Mex Group Worldwide Ltd v Duthei & Anor [2025] EWHC 426 (KB)

MR THOMAS ROE KC (instructed by Bellevue Law) for the Defendants/Applicants.

ANDREW KINNIER KC sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court:

• The claimant makes an application under CPR 39.2(3) that I sit in private to hear the defendants’ application to vary the terms of undertakings that were given in July of last year. Three limbs of CPR 39.2(3) are relied upon: (a), (c) and (g). The defendants have adopted a neutral position.

• Before dealing with the detail of each of those limbs, I should say that two fundamental principles are engaged. One is the bedrock principle that justice must be open and the public has a right to see what is going on in court; the second is the importance of the privacy and the alleged confidential nature of the information and materials that are being discussed before me today.

• It seems to me that, bearing in mind the two fundamental principles and balancing the relevant considerations, there is much to be said for sitting in private today. If the matters were discussed openly, there is a risk that the purpose for which the undertakings were given and the litigation is pursued would be undermined. So, for that principal reason, I am satisfied that publicity would or may defeat the object of the hearing for the purposes of limb (a); secondly, I am satisfied that the hearing involves confidential information and publicity would damage that confidentiality for the purposes of limb (c), and generally, for the reasons already given, I am satisfied that limb (g) is also met.

• We will come on to the question of the judgment, whether it ought to be given in open court or not, in due course.

• By an application dated 31 January 2025, Mr Adam Duthie and Duthie Consultants Limited, the first and second defendants respectively, seek to vary the terms of the undertakings they each provided to the court, and which are set out now in schedule 2 of the order of 26 July 2024 made by Sweeting J.

• For the purposes of this afternoon’s hearing, for which a three-hour time estimate was given, I have been provided with three witness statements. The defendants rely on the third statement of Faye Moore, to which nearly 900 pages of materials are exhibited. The claimant relies on the third statement of Mark Hastings and the first statement of Louise Wright. The parties both lodged skeleton arguments yesterday evening. I have also received and read expert reports obtained by the defendants on certain aspects of criminal law in the British Virgin Islands and Germany. I have also read and received an opinion from Jonathan Brown, junior counsel retained by the claimant in the Scottish proceedings, litigation to which I will refer to again in due course, on certain aspects of Scottish procedural law as it concerns warrants for citation. The parties are agreed that, for the purposes of this application only, I can consider these latter materials de bene esse.

• It is necessary to set out a short summary of the background to enable the issues in this application to be understood. I should emphasise, however, that it cannot be a full account of the complex and contentious pieces of litigation in which the parties are involved in this jurisdiction, in Scotland and elsewhere, whether as parties or otherwise.

• The claimant is a Hong Kong-based company. It is the holding company of a group of companies trading under the name of Multi Bank. Its sole shareholder is Mr Naser Taher. The Multi Bank companies provide trading platforms for investors dealing in derivatives and are authorised to provide financial services in 14 jurisdictions but not including the United Kingdom.

• Mr Duthie, the first defendant, is a solicitor. Duthie Consultants Limited is the company under which Mr Duthie provides or provided legal services. Under an agreement dated 1 May 2020, Duthie Consultants agreed to provide the claimant with legal advice including advice in relation to corporate commercial and dispute resolution matters, instructing counsel on behalf of the claimant, and managing services of external law firms engaged by the claimant. From 1 May 2020, Mr Duthie acted as the claimant’s general counsel and provided legal services under the agreement. That agreement itself was terminated on 11 May 2022.

• I now turn to the English freezing order proceedings. A concise history of the English freezing order proceedings was provided by Males LJ at paragraphs 7 to 19 of his judgment dismissing the claimant’s appeal against the discharge of the freezing order by Deputy High Court Judge Tinkler. I gratefully adopt that summary but do not repeat it here given the constraints of time this afternoon.

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