You cannot legislate, so the cliche goes, for common sense. Within the judicial process, of course, nobody actually calls it common sense. Instead, it tends to proceed under the banner of judicial discretion. However it is termed, the decision in Dadourian Group International Inc v Simms & Ors [2006] looks like an unhelpful attempt to codify it.
Let us take stock of the situation Dadourian addresses. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a series of cases, culminating in Derby v Weldon (nos 3 and 4) [1990] and Babanaft International Co v Bassatne [1990], resulted in the English courts deciding that they could grant worldwide freezing orders – that is, ones that imposed conditions on a defendant’s assets wherever they were.
