Ricardo Benjamin Salinas Pliego v Astor Asset Management 3 Ltd

Hearing dates: 30 June, 1 July & 2 July 2026

Approved Judgment

This judgment was handed down remotely at 2.00 p.m. on Tuesday 21 July 2026 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

These appeals raise the question whether what has been described as ‘privilege hunting’ (i.e. obtaining or seeking to obtain an opponent's confidential and privileged information by dishonest means) is an abuse of the process of the English court and, if it is, what if anything should be the court's response.

In the present case the claimants employed a company called Black Cube, a private investigation firm staffed by former Israeli intelligence officers, to target in a covert sting operation the solicitor at the defendants' solicitors who had the conduct of the defendants' case. By pretending to be a potential new client, a Black Cube operative fraudulently induced the solicitor to attend meetings in Amsterdam, at which the solicitor was induced to reveal sensitive information about the case, including the impact of freezing orders which the claimants had obtained, perceived weaknesses in the defendants' case, litigation strategy and settlement strategy. The meetings were secretly recorded and the recordings were provided to the claimants.

This was done without the knowledge of the claimants' then solicitors, Enyo Law LLP. When they were told about it, Enyo refused to look at the video files or listen to the audio files. That resulted in them being sacked and the claimants' current solicitors and counsel being instructed. The new solicitors, LK Law LLP, issued an application for summary judgment, exhibiting the covertly obtained recordings. The defendants' response was to apply to strike out the claim on the ground that the Black Cube sting operation was an abuse of process.

Mr Stephen Houseman KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, held that the sting operation was an abuse of process, but that the appropriate response was not to strike out the claim. He regarded that as disproportionate. Instead, he struck out the claimants' summary judgment application and deferred to a future hearing the questions whether or to what extent the claimants would be entitled to make use of or deploy in evidence the material which they had obtained and whether a fair trial remains possible.

The claimants appeal against the finding of abuse and contend that they should be allowed to pursue their summary judgment application, alternatively that the application should not have been struck out without conducting a detailed analysis of the extent to which they were free to use the material obtained on the ground that it was within the ‘iniquity exception’ to legal professional privilege. The defendants cross-appeal, saying that the judge should have struck out the claimants' claim in its entirety.

I have concluded that the claimants' conduct did constitute an abuse of the process of the court, that the Deputy Judge was right to refuse summary judgment, and that the appropriate and proportionate response was not to strike out the entire claim, but to discharge freezing orders obtained by the claimants and to leave it to the trial judge to decide whether the claimants' abuse should affect any entitlement they may otherwise have to the equitable or discretionary relief which they seek.

The parties

The first claimant, Mr Ricardo Salinas Pliego, is a wealthy Mexican businessman. He is the founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a conglomerate of businesses operating in Mexico. One of the companies in the group, in which Mr Salinas was a large shareholder, was Grupo Elektra SAB de CV. It is listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange. Its business included financial services and the operation of retail stores. The second claimant (‘RBS’) is another Mexican company ultimately owned and controlled by Mr Salinas.

The fourth defendant, Mr Vladimir Sklarov, is of Ukrainian origin. It is the claimants' case that he is a prolific fraudster who engages in stock lending frauds across the world. His modus operandi is said by the claimants to include the use of false names and misleading trading names, often resembling those of wealthy families associated with well-known legitimate financial services firms, to obtain valuable securities which are ostensibly to serve as collateral for a loan; those securities are then misappropriated, sometimes after a spurious declaration of an Event of Default, and sold through a web of companies in offshore jurisdictions.

The first, fifth and sixth defendants, incorporated respectively in Quebec, Belize and the Bahamas, are companies under Mr Sklarov's control. Despite their names, they have nothing to do with the well-known Astor or Vanderbilt families or with businesses genuinely associated with those families.

The second and third defendants (‘Weiser’ and ‘Tavira’) are companies incorporated in the Bahamas and Monaco which carry on business as brokers and custodians of securities. They are not concerned in this appeal. I shall refer to the first, fourth, fifth and sixth defendants collectively as ‘the defendants’.

The claim

In the spring of 2021 Mr Salinas wanted to borrow money urgently. He asked his subordinate, Mr Eduardo Salceda, to arrange a loan. Mr Salceda contacted Mr Salinas' Swiss-based financial adviser, Mr Alexandre Torti, who was tasked with looking for financial institutions who might be willing to provide the necessary funds. As part of these efforts, Mr Torti was introduced to Ms Zara Akbar of Enness Global, a UK based financial services firm. Ms Akbar told Mr Torti about a financial institution called Astor Capital Fund, with which she said that she had previously worked successfully, and agreed to put him in touch with Astor. She explained that Astor Capital was ‘originally set up on the foundations of the wealth of John Jacob Astor’ and gave details of prestigious investors in the fund. She provided him with a corporate profile which emphasised the fund's origins in the Astor family.

This led to an introduction to a Mr Gregory Mitchell and a Mr Thomas Mellon, supposedly senior representatives of Astor Capital Fund. In fact such individuals did not exist; these were aliases of Mr Sklarov and his associate, Mr Alexey Skachkov.

This introduction led to the conclusion on 28 ^th July 2021 of a Stock Lending Agreement between Astor 3 as lender, RBS as borrower, and Mr Salinas as guarantor. Astor 3 advanced the Mexican equivalent of about US $115 million in five tranches against security in the form of Mr Salinas' shares in Grupo Elektra which had a total value of approximately US $415 million. These were to be held by Weiser and Tavira as custodians during the loan term.

The Stock Lending Agreement included terms which prohibited the lender, so long as there had not been an Event of Default, from selling or short-selling the shares on any publicly traded securities exchange or from transferring the shares to its own account. But it also contained other provisions, drafted in what the claimants say was deliberately obscure and convoluted language. The defendants say that these provisions did after all entitle them to deal with the shares during the currency of the loan.

It appears that the Elektra shares transferred to Weiser and Tavira were promptly transferred to the defendants, who sold them to third parties. The proceeds of these sales were used to fund the third and subsequent tranches of the loans provided by Astor 3 to RBS. The surplus, some US $271 million, was paid into accounts controlled by a Mr JT Singh, an associate of Mr Sklarov.

The net result of these transactions was that in exchange for a loan of US $115 million, the claimants transferred shares in Grupo Elektra worth about US $415 million which have now been sold, with the greater part of the proceeds being transferred into the control of Mr Sklarov.

The claimants say that they were deceived into concluding the Stock Lending Agreement and transferring the Grupo Elektra shares by the defendants' false representations that they were a legitimate and honest financial institution connected to the Astor family, when in fact they were creatures of Mr Sklarov set up pursuant to a fraudulent scheme to expropriate the shares; and that the disposal of the shares was in breach of the Stock Lending Agreement.

The defendants deny these claims, saying that the Stock Lending Agreement permitted what they call the ‘rehypothecation’ of the shares, which included lending them to third parties who were permitted to trade them without restriction, and that the claimants knew and agreed that this would happen. They say that this was the quid pro quo for the low interest rate charged for the loan; that without a right to deal with the shares in this way, the agreement would not have made economic sense, as the claimants must have understood; and that the...