It can be challenging to trace assets in the UAE, due in part to the difficulty in obtaining information and the absence of a right of access to information for many types of individual and company entity.

The existing insolvency regime is largely untested in the Courts and enforcement of foreign insolvency judgments can be complex.

Local Rules on Asset Tracing

In general, UAE law makes asset tracing challenging, as there is no reliance on case precedent, no equivalent of Mareva injunctions (freezing orders), Anton Piller orders (search orders) or Norwich Pharmacal orders (disclosure orders). However, the UAE Penal Code, Civil Code and/or the Commercial Code, along with their accompanying procedural rules, can be used to obtain access to information covered by bank secrecy, to demand necessary information from public authorities or to gain permission to enter a property to seize movables.