Hassan Khan & Company v Mrs Iman Said AL-Rawas

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeMr Justice Morris
Judgment Date27 September 2021
Neutral Citation[2021] EWHC 2583 (QB)
Docket NumberCase No: Claim Nos: QB-2013-001681
CourtQueen's Bench Division
Between:
(1) Hassan Khan & Co
(2) The Khan Partnership LLP
Claimants
and
(1) Mrs Iman Said AL-Rawas
(2) Mr Thamer AL-Shanfari
Defendants

[2021] EWHC 2583 (QB)

Before:

THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Morris

Case No: Claim Nos: QB-2013-001681

QB-2013-001685

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Sir Geoffrey Cox QC and Ben Walker-Nolan (instructed by The Khan Partnership LLP) for the Claimants

The Defendants were not present and were not represented

Hearing dates: 29, 30 and 31 March 2021

Approved Judgment

I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.

Mr Justice Morris

Introduction

1

By application dated 15 January 2021 Hassan Khan & Co and the Khan Partnership LLP (“the Claimants”) seek to commit Mrs Iman Said Al-Rawas (“the First Defendant”) and Mr Thamer Al-Shanfari (“the Second Defendant”) (together “the Defendants”). The application to commit (“the Application”) comprises 14 charges of contempt of court. This is the Court's judgment on breach. For the reasons set out in this judgment and summarised at paragraph 148 below, I find the Defendants guilty of contempt of court. I will consider sentence in due course.

Background

2

The Claimants are two inter-related firms of solicitors. The Second and First Defendants are husband and wife, Omani nationals and are resident in Oman. Between 2006 and 2009 the Claimant acted for the Defendants in relation to substantial litigation. Thereafter the Claimants commenced proceedings against the Defendant for unpaid legal bills on 1 August 2013. By judgments of 14 March 2018 the Defendants were ordered to pay to the Claimants a total sum of in excess of £1.16 million. To date the Defendants have not paid any amount towards those judgment sums. In addition to the judgment sums, subsequently the Claimants have obtained various costs orders against the Defendants.

3

In seeking to enforce the judgment sums and the costs orders, the Claimants applied under CPR 71 to obtain information and documentation from the Defendants. The Part 71 proceedings themselves have a substantial history which I explain below. In summary in May 2018 orders pursuant to Part 71 (“Part 71 Orders”) were made requiring each of the Defendants to attend and provide information about their means. The orders, in identical terms, included details of the information that the Defendants were required to produce. The material terms of the Part 71 Orders are set out in Appendix 1 to this judgment. Between then and November 2018, the Defendants failed to attend on four occasions and on two occasions they were found guilty of contempt and suspended committal orders were imposed.

4

Eventually a Part 71 Hearing took place between 4 and 6 December 2018 before myself (“the Part 71 Hearing”). The Defendants attended and produced some documentation and gave oral evidence. Following that hearing various orders were made including an order that costs should be subject to detailed assessment. Following that hearing there was protracted correspondence over the next 6 months. No further documents were produced.

5

Pursuant to my order of 6 December 2018 the process of detailed assessment of costs ensued. Eventually the costs applications were called on before Master Leonard in the Senior Courts Costs Office. The Second Defendant filed a witness statement dated 31 January 2020 (“the January Statement”), in which he repeated certain of the assertions he had made in oral evidence during the Part 71 Hearing. Master Leonard, in his judgment of 13 May 2020 made a number of observations suggesting that the Second Defendant's evidence was substantially incomplete, questionable and in some respects untrue.

6

Following the hearing before Master Leonard, the Claimants conducted their own independent enquiries investigating some of the assertions made by the Defendants in oral evidence during the Part 71 Hearing and by the Second Defendant in the January Statement.

The Application to Commit and the Charges

7

The Application includes a “Schedule of Allegations of Contempt”, setting out the 14 charges of contempt (“the Schedule”); a summary of the facts alleged to constitute contempt in respect of each charge and a detailed 93 page affidavit from Lucy Vials, solicitor for the Claimants, setting out the underlying evidence and exhibiting the documents relied upon (“Vials”). The supporting evidence is very detailed and substantial, with the trial bundle running to in excess of 3700 pages. A summary of the charges is set out at Appendix 2 hereto.

8

The Claimants allege that the Defendants have embarked on a persistent and deliberate course of conduct in order to avoid and frustrate payment of the judgment sums by deliberately and dishonestly concealing and obfuscating their assets and interests during the Part 71 process and thereafter.

9

The 14 charges fall into three different types of contempt: breach of a court order (here, the Part 71 Orders (made on 24 May 2018 and 14 November 2018); false statements in oral evidence (namely at the Part 71 Hearing) and false statements verified by statement of truth (namely in the January Statement). The charges can be categorised, by reference to the underlying facts, as follows:

Charges 1–3 concern the Second Defendant's bank accounts and statements

Charge 4 concerns the Second Defendant's mortgage documents.

Charges 5–7 concern the Second Defendant's interest in Zimbabwe.

Charges 8–12 concern the First and Second Defendant's registered interest in companies.

Charges 13 and 14 concern the Second Defendant's unregistered beneficial interest in, or control over, companies in Oman.

10

The trial of the Application took place on 29 to 31 March, and, for the reason set out in paragraphs 51 to 54 below, in the absence of the Defendants.

The history of the litigation from 2006 onwards

11

The history of the litigation is relevant not only by way of background, but as important context for the allegations of contempt and the Defendants' behaviour and also for the Court's decision to proceed in the Defendants' absence. For these reasons, I set it out in some detail.

12

Between 2006 and 2009 the Claimants acted for the Defendants in substantial litigation including before the High Court, and in relation to the Second Defendant having been placed on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) sanctions list, due to his involvement with the Zimbabwean regime.

13

In the original litigation adverse findings were made about the conduct of the Second Defendant. In a judgment dated 29 June 2007 Mr Recorder Mitchell refused to award the Second Defendant costs, notwithstanding that he was the successful party. He took into account a forged declaration of trust for which he held the Second Defendant responsible and a sham loan agreement for which he held the Second Defendant at least partly responsible. He found that the Second Defendant had invited the proceedings upon himself in that his affairs were conducted with a lack of clarity. Further in a judgment dated 6 September 2006 Mr Justice Ramsay concluded that, in the Second Defendant's evidence in support of a ex party search and seizure and freezing order, there had been serious and deliberate material non-disclosure and further found that his evidence was intended to mislead the court. The Claimants rely upon these findings as relevant to my interpretation of the Second Defendant's conduct in the present matter.

14

The Claimants brought proceedings against the Defendants for unpaid legal bills. By judgment of 14 March 2018, entered in default of answers to Part 18 request, the Defendants were ordered to pay the Claimants the total sum of £1,160,099.24 (“the judgment sums”). Immediately prior to that judgment, the Second Defendant communicated with the Claimants, using the email address hq@nibras.om. Following judgment the Claimants contacted the Second Defendant to discuss settlement. A solicitor's attendance note records that the Second Defendant refused to discuss settlement, stating that he was not afraid of the judgment against him in the UK. He stated that the only way for the Claimant to enforce the judgment would be in Oman and they would “see what happens” if they came to Oman. He said that he had many claims he could bring against Mr Khan.

15

In addition to the judgment sums, the Claimants have since obtained various costs orders against the Defendants, totalling £864,055. They include sums awarded in relation to hearings concerning the Part 71 Orders. To date the only sum that the Defendants have paid has been a part of the unless order of 6 December 2018 such as allow them to challenge the costs proceedings. This is explained further below. As at the close of the hearing on 31 March 2021, taking account of interest which has accrued, the total sums owed by the Defendants was in excess of £2.3 million.

The Part 71 proceedings

16

By way of enforcement of the judgment sums and certain costs orders, the Claimant applied, under CPR 71 to obtain information and documentation from the Defendants. On 24 May 2018 orders pursuant to Part 71 were made requiring the Defendants to attend before Deputy Master Stevens on 6 July 2018 to provide information about their means i.e. the Parts 71 Orders.

17

On 1 June 2018 Master Yoxhall made an order permitting service of “any document in these proceedings” by email to hq@nibras.om, the email address earlier used by the Second Defendant to communicate with the Claimants. Thereafter documents were consistently sent to that email address.

18

The Defendants did not attend the hearing listed for 6 July 2018. On 25 July 2018 Cheema-Grubb J made committal orders against both Defendants, suspended on the basis that...

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