Court orders disclosure by Defendant of source of legal funding
Written By
Partner
UK
I am a partner and co-head of our International Dispute Resolution Group, as well as the London team. I specialise in complex disputes, often of a cross border nature, and have particular expertise in the aviation & defence sector, commercial life science, and in matters involving fraud.
The Court granted a judgment creditor disclosure of the Defendant's source of legal funding where there was an arguable case that the funding maybe in breach of the post judgment freezing Order and the Defendant was in breach of orders.
In Barclay Pharmaceuticals Ltd v Antoine Mekni and others (23 October 2017) the Claimant had been the victim of a fraud and obtained judgment against the Defendants which remained unpaid and with interest stood at £15m. The Claimant had obtained a post judgment freezing order over the Defendants' assets (including assets held by family members as nominee).
The Court determined that it was just and convenient to order disclosure of the source of funding to make the injunction effective. The Defendant had paid none of the judgment debt, failed to comply with his disclosure obligations, had given inconsistent accounts of his funding and was known to use nominees and aliases. There was therefore an arguable case that the funding was being used in breach of the freezing order.
Sophie Eyre, co-Head of the UK Dispute Resolution group: ‘the case shows the trend of the Court to frustrate fraudsters and to assist victims of a proven fraud in asset tracing.’
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