The House explained the distinction between an arrestment to found jurisdiction and an arrestment on the dependence. The purpose of the latter was to freeze the subject arrested in the hands of the common debtor or in the case of a ship to prevent her movement, in order to provide the pursuer with security for payment by the defender of such sum as he shall be found to owe. On the other hand arrestment jurisdictionis fundandae causa did not attach the property arrested. It merely attested to the fact that the ship was at the time within the jurisdiction and that notice had been given that it was the intention of the person using the diligence to raise an action founding on the jurisdiction which resulted from the property being within the country. As to the question whether the warrant to arrest to found jurisdiction with the procedure which followed on it, made up something separate from the action whose purpose they were to serve, so that, being spent, they could not be ratified, that was not the correct conclusion: ‘The fact that there is no nexus, the nexus having had but an ephemeral or rather momentary existence while the warrant was in the course of execution, does not mean that the juridical effect of the arrestment is likewise momentary and ephemeral.’
Judges:
Lord Kilbrandon
Citations:
1975 SC (HL) 26
Cited by:
Cited – Dramgate Ltd v Tyne Dock Engineering Ltd and others SCS 1-Oct-1999
. .
Cited – Thomas Dagg and Son Ltd v Taycove Limited Dickensian Property Co Ltd ScSf 20-Jan-2005
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Scotland, Transport
Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.224084
