Relevance of Equity

Equity is still very relevant today- equitable rights, interests, and remedies remain important in law today. Equitable relief introduces injunctions in labor disputes, partitions of real property, specific performance of contracts, reformation of contracts, setting aside invalid wills, divorces and various other matters where the court orders something to be done other than entering a judgment for money damages. Concepts such as mortgages and Trusts are founded on the idea that one person owns the legal interest in the property but has to use that property for the benefit of another. The person is said to have an equitable interest in the property. Equitable remedies are still important and used in a variety of circumstances. Injunctions are ordered in cases of domestic violence as a protection to the abused partner. Injunctions are also used to prevent trespass to land or to prevent excessive noise or smoke, or other nuisances. Two reason equitable remedies are ‘Mareva’ injunction and Anton pillar order. Mareva injunction is a freezing injunction and is used where there is a high risk that the asset of one of the parties will be removed out of the country before the case comes to trial. It allows freezing of their assets. This is important as it means that there will be assets available at the end of the case to pay damages that the court awards. The Anton Pillar order (search order), was first used in Anton pillar KG vs Manufacturing process limited (1976); it orders the defendant to allow the claimant to search his or her premises and take away any document or other material that may be relevant to the case. This prevents the defendant from destroying any goods or documents which could be used as evidence in the