Background
Aleksandr Viktorovich Prosetskii alleged that Viktor Sergeevich Baransky and his associates engineered a scheme to deprive him of his beneficial interest in shares of Seasreno Marine Ltd and Infinite Tide Corp, the companies through which the crude oil tanker MT Raven, later renamed MT Vikram, was held. He claimed that his shares were transferred to a nominee who repudiated the trust arrangement and that a sham arbitration was then used to transfer the vessel to Courtwell Asia Ltd.
At an urgent ex parte hearing in December 2025, the High Court granted Prosetskii a worldwide Mareva injunction of up to US$22.5 million against Courtwell and Baransky, asset-disclosure orders, and an order appointing interim receivers or managers over matters including the vessel’s business, preservation, and earnings. Courtwell applied to set aside the orders, arguing principally that Prosetskii lacked standing because the alleged losses belonged to the holding companies, that there was no real risk of dissipation, and that Prosetskii had breached his duty of full and frank disclosure.
The Court’s Holding
The High Court allowed Courtwell’s application and set aside the Mareva injunction against it and the receivership order. Prosetskii had not established a good arguable case against Courtwell because the vessel could not be treated as his personally owned asset: the evidence did not support a good arguable case that the vessel had not been injected as capital into Seasreno Marine. Any loss caused by the vessel’s later transfer, and any corresponding loss of operating profits, was therefore suffered by the company and merely reflected in the value of Prosetskii’s shares. The reflective-loss principle barred him from pursuing those losses in his own name.
The court nevertheless found that Prosetskii had an arguable case that the arbitration was a sham and that Courtwell participated in a conspiracy, and it found a real risk that the vessel and its profits could be dissipated. Those findings could not preserve the interim relief because Prosetskii lacked a good arguable personal claim. The orders were set aside as against Courtwell except for permission to serve out of jurisdiction; the receivers’ authority ceased immediately, Courtwell was permitted to seek an inquiry into damages under Prosetskii’s undertaking, and Prosetskii was ordered to pay Courtwell S$50,000 in costs. A temporary restraint on transferring the vessel was imposed to preserve the position if Prosetskii timely sought permission to appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A shareholder cannot obtain a freezing injunction for losses that legally belong to the company merely because those losses reduce the value of the shareholder’s shares.
- Evidence supporting an arguable conspiracy and a real risk of dissipation does not replace the requirement for a good arguable claim that the applicant has standing to pursue.
- Where shareholders place an asset into a company as capital, the company becomes the beneficial owner; the shareholders do not retain a direct proprietary interest simply because they funded its acquisition.
Why It Matters
The decision shows that Singapore courts will examine the legal ownership of the underlying claim before maintaining powerful interim remedies such as worldwide freezing orders and receiverships. Even suspicious asset transfers and a demonstrated dissipation risk cannot support such relief when the applicant seeks recovery for corporate losses barred by the reflective-loss rule.
For investors using nominee arrangements and holding companies, the case also underscores the consequences of informal and opaque ownership structures. Funding an asset’s acquisition does not necessarily preserve a personal beneficial interest once the asset is placed within a separate corporate entity.