serlecourt Adil Mohamedbhai acted for a wealthy Italian family which had been the subject of an audacious theft of €15 million from a Cayman bank account. Adil successfully applied for, and obtained, Norwich Pharmacal relief and freezing orders against several potential defendants. The Court’s developing “persons unknown” jurisdiction was considered. Jonathan Adkin QC successfully acted for one of the Defendants in Yukos Finance BV & Others v Lynch & Others in a five-week Commercial Court trial arising out of the Yukos Oil saga, in which allegations of corrupt participation in a rigged Russian auction were dismissed. Justin Higgo continues to represent the Trafalgar Multi Asset Segregated Fund in Chancery proceedings to recover the misappropriated pension funds of numerous small fund holders from the issuers of fictitious bond instruments. John Machell QC, James Weale and Stephanie Thompson acted for the successful Defendants following a 5-week trial before Teare J in Chernukhin v Deripaska [2019] EWHC 173 (Comm). The case involved a substantial property development in central Moscow and an alleged armed takeover by Oleg Deripaska. Elizabeth Jones QC, Hugh Norbury QC and Oliver Jones have been acting for the Entertainment One Group in a claim to set aside foreign exchange contracts and recover secret commissions paid to individuals in the Treasury team in order to persuade them to use a particular dealer, with freezing injunctions obtained against the individuals concerned. Having secured the discontinuance of proprietary claims against a Jersey trust, alleged by Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) to contain the proceeds of a fraud perpetrated by Mr Charles Ridley, Matthew Morrison is now acting for Mr Ridley in English Commercial Court proceedings. These seek to bring to an end Mr Ridley’s ongoing imprisonment in Dubai under Dubai’s Law 37 of 2009, which allows certain judgment creditors to apply for the imprisonment of debtors for up to twenty years. Lance Ashworth QC and Dan McCourt Fritz successfully represented the Claimant in O’Brien v Moneycorp in Commercial Court proceedings concerning the sale and purchase of the entire share capital of a foreign exchange trading business.
Jonathan Harris QC (Hon.) and Adrian de Froment appeared in the trial of the governing law of an agency contract to distribute poultry equipment in North America, Anglia Autoglow North America LLC v Anglia Autoflow Ltd. Daniel Lightman QC and Zahler Bryan acted for the successful claimants in Mahdavi v Sterling Avram, a case arising from a multi-million-pound property fraud by a consultant engaged by a solicitors’ firm. The proceedings raised novel questions about (i) the legal protection available against property fraud where the fraudster operates within a solicitors’ firm and (ii) the availability of relief under s 61 of the Trustee Act 1925 to solicitors who have paid away client monies in breach of trust. Lance Ashworth QC continues to represent the claimant in Grove Park Properties v Royal Bank of Scotland due to be heard in May 2020, in which allegations of forgery are made against the bank’s employees, with the result that the Claimant is excused from repaying £16 million. In Punjab National Bank (PNB) v Srinivasan [2019] EWHC 3495 (Ch), Matthew Morrison appeared for the Third Defendant in connection with an appeal from a judgment setting aside permission to serve the Defendants out of the jurisdiction. PNB’s claims in respect of loans totalling US$37m were based on personal guarantees and allegations that the loans had been procured by fraudulent misrepresentation. The decision to set aside permission on the grounds of non-disclosure of existing foreign proceedings, and the absence of viable claims in contract and deceit, was upheld on appeal. James Weale appeared for the Defendants in the Court of Appeal in Filatona Trading Ltd v Navigator Equities Ltd. The appeal concerns the interrelationship between contractual estoppel and principles of agency law in the context of a $100 million arbitration dispute. In Satfinance Investment Ltd v Inigo Philbrick, Zoe O’Sullivan QC and Zahler Bryan are acting for Athena Art Finance Corp, a New York based company specialising in providing finance secured on works of art. These proceedings arise from an alleged fraud concerning a JeanMichel Basquiat which was subsequently used to raise a multi-million-dollar loan from Athena.
In Munkenbeck + Marshall v The Vinyl Factory [2019] EWHC 3255 (TCC) Justin Higgo, assisted by Mark Wraith, successfully defended unjust enrichment claims commenced by an architect in respect of the redevelopment of the Marshall Street Baths in Westminster. Jonathan Harris QC (Hon.) and Zahler Bryan successfully argued that an
investor in Bitcoin futures was a consumer for the purposes of the European rules of jurisdiction in Ang v Reliantco [2019] 3 W.L.R. 161. Lance Ashworth QC represented the Russian Defendant in a 6-day LCIA arbitration brought by a Panamanian Foundation relating to the sale of a luxury yacht, worth many millions of euros.
…and our Intellectual Property practice has remained as active as ever.
Michael Edenborough QC has been involved in probably the largest trademark enforcement campaign brought before the English courts, covering 3 separate actions (leading Thomas Elias in some) against 28 defendants in 12 countries. He continues to be involved in many trade mark procedural actions, e.g. the consequences of failure to file a TM8 [2019] FSR 20, and those involving unusual trademarks, such as the Babybel red 3D mark, and the Crystal Head bottle (in the shape of a human skull). Stephanie Wickenden represented Glaxo Group Ltd in trial against Sandoz and Vectura in a passing off case related to the colour of an asthma inhaler. In IPCom GmbH & Co KG v Vodafone Group PLC [2019] EWHC 1212 (Pat) and [2019] EWHC 1255 (Pat) Jonathan Harris QC (Hon.) and Sophia Hurst acted for Vodafone in a challenge to the court’s jurisdiction to hear claims for infringement of standard essential patents and FRAND, where parallel proceedings had been ongoing in the German courts. In an IPEC design and shape trademark case relating to whisky glasses, Stephanie Wickenden resisted an application to restrain her instructing solicitors from acting. Stephanie will appear on the appeal from this decision in spring 2020.
In Freshasia Foods Ltd v Lu [2019] EWHC 638, Stephanie Thompson successfully defended Mr Lu both at the interim injunction stage and at trial from claims that he had breached restrictive covenants and should be injuncted from working for his new employer. Arnold J found that that the covenants were both void for uncertainty and unenforceable for being in breach of public policy and awarded indemnity costs to Mr Lu. The case also raised important questions of severability and was discussed in the recent Supreme Court decision of Egon Zehnder v Tillman. Adrian de Froment acted for the successful defendants in INVISTA v Botes ([2019] EWHC 58 (Ch)), a dispute involving allegations that research scientists formerly employed by the claimant had acted in breach of confidence and of employment covenants, and had procured breaches of contract by a third party. This was one of the rare cases in which a Part 36 offer was found not to have been a genuine offer to settle and it would therefore have been unjust to enforce the costs consequences in CPR 36.17 ([2019] EWHC 1086 (Ch)). Stephanie Wickenden continues to act for easyGroup. An application for permission to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision in “Easy Rent a Car”, where Stephanie represented easyGroup unled, is pending.
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