Phillips v Symes (Security for Costs)

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
CourtCourt of Appeal (Civil Division)
JudgeLORD JUSTICE BUXTON
Judgment Date18 April 2002
Neutral Citation[2002] EWCA Civ 486
Date18 April 2002
(1) Jonathan Guy Anthony Phillips
(2) Robert andrew Harland (Administrators of the Estate of Christo Michailidis)
Claimants
and
Messrs Eversheds (A Firm)
and
(1) Robin James Symes
(2) Robin Symes Limited
Interveners
Before

Lord Justice Buxton

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE A3/01/2551/B

COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)

ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

CHANCERY DIVISION

(Mr Justice Hart)

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London WC2

MR. J. STEPHENS (instructed by Messrs Lane and Partners, London, WC1) appeared on behalf of the Claimants.

LORD JUSTICE BUXTON
1

This is an application for security for costs against an appeal pending in this court which is due to be heard on, I am told, 29th and 30th April. The appeal is being brought by two interveners, Robin James Symes ("Mr Symes") and Robin Symes Limited ("RSL"), who intervene in an action between the administrators of the estate of Mr. Michailidis and Messrs Eversheds, a well known firm of solicitors. The administrators seek to obtain from Messrs Eversheds various documents which they say they require in order to administer Mr. Michailidis's estate. Mr. Symes, and in some way not at the moment clear to me RSL, have in the past been closely associated with Mr. Michailidis. They have intervened in this action to express a fear that documents that may appear to fall under the ownership or control of the administrators may in fact be confidential documents held by Eversheds as the solicitors of Mr. Symes and RSL.

2

Hart J, who has had the burden of dealing with the whole of this tangled story, made an order that was intended to provide a process whereby Messrs Eversheds could properly and fairly assess whether any particular document before them was or was not the property of the interveners.

3

The interveners have objected to the terms of his order and have appealed to this court. The judge gave permission for that appeal but on a subsequent occasion expressed substantial doubts as to whether he had been justified in granting permission. I will say nothing about the prospects of that appeal succeeding, save that the considerable study that I have made of the substantive case does not indicate that the appeal is one that is self-evidently going to succeed.

4

The application for security comes about because the applicants fear that RSL, a limited company, does not have sufficient assets to pay their costs, and they complain that Mr. Symes is ordinarily resident out of the jurisdiction in Geneva; that he has gone there in order to impede the process of administration and the process...

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9 cases
  • BTU Power v Hayat
    • Cayman Islands
    • Court of Appeal (Cayman Islands)
    • 23 May 2011
    ...Civ 1940, distinguished. (4) Mbasogo v. Logo Ltd., [2006] EWCA Civ 608, dicta of Auld, L.J. considered. (5) Phillips v. Eversheds, [2002] EWCA Civ 486, distinguished. (6) Wisniewski v. Central Manchester Health Auth., [1998] P.I.Q.R. P324; [1998] Lloyd”s Rep. Med. 223, dicta of Brooke, L.J.......
  • Mbasogo and another v Logo Ltd and Others
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 23 October 2006
    ...13 of his judgment in Marine Blast Limited v Targe Towing Limited [2003] EWCA Civ 1940, and of Buxton LJ, at paragraph 6 in Phillips v Eversheds [2002] EWCA Civ 486, are relevant to the approach of the court in considering whether there is reason to believe that the party against whom secur......
  • IBB Internet Services Ltd and Others v Motorola Ltd
    • Ireland
    • Supreme Court
    • 27 November 2013
    ...[2013] IEHC 48, (Unrep, McGovern J, 7/2/2013); Jirehouse Capital v Beller [2008] EWCA Civ 908, [2009] 1 WLR 751; Phillips v Eversheds [2002] EWCA Civ 486, (Unrep, COA, 18/4/2002); Philip v Ryan [2004] 4 IR 241; Boliden Tara Mines v Cosgrove [2010] IESC 62, (Unrep, SC, 21/12/2010) and In re......
  • Jirehouse Capital and another v Stanley Sherwin Beller and another
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 30 July 2008
    ... ... to provide security for the defendants' costs. We are not concerned with the amounts he ... ...
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