachable to the respondent sovereign state, located in a third-party jurisdiction where the award could be more readily enforced and involving a trade partner that was politically sensitive to the state. Crucially, the assets also sat outside the protections of sovereign immunity.

Legal finance impact

Armed with actionable information that could be produced for legal purposes, Burford’s asset recovery team advised on the selection of experienced local legal counsel to pursue enforcement and in parallel identified a potentially sympathetic individual within the government in question who was able to highlight the negative implications of legal action being launched. In short order, representatives of the state entered into settlement negotiations—and a debt that was very nearly written off was recovered almost in full.