Search, Seize and Freeze

Documents and evidence are sometimes deliberately destroyed, lost or hidden, to prevent them being used in the course of a trial. To avoid this you need to act quickly.

Give yourself the best chance of success by knowing your legal rights in searching, seizing and freezing documents and evidence to help build your case.

Search Orders are a powerful way to preserve evidence for anticipated or impending litigation. The applications and orders are made ‘ex-parte’. This means in the absence of the party that is the subject of the application. The order legally compels the respondent to allow your nominated representative to enter premises to search, seize, copy or inspect documents, files or other items described in the order.

How do you arrange a Search Order?

The intrusive and secretive nature of these Search Orders are justified in circumstances where it appears likely that documents or records may be destroyed, lost or hidden to impede or frustrate a plaintiff’s legal remedy. To arrange a Search Order you must satisfy the court that there is a very strong prima facie case and that they are exposed to serious damage which could not otherwise be remedied.

How does a Search Order work?

There are a number of safeguards incorporated into Anton Piller Search Orders to minimise the disruption they may cause to respondents and to prevent abuse of the process. 

These safeguards include:

• You (the Applicant) must provide full and frank disclosure including disclosure to the court of evidence which may be adverse to your application.
• The search must be supervised by an independent solicitor.
• Strictly defined conditions as to how experts or other Third Parties may be used in retrieving computer files and drives in the search.
• Strictly defined conditions as to how, when and where a search may take place.

Is it a Search Warrant?

No. An Anton Piller Search Order is not a ‘Search Warrant’ as may be obtained by Police and other law enforcement agencies. In conducting the ‘search’ you, the Applicant, may NOT ‘force’ entry into premises; however if the recipient of the orders fails to comply with the orders, they may be held to be in contempt of the orders and subject to the sanction of the Court.

Mark Streeter of Streeterlaw is an Independent Supervising Solicitor and is on the Federal and Supreme Court lists of Independent Supervising Solicitors.