Alliance Bond Fund and other investment funds held unsecured notes issued by Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S.A. (Grupo), a Mexican holding company. After financial troubles, Grupo defaulted or was imminently about to default on the notes. Concerned that Grupo—allegedly insolvent—was transferring assets and would prefer certain creditors (including insiders and affiliated entities), the funds sued in federal court for breach of contract, seeking money damages. They did not assert a lien, constructive trust, or any other equitable interest in specific property. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 to restrain Grupo from dissipating or transferring its assets pending adjudication, arguing that without such relief any eventual judgment would be uncollectible. The district court granted a broad pre-judgment asset-freeze injunction, and the Second Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether such relief was within the traditional equitable powers of the federal courts.
May a federal district court, in an action seeking only money damages by an unsecured creditor with no lien or equitable interest in the defendant's assets, issue a preliminary injunction restraining the defendant from disposing of those assets pending judgment?
Absent a statutory grant or an asserted equitable interest in specific property, a federal court's equitable powers—measured by the traditional practice of the English Court of Chancery at the founding—do not authorize a preliminary injunction freezing a defendant's assets in aid of a potential money judgment. Preliminary equitable relief must be in aid of the final equitable relief sought, not to secure potential legal damages. See, e.g., De Beers Consol. Mines v. United States, 325 U.S. 212 (1945); Deckert v. Independence Shares Corp., 311 U.S. 282 (1940).
No. A federal district court lacks authority to issue a preliminary injunction restraining a defendant from transferring assets in a suit seeking only money damages where the plaintiff has no lien or equitable interest in those assets. The judgment of the Second Circuit was reversed.
The majority, per Justice Scalia, anchored the scope of federal equitable jurisdiction in the historical authority of the English Court of Chancery as of 1789. Under that tradition, general unsecured creditors—those without a lien or equitable interest—could not obtain pre-judgment injunctions to restrain a debtor's use of assets; they had to first reduce their claim to judgment and then pursue post-judgment remedies (e.g., execution or a creditor's bill). The asset-freeze order sought here, analogous to the modern English 'Mareva injunction' (first recognized in 1975), was not a remedy historically available in chancery and thus falls outside the federal courts' equitable powers absent congressional authorization. The Court distinguished between preliminary relief that preserves the court's ability to grant the ultimate relief sought and preliminary relief that secures assets solely to ensure collectability of a legal money judgment. In De Beers, the Court rejected injunctions restraining unrelated assets not the subject of the dispute. By contrast, in Deckert, preliminary relief was proper because the plaintiffs sought equitable rescission and a receiver over a fund in which they asserted an equitable interest; the preliminary injunction preserved the res pending a final equitable decree. Here, the plaintiffs sought only damages and claimed no interest in any specific property, so a freeze would create a de facto priority over other creditors and disrupt the carefully calibrated federal bankruptcy scheme and state debtor–creditor law. The majority also emphasized separation-of-powers and federalism concerns. Crafting new categories of equitable relief that carry substantial policy consequences—like reordering creditor priorities or effectively creating pre-judgment security interests—is a legislative task. The Federal Rules already channel parties to state-law provisional remedies (Rule 64), such as attachment or garnishment, when authorized. Congress has likewise enacted targeted asset-freeze authority in specific statutory regimes (e.g., securities or commodities enforcement). Expanding general equitable power in the manner requested would circumvent those frameworks. The Court therefore rejected the argument that federal courts have an inherent power to issue such injunctions simply to ensure that a future money judgment will be collectible. Justice Ginsburg's dissent (joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer) argued for a more flexible, evolving equitable power capable of preserving the effectiveness of judgments, analogizing to historic creditor's bills and emphasizing that the merger of law and equity should not foreclose asset preservation. The majority, however, declined to endorse that evolution without legislative action.
Grupo Mexicano is a landmark limitation on federal equitable power. It forecloses 'Mareva-style' asset freezes in ordinary damages actions by unsecured creditors and forces plaintiffs to: (1) plead and prove an equitable interest in a specific res (e.g., constructive trust, rescission) if they seek pre-judgment restraint; (2) use state-law provisional remedies via Rule 64 (attachment, garnishment) where available; or (3) invoke specific statutory authority that permits asset freezes. The decision protects creditor priority schemes and underscores separation-of-powers principles, while also shaping litigation strategy in contract, commercial, and transnational disputes. For law students, it is essential for understanding the interplay between legal and equitable remedies, the historical constraints on federal courts, and the practical choices available for securing judgments.
Grupo Mexicano draws a bright line: absent statutory authorization or a claimed equitable interest in a specific res, federal courts cannot use preliminary injunctions to freeze a defendant's assets simply to ensure the collectability of a potential money judgment. Grounded in history and structural concerns, the decision preserves the distinction between legal and equitable remedies and respects creditor-priority frameworks embodied in bankruptcy and state debtor–creditor law.