arrestment

In Scots law, the process by which a creditor detains the goods or effects of the debtor in the hands of a third party till he or she is paid.

It is divided into two kinds: arrestment in security, used when a claim has not yet become enforceable, as at the commencement of the legal proceedings; and arrestment in execution, used following on a decree of the court, or on a registered document. Arrestment merely retains the effects; the process of ‘furthcoming’ is necessary to realize on them. Such funds as are necessary for the sustaining of life are not liable to arrestment.

Arrestment is also used as a method of compelling a defender to accept the jurisdiction of the court; any object of commercial value may be arrested for this purpose and there is no obligation on the person in whose hands it is arrested to retain it. This procedural device has been strongly criticized and is defeated by a plea of ‘forum non conveniens’.