Cardiff City Football Club Limited v William Arthur McKay & Ors
| Court | Chancery Division |
| Judge | Mr Justice Griffiths |
| Neutral Citation | [2024] EWHC 2953 (KB) |
| Date | 31 July 2024 |
| Year | 2024 |
| Counsel | Mr D Phillips Kc,Mr S Cuthbert |
[2024] EWHC 2953 (KB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE CC-2023-CDF-000006
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS IN WALES
CIRCUIT COMMERCIAL LIST (KBD)
Cardiff Civil and Family Justice Centre
2 Park Street
Cardiff
CF10 1ET
Wednesday, 31st July 2024
(ex tempore judgment)
Before:
MR JUSTICE GRIFFITHS
BETWEEN:
CARDIFF CITY FOOTBALL CLUB LIMITED
Claimant
and
(1) WILLIAM ARTHUR McKAY
(2) MARK McKAY
(3) JANIS McKAY
Defendants
MR D PHILLIPS KC appeared on behalf of the Claimant
MR S CUTHBERT appeared on behalf of the Defendants
Hearing date: 31 July 2024
JUDGMENT
(Approved)
This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part, other than in
accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved.
1
The Honourable Mr Justice Griffiths:
1. This is an application by the claimant consequent upon previous orders of the court, which
the claimant believes the defendants have not complied with. The defendants are
represented by solicitors and counsel and maintain they have complied with the orders in
question.
2. The application notice seeks an order:
“(1) That the First and Second Defendant provide a witness statement, deliver up the
log in details to the Email Addresses (as defined in the witness statement enclosed),
and give disclosure of relevant documents in relation to the Email Addresses; and
(2) For an independent Barrister to undertake a review of the documents identified by
the Defendants' searches.”
3. However, the eighth witness statement of the claimants’ solicitor, Ms Celine Jones, dated
19 July 2024, says (in paras 7 and 8) that only part (2) of this order is sought from me.
4. In the course of the argument, a draft order was handed up to me. The terms of that order
are, in summary, that within five days the defendants are to select a barrister from a list of
three practitioners in various chambers in Bristol to undertake a review of documents
identified by Control Risks as falling within a time period set out in the order of
His Honour Judge Keyser dated 22 February 2024 but which have not been disclosed to the
claimant, and that the selected barrister should carry out that review and assess whether any
further documents should be disclosed to the claimant, pursuant to the existing orders of the
court. If the barrister does so assess, those documents would immediately be provided to the
claimant (without any recourse to the defendants or any opportunity for the defendants to
comment or to object to that happening). The draft order provides that the costs of the
independent review will be paid by the claimant and not the defendants, and it seeks cost
orders in relation to the existing applications.
5. Therefore, in summary, what the claimants now seek is that the exercise performed by the
defendants’ solicitors - to filter out from a mass of documents (which were provided,
following an expert retrieval exercise, from emails, texts and other records) those which are
disclosable - should be re-performed by a person described as an independent barrister,
selected by the defendant, who would then make the disclosure of those documents directly
to the claimant without any intervention by the defendants.
6. The claimant argues, essentially, that the defendants have not done a proper job and they
should not be given another opportunity to do the job.
Facts
7. Because of the narrowness of the issue I have to decide today, I can state the relevant history
quite briefly.
8. In 2023, the claimant, Cardiff City Football Club Limited, brought Part 8 proceedings
against the first defendant, William Arthur McKay, seeking information about his
2
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1 cases
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Cardiff City Football Club Ltd v William Arthur McKay
...to be improper. The cry of “ unambiguous impropriety” has only been raised – much later, and after negotiations failed to reach[2024] EWHC 2953 (KB)). The Judge considered 18 specific documents that were challenged by the Claimant. Of these, only three raised unresolved questions. He emphas......
