Recovery windows for misappropriated digital assets are measured in hours, not weeks. When funds move off a wallet and on to an exchange or bridge, the clock starts immediately. A worldwide freezing order (an injunction that prohibits a defendant from disposing of assets anywhere in the world) is one of the sharpest tools available to a business that has lost crypto to fraud, misappropriation or a counterparty default. France presents a specific legal environment for this relief – one shaped by the Autorité des marchés financiers (the AMF, France's financial markets regulator) and the PSAN regime (the prestataires de services sur actifs numériques framework, France's licensing and registration regime for digital-asset service providers). Understanding how that environment works, and how it interacts with cross-border enforcement, is the difference between funds frozen and funds gone.
This guide sets out, step by step, how a business obtains a worldwide freezing order in France in a digital-asset context – from gathering on-chain evidence to enforcing the order against a PSAN-registered exchange. It also addresses the cross-border dimension: what happens when the assets have moved through French-registered entities but sit on infrastructure in multiple jurisdictions. Each section opens with a direct answer to the operative question at that stage.
Does France Recognise Crypto as Property for Freezing Purposes?
French law treats digital assets as a distinct category of moveable property for the purposes of civil enforcement, meaning courts can order their seizure and freeze in the same way they act against conventional financial assets. The civil courts – principally the tribunal judiciaire – have the jurisdiction to grant provisional and conservatory measures over digital-asset holdings, including assets held in custodial accounts at entities registered under the PSAN framework with the AMF. The PSAN registration requirement, which covers custody, exchange against fiat, exchange between digital assets and certain advisory services, creates an identifiable class of regulated intermediaries against whom disclosure and asset-freeze relief can be directed effectively.
The AMF does not itself bring civil freezing actions on behalf of fraud victims. Its role is supervisory: it oversees registered PSANs and, since the transition toward the EU's MiCA regulation (the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation), is preparing France's competent-authority function for the full CASP authorisation regime. For a business seeking to freeze stolen crypto, the operative instruments are civil injunctions obtained from the French civil courts, not AMF administrative action. The distinction matters because it determines where you file, how quickly you can move, and what evidence you need at the threshold.
What Evidence Do You Need Before Going to Court?
Before an application can succeed, you need a forensic evidence package that a French court can read as a coherent chain from the loss event to an identifiable account or counterparty. Courts grant provisional relief on a without-notice basis only where there is urgency and a prima facie case; unsupported assertions about blockchain movements are not enough.
The minimum package in our experience includes: a transaction hash (or series of hashes) tracing the movement of funds from the victim's wallet through each intermediary address; a professional forensic report from a recognised on-chain analytics provider that translates those hashes into a readable narrative; evidence of the loss event itself (smart-contract execution records, correspondence, screenshots with metadata preserved); and evidence – even preliminary – that the assets have reached or passed through an account at an identified PSAN-registered entity or its correspondent. That last element is critical: French courts will not grant freezing relief against a nameless address. The order needs a respondent.
Identifying the respondent can itself require a prior disclosure application. In practice, the sequence is often: forensic trace → identify the exchange or custodian → seek disclosure of account-holder identity (a step that under French civil procedure can be sought on an urgent basis) → freeze the account using the identity information obtained. A saisie conservatoire (conservatory seizure, a provisional civil-law freeze of moveable assets) can be ordered at speed where the court is satisfied that there is a serious, summarily verifiable claim and a risk of dissipation. The risk of dissipation is almost always present with digital assets by their nature.
Moving for conservatory seizure requires legal representation before the tribunal judiciaire. The application is made ex parte in the first instance in urgent cases, with the respondent served afterward and given the opportunity to contest. The period between initial order and adversarial hearing is typically a matter of days to a few weeks, depending on docket and complexity.
The process above describes the standard path. Your facts – the entity, the user base, the banking, and where the assets currently sit – change the analysis materially. For a scoped assessment of your position, contact OBOLUS at info@oboluslaw.com.
How Does the PSAN Framework Affect Exchange Disclosure?
A PSAN-registered exchange in France is subject to AMF oversight, AML/CFT obligations under the applicable French anti-money-laundering provisions, and – critically for a recovery applicant – identifiable regulatory obligations that a court can use to anchor a disclosure order. Because PSANs must perform customer due diligence and maintain records under the FATF Recommendation 15 standard (the FATF framework for virtual-asset service providers), they hold the KYC data that a claimant needs to name a defendant: full legal name, address, identity documents and, in many cases, the linked bank account details.
A French court order directed at a PSAN compels disclosure of those records. The PSAN cannot refuse on grounds of contractual confidentiality where a court order is in place: the order overrides the account agreement. What it can legitimately raise is compliance with data-protection obligations under the GDPR, but courts have consistently treated properly scoped disclosure orders as lawful processing grounds under the GDPR's judicial-process exception. The PSAN is also subject to the Travel Rule obligation (the requirement under FATF guidance to pass originator and beneficiary data with a virtual-asset transfer), meaning it may hold information about the originating wallet and the counterparty exchange that processed the onward transfer – potentially reaching beyond France.
In our cross-border practice, we have seen disclosure from a single PSAN entity open a chain of information reaching exchanges in three other jurisdictions. The French disclosure is often the first link, not the last.
Step by Step: the Worldwide Freezing Order Process in France
A worldwide freezing order in the French context is obtained through the civil courts and proceeds in identifiable steps – each with its own evidence threshold and timing implication.
Step 1 – Immediate containment. As soon as a theft or misappropriation is identified, preserve all evidence: transaction hashes, wallet addresses, timestamps, communications. Engage an on-chain forensics provider immediately. Time lost here narrows the trail and may allow the assets to move to a jurisdiction where enforcement is harder.
Step 2 – Forensic trace and exchange identification. The forensic report maps fund flows and identifies where assets have landed or passed through. If a PSAN-registered entity appears in the chain, that is your initial target for both disclosure and freeze.
Step 3 – Application for conservatory seizure. File at the tribunal judiciaire in the jurisdiction where the respondent PSAN is established (for a French entity) or where assets are located. The application must include the forensic evidence package, a legal memorandum establishing the substantive claim, a risk-of-dissipation statement, and – for a worldwide order – evidence that domestic freeze alone is insufficient because assets have moved or are likely to move across borders.
Step 4 – Without-notice order and service. If the court grants the conservatory measure ex parte, the order is served on the PSAN and – where the court so directs – on any correspondent banks holding fiat linked to the account. The PSAN is required to comply immediately upon service.
Step 5 – Disclosure enforcement. If account-holder identity is not already established, a separate or concurrent order requires the PSAN to disclose its KYC file. The information is used to name the defendant in the substantive action.
Step 6 – Cross-border extension. Where assets have moved to exchanges in other jurisdictions, the French order may need to be recognised or mirrored abroad. France is a party to European civil-enforcement instruments, which facilitate recognition across EU member states. For assets in non-EU jurisdictions, allied counsel in the relevant jurisdiction is engaged to seek parallel relief using the French order as evidentiary support.
Step 7 – Substantive proceedings. The freezing order is a provisional measure; it does not resolve the underlying claim. Substantive proceedings – for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraud or the equivalent civil cause of action under French law – must be commenced within the period the court specifies, typically a relatively short window after the conservatory order is granted. Failure to commence substantive proceedings in time results in the freeze lapsing.
If a prior recovery attempt stalled or a PSAN refused to cooperate without a court order, a structured second approach can surface the procedural route that was missed. Write to info@oboluslaw.com to assess the path from your current position.
What Is the Cross-Border Dimension for French Freezing Orders?
Digital-asset theft is almost never confined to a single jurisdiction. A fraudster operating through a France-registered PSAN may hold assets on infrastructure in Singapore, a BVI-incorporated entity, and a wallet custodied in Switzerland. The French court can assert worldwide reach – but enforcing that reach requires engagement with each relevant forum.
Within the EU, the civil-enforcement framework provides a relatively direct path: a French judgment or conservatory order is entitled to recognition in other member states without re-litigation of the merits. Under MiCA, as the CASP authorisation regime matures, French-authorised entities will be passported across the EU and EEA, which means a single regulatory point of contact may hold information about a wider European footprint.
Outside the EU, the analysis depends on the forum. England and Wales have developed a sophisticated digital-asset recovery regime, including worldwide freezing orders and Norwich Pharmacal disclosure orders directed at exchanges – with the landmark decision in AA v Persons Unknown [2019] establishing that crypto is property amenable to proprietary injunctions. The DIFC Courts in Dubai similarly grant freezing relief and have recently confirmed their willingness to support foreign proceedings through worldwide freezing orders. Singapore's courts have issued proprietary injunctions over crypto holdings. For a France-originated matter with assets in those jurisdictions, the strategy is typically to obtain the French conservatory order first – to freeze what is within French reach – and then to run parallel or sequential applications in the other forums using the French evidence as a foundation.
Banking interacts with this analysis in a specific way. A PSAN that has converted stolen crypto to fiat and routed the proceeds through a French or EU bank creates a paper trail that is more tractable than a pure on-chain flow. The bank account can be frozen using a separate conservatory measure directed at the bank. In our cross-border practice, we have worked matters where the on-chain trace led to a PSAN, the PSAN's KYC disclosure named the account holder, and the fiat proceeds were frozen at a French bank before they were withdrawn – all within a compressed timeline that would have been impossible without simultaneous action on multiple fronts.
What Are the Common Mistakes at Each Stage?
The majority of failed recovery attempts share a small set of avoidable errors. Understanding them is as important as knowing the correct process.
The most consequential mistake is delay. Every hour between discovery of the theft and the filing of a freezing application is an hour in which the assets can move beyond the reach of French courts. Operators who spend days internally investigating before engaging counsel routinely arrive at the court with a stale trail. The forensic work can and should proceed in parallel with the legal preparation – not as a prerequisite to starting it.
The second mistake is filing without a respondent. French courts do not grant freezing orders against anonymous addresses. If you cannot yet identify the entity holding the assets, the first application should be for disclosure rather than for the freeze itself – or both, structured as a combined application. Filing for the freeze without the disclosure infrastructure in place wastes the court's time and the applicant's.
The third mistake is treating the conservatory order as the end of the matter. It is the beginning of the substantive proceedings, not their conclusion. Operators who obtain the freeze and then delay commencing the underlying action find the order lapses and the respondent applies to discharge it. The freeze buys time; it does not substitute for the claim.
A fourth, specifically cross-border error is failing to anticipate the MiCA transition. PSANs are moving to the CASP authorisation framework, and the regulatory contact point, the disclosure obligations and the jurisdictional reach of the French competent authority are all shifting accordingly. An application framed entirely around the old PSAN regime may require adjustment if the entity has already transitioned or is operating under a transitional provision.
In a recent matter, a payments business discovered that a counterparty had routed client funds through a French-registered PSAN before converting to stablecoins and attempting to bridge to a non-EU exchange. We filed for conservatory seizure and concurrent disclosure within 48 hours of instruction. The PSAN disclosed its KYC file under court order, the account holder was identified, and a parallel freeze application was launched in a second jurisdiction with the French evidence as support. The assets were secured before the bridge transaction completed. The matter is ongoing, but the provisional relief has held.
A Common Assumption About Crypto Recovery in France
A common assumption is that once funds leave a wallet and clear through a registered exchange, nothing can be done – that the pseudonymous architecture of blockchain transactions makes recovery legally impossible. This assumption is wrong on two counts. First, the PSAN registration requirement means that the exchanges most likely to be used as liquidity exit points are KYC-compliant entities holding identifiable account data. The pseudonymity ends at the fiat ramp. Second, the conservatory-seizure mechanism operates at speed: courts understand that the nature of digital assets creates dissipation risk, and they act accordingly when the evidence package is properly presented.
The real constraint is not the law. It is time. Waiting for internal sign-off, waiting for a budget decision, waiting to "see if the funds come back" – each of these destroys the window in which provisional relief is obtainable. The French civil enforcement system provides the tools. Using them requires moving before the trail goes cold.
We move for freezing relief and exchange disclosure while the trail is live. If a recovery clock is running, reach our disputes desk now at info@oboluslaw.com or via t.me/oboluslaw.
Decision Matrix: Which Profile Should Use Which Instrument?
Not every French digital-asset recovery matter follows the same path. The right instrument depends on the specific facts of the loss and the current location of the assets.
Profile A – Assets confirmed at a PSAN-registered exchange, account holder unknown. The operative first step is a combined disclosure and conservatory seizure application. The disclosure targets the KYC file; the seizure freezes the account pending the substantive action. Timeline is compressed – days, not weeks, where the evidence package is ready. Key risk: if the account holder disputes beneficial ownership of the assets, the freeze may face challenge at the adversarial hearing.
Profile B – Assets have moved through a French PSAN and onward to a non-EU exchange. The French conservatory order should be obtained first to capture what remains within French reach, then parallel applications are filed in the relevant foreign forum using the French evidence as the foundation. Allied counsel in the relevant jurisdiction manages the foreign application. Timeline extends – typically weeks per additional forum. Key risk: foreign courts may not accept the French conservatory order as dispositive; independent evidence of the claim must be presented in each forum.
Profile C – Assets have been converted to fiat and sit in a French bank account. The conservatory measure is directed at the bank directly; the PSAN disclosure provides the chain of title. This is often the fastest path to a secure freeze because banks respond to conservatory orders with well-understood internal processes. Key risk: if the account holder has already withdrawn the fiat, the bank freeze is academic.
Profile D – No French-registered entity is yet identified, but on-chain analysis suggests French infrastructure is involved. Begin with forensic work and an information-gathering exercise before filing. A preliminary application for disclosure without a named respondent is rarely productive. Spend the first 24 to 48 hours on the forensics, then file.
Related at OBOLUS
- Disputes and Asset Recovery for Digital-Asset Businesses – our full practice across 25+ recovery forums worldwide
- Creditor Claims in Crypto Insolvency – preserving your position when a counterparty platform fails
- VARA Licence Application in the Bahamas – licensing context for operators building cross-border digital-asset structures
FAQ
Can stolen crypto actually be recovered?
Yes, in many cases – but recovery depends on speed, the quality of on-chain tracing, and identifying a regulated intermediary (such as a PSAN-registered exchange) that holds the assets or the account-holder data. Where assets reach a KYC-compliant exchange before being withdrawn, conservatory seizure and disclosure orders give a claimant a realistic path to provisional relief. No outcome can be guaranteed, but the legal tools exist and they work when deployed quickly.
How fast must I act after a digital-asset theft?
As fast as possible. Recovery windows are measured in hours to days after a misappropriation event, not weeks. The asset can move through multiple exchanges and jurisdictions within a single business day. The forensic trace degrades as more hops accumulate; courts are also more willing to grant emergency relief where urgency is recent and demonstrable. Instructing counsel and a forensics provider simultaneously – on the day of discovery – materially improves the outcome.
Can a court freeze assets held on an exchange?
Yes. A French court can order a conservatory seizure directed at a PSAN-registered exchange, preventing the account holder from withdrawing or transferring assets pending the substantive proceedings. The exchange is required to comply upon service of the order. Separately, a disclosure order can require the exchange to produce the account holder's KYC file. Both measures are available on an urgent basis where the evidence threshold is met.
OBOLUS is an independent digital-asset law boutique acting only for businesses. We advise exchanges, custodians, token issuers and funds on licensing across 70+ jurisdictions, on disputes and on-chain asset recovery across 25+ forums, and on the tax, banking and compliance that sit around them. Digital assets are the whole of our practice. We work alongside forensic partners to convert on-chain evidence into court-ready disclosure applications – moving for freezing relief while the trail is live. To discuss your situation, contact info@oboluslaw.com.
By Glen Sorensen, Disputes & Recovery Analyst – specialising in cross-border digital-asset freezing orders, exchange disclosure applications and on-chain evidence in common-law and civil-law forums.
This publication is general information about the law and does not constitute legal advice. It is not a substitute for advice tailored to your circumstances. OBOLUS accepts no liability for action taken or not taken on the basis of this material. For advice on your situation, contact info@oboluslaw.com.