Mex Group Worldwide Ltd v Duthie & Anor [2025] EWHC 1360 (KB)

Tom Poole KC and Katharine Bailey (instructed by Bellevue Law Limited) for the Defendants

Mr Justice Kerr :

Introduction and Summary

• This case is about use of confidential information by a solicitor, the first defendant (Mr Duthie) who is sued by his former client, the claimant (Mex) for breaches of his duties of confidence and wrongful retention of client documents. The second defendant (DCL) is a service company owned and controlled by Mr Duthie, through which he provided in house counsel services to Mex and its subsidiaries known as the MultiBank Group. Mex applies to strike out part or all of the defence and counterclaim and/or for summary judgment.

• The court sat in private for parts of the hearing. I was satisfied that I must do so at those times because the hearing involved Mex’s confidential information and publicity would damage that confidentiality (CPR, rule 39.2(3)(c)). At other times we were able to sit in public by being circumspect about what we said in open court. This judgment is public but has been edited so that parts of it are available to the parties only in a confidential annex.

• In this publicly available judgment, I will cover the parts of the evidence suitable for publication and the corresponding publishable parts of my reasoning and conclusions, as well as the submissions of the parties informing them. The material not suitable for publication is dealt with in the confidential annex, as indicated by a cross-reference in the form “[CA (1)]“, “[CA (2)]“, and so forth.

• One of the bundles was a “confidential bundle” containing most but not necessarily all the documents confidential to Mex. The court’s order will include a direction under CPR rule 5.4C, limiting non-party access to, at least, the confidential bundle and requiring that any non-party request to see documents on the court file should be referred to the court and the parties should be placed on notice of it before any documents are disclosed to a non-party.

• The background is complicated and includes serial litigation across several jurisdictions. I do not set it all out but will need to refer to some of it later. More detail can be found in publicly available judgments: see in particular:

• • Mex Group Worldwide Ltd v. Ford et al [2024] EWCA Civ 959 (especially Males LJ’s high level summary at [13]-[24]);

• • the judgment (appealed against) of Mr Simon Tinkler KC (sitting as a deputy High Court judge) [2023] EWHC 3394 (KB);

• • the judgment of Mr Andrew Kinnier KC (sitting as a deputy High Court judge) earlier in these proceedings: [2025] EWHC 426 (KB); and

• • the opinion of Lord Sandison in his decision on expenses: Mex Group Worldwide Ltd v. Ford et al [2025] CSOH 39.

• Males LJ characterised Mex thus in his judgment at [8]:

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

• Until recently, Mex had obtained worldwide freezing orders against certain parties. These were then discharged for (inter alia) failure to make full and frank disclosure. Mex also recently discontinued certain Scottish proceedings in which damages of about £85 million were claimed against various parties including the fifth defender Melville Consulting Partners Ltd (Melville) whose directors include Mr Duthie. Consequential issues arising out of those two sets of proceedings were still being considered at the time of the hearing before me.

• Mex primarily seeks permanent injunctive relief to restrain breaches of confidence and to restrain the defendants from acting against its interests. It also seeks the return or destruction of retained confidential documents. Mex submits that there are no arguable defences to its claims and no compelling reason why there should be a trial. The defendants submit that it has several defences that are arguable and fit for trial and that there are compelling reasons why a trial is needed.

• The defendants say they acted lawfully, in the public interest, in response to Mex’s own conduct. [CA (1)].

• The defendants rely on the “iniquity exception” defence: that the alleged breaches of confidence are not breaches because “the matters / information involved had been brought into existence as part of, or in furtherance of, acts perpetrated by Mex and/or its sole owner and controlling mind, Mr Taher … .^[1]” They say, next, that Mex waived confidentiality by putting in the public domain the matters relied on in proceedings in Scotland, England and the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

Continue reading this Judgment here.