Muduroglu v Reddish LLP & Anor

On 9 April 2010 the claimant, Mr Eren Muduroglu (“Mr Muduroglu”), transferred to the first defendant, Reddish LLP (“Reddish”), 1000 shares in Memorial Holdings Limited (“MHL”), a company incorporated in Jersey. He says that the price for the shares, as agreed orally between him and Mr Derek Lucie-Smith (“Mr Lucie-Smith”), the second defendant and a member and the beneficial owner of Reddish, was £1,300,000 and that Reddish has failed to make the payment. Accordingly his primary claim in these proceedings is for payment of the price with interest; in the alternative he claims transfer of the shares back to him.

Mr Muduroglu also contends that Reddish and Mr Lucie-Smith conspired together by unlawful means to defraud him of the price to which he was entitled, by knowingly causing a false consideration of £200,000 to be entered onto the stock transfer form in respect of the shares. He claims damages for conspiracy from both defendants.

The defendants deny the claims in their entirety. They say that all of the discussions and agreements concerning the shares were with the claimant’s brother, Mr Sami Muduroglu (“Sami”), who was the beneficial owner of the shares. It was agreed that the shares, representing ten per cent of the issued share capital of MHL, would be transferred to Mr Lucie-Smith for his services in introducing private equity and loan investment into MHL. At Mr Lucie-Smith’s request the shares were transferred directly into the name of Reddish, of which he was the ultimate beneficial owner. The stock transfer form was initially completed without showing any consideration, and subsequently the figure of £200,000 was entered as the result of a mistake, because it represented the notional consideration passing to Mr Lucie-Smith from Reddish, not any consideration due from him to the claimant. The defendants contend that Mr Muduroglu has brought this claim on a basis that he knows to be false and because he is in financial straits.

Sami disappeared in 2012 after committing a large fraud and being made bankrupt; no-one will own to knowing his whereabouts.

At the trial, Mr Muduroglu represented himself, though he had been represented by solicitors until shortly before the trial. Mr Lucie-Smith, who had represented himself during most of the proceedings, instructed solicitors shortly before the trial, at which he was represented by Mr James Aldridge QC. Reddish was represented by Mr Samuel Beilin, one of its designated members, though he played only a modest role in the hearing, as the interests of the defendants were largely identical.

A number of witnesses gave evidence at the trial. The most important witnesses were Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith. I shall say much about their evidence in the course of this judgment. At this stage I need only remark that in the light of the documents the evidence that each of them gave presents significant difficulties. I shall spend a substantial part of this judgment setting out what the documents say.

In the remainder of this judgment I shall proceed as follows. First, I shall set out a fairly lengthy narrative of the relevant facts, though leaving some of the main findings on disputed issues until later. Some of the information in the narrative is relevant only as providing background or for the light it sheds, or does not shed, on the central issue concerning the terms on which it was agreed that the shares in MHL would be transferred to Reddish. Finally, I shall set out and explain my conclusions on the case.

Mr Muduroglu is a businessman and property developer. So was Sami, before he disappeared. Sami had a business partner, one Kevin Wishart, with whom he engaged in a number of business ventures. One of Sami’s businesses failed with substantial debts, which resulted in January 2005 in him being subject of a disqualification order that disqualified him from being a director of a company or in any way, whether directly or indirectly, being concerned in or taking part in the promotion, formation or management of a company for a period of five years. Meanwhile in March 2004 Mr Wishart was remanded in custody on serious criminal charges, and after a lengthy trial at Woolwich Crown Court in 2005 he was sentenced to a term of six-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, from which he was released in June 2007. It was probably because Sami and Mr Wishart were tarnished or indisposed that in about 2004 Mr Muduroglu became involved in their joint ventures, for the purposes of which he was required as a person who could act as a company director and deal with potential business partners and sources of finance. Quite what the arrangement between the three of them was is unclear; it may not have been very precise. In these proceedings, Mr Muduroglu said, with respect to the period around 2009, that the apportionment was 30% to Sami, 30% to Mr Wishart and 10% to him, with the balance being applied to creditors. Although the point is put differently, this accords substantially with what Mr Wishart wrote in an email that he sent to Mr Lucie-Smith in July 2012 regarding his involvement at the outset of the project in which MHL was concerned and the extent of his interest when it began: “Sami told me at the time that we had around 35% of the project and I took 12% because our agreement was that I had a third of whatever our holdings were and two thirds were a third for Sami and a third for creditors including 4% for Eren”; this amounts, roughly, to a third of a third to Mr Muduroglu.

The relationship among the three men was considered by Mr Tim Kerr QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, in Credit & Mercantile Plc v (1) Kaymuu Ltd, (2) Wishart, (3) Defty (trustee in bankruptcy for Sami Muduroglu) [2014] EWHC 1746 (Ch). The evidence on the point was more detailed in that case than in this, but Mr Kerr’s findings are consistent with the position as I am able to know it from the evidence adduced before me, and they also show what Mr Muduroglu’s evidence as a witness was in those proceedings; I gratefully set out part of his judgment:

“5.

… There were never any formal written contractual arrangements between Sami and Mr Wishart. Sami was the wealthier of the two, having profited from the trading of futures. He took the lead and Mr Wishart took a subordinate role.

6.

I do not have any clear evidence of what the informal financial arrangements between them were in those early days. Mr Wishart’s evidence was that their understanding was that it was ’50-50’. I accept that such was their loose understanding, but I doubt whether Mr Wishart received anywhere near 50 per cent of any profits. Their financial arrangements were largely improvised and based on friendship and trust. Evidence of later payments by and to Sami, Mr Wishart and Eren (when he later became involved) is of payments of irregular ad hoc amounts, not always supported by any obvious logic, let alone formal contractual foundation or documentation.

…

9.

Sami’s disqualification and Mr Wishart’s incarceration meant that of the trio, Eren was the only candidate to act as director of any company set up as a vehicle for their business ventures. He took over as director of various companies in which Sami had an interest. To raise finance for their business ventures, he was required to sign personal guarantees and give security for loans. He accepted these risks and, in return, expected to participate in any profits.

10.

I accept Eren’s evidence that there was a loose informal understanding between him and Sami that he, Eren, would receive 10% of the profits, if any, from the various business ventures, on the basis that he would ‘walk away’ afterwards, free of further risk and personal guarantees. However, this was subject to discussion of any more specific (but still informal) agreement about how to apportion profits, shares and risk at times when (after paying off creditors) profits were made or imminent.”

This is the background against which in 2007 Mr Muduroglu, Sami and Mr Wishart became involved in a project to develop and thereafter operate a cemetery at a site in Chislehurst known as Kemnal Manor. Planning permission for the use of Kemnal Manor as a cemetery had been granted in November 2006.

In June 2007 Kemnal Manor Memorial Gardens UK LLP (“KMMG”) was incorporated as a limited liability partnership in Northern Ireland, with the intention that it should be the vehicle for the acquisition and development of Kemnal Manor as a cemetery. KMMG was an equal partnership between Mr Muduroglu and Ravenblack Developments Limited, a limited company incorporated in Northern Ireland, and their Limited Liability Partnership Agreement dated 29 June 2007 provided that the profits and losses were to be shared equally between them. In the course of detailed transactions that are not relevant for present purposes, KMMG purchased the freehold estate in Kemnal Manor for £7,000,000. The money was put up by Ravenblack Developments Limited.

Until a late stage of these proceedings, Mr Muduroglu’s case was expressed in a manner that gave the impression that his interest in KMMG and in the other corporate vehicles that succeeded it was beneficially his alone; in particular, that Sami had no interest in it. At trial, his evidence was to the effect that his interest was subject to the informal arrangement or understanding already mentioned, namely that any profits from it were to be divided 30% to Sami, 30% to Mr Wishart and 10% to him, with the balance being applied to paying off the creditors. The defendants contend that this late concession was forced out of him by the discovery of what his evidence had been in the Credit & Mercantile Plc case; they say that he was trying to advance a false case and has been caught out. For their part, the defendants contended that Mr Muduroglu was merely a nominee or, as they put it, “stooge” for Sami, though at trial they pressed only the weaker case that Mr Muduroglu was the junior partner in an informal arrangement and would simply rubber-stamp deals that his brother had made.

The acquisition of Kemnal Manor had been cash-funded. In October 2007 KPMG reported to Ulster Bank on KMMG’s proposal to undertake a debt refinancing of its capital structure in order to finance an equity release from the business. In November 2007 KMMG gave a debenture to Ulster Bank as security for re-finance from the bank. Repayment of the loans was personally guaranteed by Mr Muduroglu and Mr David Hassard, who was the owner of Ravenblack.

In 2009 KMMG was in serious financial difficulties. The financial crisis in the UK was having an adverse effect on its cash-flow and its ability to fund the development of Kemnal Manor and to make loan repayments to Ulster Bank, and the bank showed no enthusiasm for extending the existing credit facilities, far less for enlarging them. Ravenblack too was hard-hit by the fall in the value of its property in Northern Ireland. Mr Muduroglu and Ravenblack decided to end their partnership; and he, Sami and Mr Wishart decided to seek new investors in order to enable the project to continue through a new corporate structure that would acquire the assets of KMMG.

Initial attempts to procure investment were unsuccessful. Sami’s obvious involvement in the venture may have been a problem. On 13 August 2009 he wrote a letter “to whom it may concern” for the purpose of explaining the circumstances that had led to his disqualification as a director, no doubt in order to provide some assurance to potential investors in the project at Kemnal Manor. Having described the events leading to the disqualification, Sami continued:

“Subsequently I myself contacted all the creditors and arranged the settlement of outstanding monies with them in the sum of £55,000 plus costs of circa £65,000. I also resigned from all of my directorships and installed Eren Muduroglu, my brother with whom I have worked for the past 23 years, in my place. I also removed myself from all bank mandates and informed all of the relevant companies … and the banks that were lending my companies money of the situation. I have continued to work closely alongside my brother as a consultant to all of his projects and as a result his business has grown significantly throughout this period.”

At around this time, Sami was put in contact with Victor Librae, a financial broker in the property sector. Mr Librae’s evidence was that Sami held himself out as “the decision-maker” and “the man to deal with” and explained that the shares in KMMG were in Mr Muduroglu’s name because Sami’s disqualification and various other matters, which he could not now remember, made it difficult for Sami to hold them. Mr Librae said that he never doubted that Sami was in control; as a broker he never had cause to undertake a due diligence exercise or verify the precise nature of his involvement in the venture.

Through Mr Librae and another broker, James Marshall, an introduction was forged between KMMG and Paul Turton, an associate director of Royal Bank of Scotland (“RBS”). Mr Turton went to see the site and there met Sami, with whom he subsequently had a more formal meeting. Sami told him that he was a disqualified director, and a colleague at RBS did a Google search that brought to light some other not-altogether favourable details about Sami. The proposal put to Mr Turton remained to be worked out in detail but involved the use of a property-holding company and an operating company. Mr Marshall was hoping to have the proposal considered by RBS’s Credit Committee on 4 September 2004 (in the event it was not considered then), but in an email to him on 26 August 2009 Mr Turton set out his position clearly:

“Just to be clear

•

I like Sami

•

I like the underlying proposal

•

I would like to write this transaction

However, I am being asked to lend £18m to a legal entity controlled by individuals where if I google their names then it does not look pretty on several different fronts. In a bull market then I could sell the story. In a bear market then the hurdle is set too high. Sami could have lowered the hurdle by challenging the disqualification through solicitors at an earlier date. Unfortunately this has not been done and the debt markets have become very tough over the last couple of years and are likely to remain that way for a while yet.

A way to get round the hurdle rather than over it would be for this transaction to be presented by ANOther party with the controlling interest—Sami’s brother would not solve the issue. For the avoidance of doubt:

•

Sami would need to relinquish control.

•

He can still be a named beneficiary of the borrowing entity.

•

He can still be an appointed consultant of the borrowing entity.

I have suggested a potential controlling party may be Derek Lucie-Smith. However, to re-emphasise Ross’s point, from the Bank’s perspective we are putting you in touch with each other to see if you may benefit from mutual business but clearly you will be making your own decisions and agreements in this respect.”

Mr Turton’s evidence was that Mr Librae and Mr Marshall presented Sami as the owner of the Kemnal Manor Site. He was somewhat vague on what if anything he knew about Mr Muduroglu, but the gist of his evidence was that he was not concerned with him as Sami was the owner. He said that he presumed that the reason why “Sami’s brother would not solve the issue” was that he lacked experience in developing and operating cemeteries. That explanation tends to suggest that Mr Turton did have some knowledge of Mr Muduroglu, but in the light of the rest of his evidence and of what happened next I find it an unconvincing explanation. More likely is that Mr Turton thought that only a person independent of Sami’s taint would be acceptable to the Credit Committee and that a brother was not such a person, being too closely connected. The striking reason Mr Turton gave for suggesting Mr Lucie-Smith as a “potential controlling party” was that he had successfully financed a self-storage venture in which Mr Lucie-Smith was involved; it seemed to Mr Turton that self-storage and cemeteries were similar. Mr Turton’s evidence was that, to be acceptable to RBS, any “controlling party” would have to have a vested interest in the venture, that is, a shareholding.

Mr Lucie-Smith is a chartered accountant. In 2009 he was the chief executive officer of Gresham House plc, a long-established investment company. He was also a member of Reddish, which he had incorporated in 2004. In 2009 the other member of Reddish was John Lorimer, who was also a director of Gresham House. On 31 March 2010 Mr Lorimer ceased to be a member and was replaced by Andrew Riley. Mr Riley explained in evidence that he had become a member purely as a favour to Mr Lucie-Smith and held his interest in Reddish on behalf of Mr Lucie-Smith. Although there was no written trust, Mr Lucie-Smith was the sole beneficial owner of Reddish; it appears that the use of an LLP was a device whereby he could avail himself of investment opportunities without being openly in breach of the investment trust rules.

Mr Turton promptly forwarded to Mr Lucie-Smith the email he had sent to Mr Marshall. He explained that “the land owner”, as well as being a disqualified director, was also the subject of “other naughty stories” on Google. “Credit committee always want to know about the management, shareholders & beneficiaries. As soon as I highlight a disqualification then I get a decline”. Mr Turton said that the broker was “trying to rush [RBS] in to credit—never a good sign!” He thought that he had spoken to a number of banks but had had little success.

Mr Lucie-Smith’s initial reaction was negative. But he did some research and concluded that a lack of cemetery provision in and around London might make the Kemnal Manor project attractive after all. On 28 August he met with Sami and the brokers, and on 2 September he met with Mr Turton and again with Sami. It was probably at this stage that Sami produced an initial version of a document headed “Kemnal Manor Memorial Gardens[:] Current Investment by Sami Muduroglu”:

“The purchase of the assets of Kemnal Manor Memorial Gardens UK LLP is basically structured at a purchase price of £11.5 million. The current debt of circa £8.5 million will be repaid with £2.5 million will be paid to the partners and 500k being repaid to Sami.

The partners in the project are my brother Eren Muduroglu and Ravenblack Ltd, which is 99% owned by David Hassard.

Based on my input to the site so far I have personally invested circa £500,000 into the Kemnal Project Costs.”

Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence was that this document clearly showed that it was Sami and not Mr Muduroglu who had put the investment into the Kemnal Manor Site and that Mr Muduroglue was “purely a nominee shareholder as [Sami] had always said”: “I therefore had absolutely no reason to believe that [Sami] was not the ultimate beneficial owner of the shares in KMMG.” That does not seem to me to be a plausible interpretation of the document; it plainly says that, of anticipated net sale proceeds of £3,000,000 to be received by KMMG, £500,000 would be repaid to Sami for his investment and the remaining £2,500,000 would be divided equally between the partners in the project, namely Mr Murudoglu and Ravenblack. This is clearly intended to mean that Sami was not the ultimate beneficial owner of KMMG.

On 4 September 2009 Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith met with Mr Ross Davies of RBS; Mr Marshall and Mr Librae were also present. In his witness statement, Mr Lucie-Smith described what happened at the meeting:

“Mr Davies explained that RBS would take over the Ulster Bank loan and fund all of the development provided the team were credible, and he believed that I gave them this credibility. I mentioned that I thought it was ambitious for this to be 100% funded, as it may not get approved by the credit committee of RBS.”

On 7 September 2009 Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith had an exchange of emails, on which the defendants rely. Mr Lucie-Smith wrote as follows:

“Dear Sami

Following our agreement of my proposed involvement in Manor Memorial Gardens, I thought I would just put together some outline terms so that we can go forward on the legals. In summary I believe we have reached agreement on the following:

1.

I will be remunerated at a rate of £150,000 p/a. The fee will commence once credit approval has been obtained from RBS. The contract will be with an LLP where my wife and myself will be members. I will provide details of the LLP over the course of the next week. The contract will be for a three and a half year period and will include the services of James Aumonier [a project manager employed by Mr Lucie-Smith] and my backup staff at 5 Prince’s Gate. We can insert details of my responsibilities in the agreement. I’m sure we can put this quite simply in a contract which I can get drawn up by my lawyers which will be paid for by the Operations Company.

2.

I will hold the shareholdings in Prop Co as follows:

a)

90% will be personally held by me as a trustee for your beneficial interest

b)

10% will be held in the name of the LLP referred to in 1 above for my benefit. There will be a buy-out provision after a period of three and a half years whereby the company or your trust will buy me out at a predetermined formula should we not wish to continue the business together (I hope this is not the case).

I suggest we speak to our lawyers to consider drafting a trust agreement and a shareholders agreement.

3.

I will hold your share in Op Co as a trustee for your beneficial interest. I think once I have completed the cash flows we can then sit down and discuss the shareholding in Op Co.

4.

We should give some thought as to the shareholding in the Maintenance Company. Again we need some advice from the lawyers on this.

Sami, I will need to make sure that I am tied in to this agreement for three and a half years and we both need to discuss what happens in the event that we fall out with regards to my remuneration and shareholding.

Perhaps we can chat about this later today. I would be grateful if you could confirm that this is the outline of our agreed proposals that we discussed on Wednesday 2^nd September.”

Sami replied:

“The terms outlined below are in accordance with my offer to you.

I am happy to discuss later today.”

Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence was that there was never any question of him paying for the 10% shareholding in the property-holding company; the shares were by way of remuneration or reward for the pivotal role he was playing in bringing in equity and debt finance.

On 10 September 2009 Sami sent to Mr Lucie-Smith by email three possible models for the corporate structure to be employed and asked for advice as to what might be acceptable to the bank. All three models involved a division of ownership between an offshore trust (90%) and Mr Lucie-Smith (10%). It was also around this time that someone, probably Mr Lucie-Smith, produced an undated document, which recorded the bones of the proposal:

“RBS are funding some £16 million which means that £3 million will have to be found by the proposed purchaser, which is an offshore limited company whose main share holder is a trust for the benefit of Mr Sami Muduroglu and family.

Mr Muduroglu is a residential property developer from Kent and has been struck off to act as a director by Companies House until 1 January 2010. …

It is intended that the trust will hold between 50-60% of the equity and the remainder will be sold in 5% tranches. Each of these will cost £800,000. There is a queue of a number of investors but responsibility of the allocation is with DL-S and SM.”

In about November 2009 RBS’s credit committee rejected the proposal to fund the project. Mr Lucie-Smith’s statement said: “This resulted in the urgent need for me to raise alternative debt and equity to refinance Ulster Bank and fund the development.”

Mr Muduroglu (whose primary case is that Sami had no authority to make any agreements for the sale of his shares and who said that he knew nothing of any such agreement as is alleged) put it to Mr Lucie-Smith in cross-examination that the agreement with Sami in the email exchange on 7 September 2009 related to the proposed funding deal with RBS, which would have funded fully both the purchase of KMMG and the entire development of the cemetery (cf. paragraph 23 above); that deal did not go ahead and was very different from what eventually occurred, involving provision of funding of about £23,000,000 as against the £7,000,000 ultimately provided by Ulster Bank. Mr Lucie-Smith’s answer was that, once RBS rejected the proposal, he had told Sami that he would end his involvement unless the same terms, namely a 10% stake in the venture, continued, and Sami had agreed that he would continue to be involved on those terms. I shall say more about that evidence later in this judgment.

Mr Lucie-Smith said in evidence that the rejection of the proposal by RBS increased his workload. It is true that it became necessary to find an alternative source of debt finance, though in fact the initial renewed contact with Ulster Bank was made by Sami, with Mr Lucie-Smith taking over later. As the negotiations developed, it became clear that Ulster Bank’s terms would create a funding gap that would have to be filled by equity finance; this was not necessarily known to be the case from the outset however. In his witness statement Mr Lucie-Smith said that his assistant had produced “a very detailed Information Memorandum” to give to potential investors. Again, although some document was probably produced in late 2009, the document exhibited to the witness statement was produced in 2013 and, though professionally produced and containing what seems to be the material information, is actually fairly short. More relevant is a detailed Project Report produced by Mr Lucie-Smith on 28 March 2010, shortly before the relevant transactions were completed (paragraph 46 below).

More than one finance option was under consideration. Through the further involvement of Mr Librae, and without Mr Lucie-Smith’s knowledge, Sami obtained an introduction to ESO Partners LP, an investment management group, which on 16 November 2009 wrote to Sami with the terms of its proposed provision of funds for the repayment of outstanding debt and the development costs in connection with the Kemnal Manor Site. The “Borrower” was stated to be “A single purpose bankruptcy remote entity beneficially owned by Sami Muduroglu and acceptable partners”, and the “Key Principal” was stated to be “Mr Sami Muduroglu”. This presumably indicates the general nature of the understanding received from Mr Librae and Sami, though it does not necessarily imply a belief that Sami rather than Mr Muduroglu was to be the main beneficial owner. Another potential source of funding was Patron Capital, which was a contact of Mr Lucie-Smith and which he approached with the assistance of Mr Turton. In the event, neither ESO nor Patron Capital provided the finance for the restructuring. ESO did however become involved at a later date.

Negotiations had resumed with Ulster Bank; so far as appears from the evidence, at this stage these were carried on directly by Sami, with additional input from Mr Lucie-Smith. In an email of 26 November 2009 to John Boyd, a director of the Ulster Bank’s Global Restructuring Group, Sami explained that what was envisaged was the purchase of Kemnal Manor from KMMG by a new company (then being called Kemnal Memorial Gardens Limited), in which the shares would be held by Mr Lucie-Smith (77%), Gresham House plc (10%), Aldred Drummond (10%) and Andrew Riley (3%). By a further email on 2 December, Sami responded to Mr Boyd’s enquiries with further information, not all of which coheres very well with the original information; it included the following:

The basic corporate structure set out in those responses was the structure duly employed, albeit with some refinement. HoldCo was MHL. PropCo was Memorial Property Investments Limited (“MPIL”). OpCo was Tribute Management Limited (“TML”). MHL and MPIL were incorporated in Jersey, respectively on 11 December 2009 and 5 March 2010. TML was incorporated in England and Wales on 10 March 2010; Mr Lucie-Smith was its managing director and Sami was a director. Both MPIL and TML were wholly owned subsidiaries of MHL.

The emails between Sami and Mr Boyd appear to be the first documented indication that Gresham House plc was willing to be an equity investor in the project. Mr Muduroglu’s evidence, which I accept on this point, is that it was in December 2009 that Sami told him and Mr Wishart that Gresham House was willing to invest, and that they agreed that they would sell as many shares as possible while retaining control of the project. Mr Riley’s involvement had gone back as far as September 2009, when he was approached by Mr Lucie-Smith on behalf of Sami with a view to making a loan to KMMG. His involvement is enmeshed with transactions that are difficult to unravel on the state of the evidence before me and are in part the subject of other litigation; I shall say more about these matters only so far as is necessary.

Events in and around December 2009 form the bridge between the position as it was when Mr Lucie-Smith became involved and the position in April 2010; they are relevant as background and also demonstrate some of the tangled web of which the present litigation is only one strand.

As at the end of 2009, no deal had yet been struck with Ulster Bank and other options were still being considered. Mr Marshall was in discussion with the Commercial section of Barclays Bank, and in an email to Barclays Bank on 17 December 2009 he set out his purported understanding of the background to the matter:

“• Sami Muduroglu through his brother Erin Muduroglu owns 50% of KMMG UK LLP …

…

• Sami Muduroglu acts as a consultant (through Propvest Land and Development Consultancy) to the project as a result of his existing disqualification as a company Director (a role that his brother Erin Muduroglu has taken over during his disqualification).

• Sami Muduroglu’s disqualification period ends on the 3^rd February after which point he is legally allowed to be fully involved with the project in either a management consultancy role or directly as a company director.

Shareholding structure

• Gresham House Plc have invested £800,000 for a 5% stake in the company, these funds have been used to “Buyout” Ravenblack’s 50% shareholding and pay the associated legal costs.

• Derek Lucie-Smith will be proportioned a 10% stake in the business for his involvement.

• Sami and his Family will ‘beneficially own’ the remaining c.85% through the existing LLP, however DLS will be the ‘Legal owner’ of 100% of the shares.”

As Mr Muduroglu observed in the course of his submissions, the disclosed documents are markedly lacking in personal emails between Mr Lucie-Smith and Sami in the period between late 2009 and April 2010. However, there is a sequence of emails between Mr Lucie-Smith and solicitors at Travers Smith LLP, which was acting for Gresham House. On 21 December 2009 Travers Smith sent a detailed email to Mr Lucie-Smith, making numerous enquiries about the proposed corporate restructuring and the draft documentation, and he replied by way of comment on the email on the same day. The solicitors’ first point was that Mr Lucie-Smith might have a conflict of interest with Gresham House, “given your personal role in the proposed project”: “This may be relevant even where you are not directly investing if you are to be involved in the project in other ways and not simply by virtue of your being a director of GH.” Mr Lucie-Smith’s response included the following: “I am representing Gresham’s interest and in the event that I can buy at a later date I will do so and will clear this with Evolution [referred to as Gresham House’s “sponsor”] and the Board.” After a further part of the same enquiry, Mr Lucie-Smith responded: “I am not investing.” The answers given by Mr Lucie-Smith are inconsistent with him having a beneficial shareholding; a conflict of interest would be created by a transfer to him without payment as it would by a purchase. The later parts of the same email show that it was envisaged that matters would proceed on the basis of the existing Ulster Bank finance, though with options for re-finance available from both ESO and Barclays Bank.

Another feature of the email exchanges was pointed to by Mr Muduroglu in his closing submissions. On 23 December 2009 Travers Smith queried a point in the draft sale and purchase agreement: “[It] refers to Tribute Holdings Ltd having a 10% interest in the LLP through the JerseyCo (for a purchase price of £650k) and I am not sure who Tribute Holdings are.” Mr Lucie-Smith replied: “To be deleted.” In his evidence Mr Lucie-Smith said that he did not know of Tribute Holdings or how it had come to be mentioned at all. Mr Muduroglu speculated that the reference had resulted from an early effort by Sami to obtain a 5% shareholding by deception through the use of a corporate vehicle, with Mr Lucie-Smith investing £650,000 for the remaining 5%.

On 3 February 2010 Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith met with Mr Stephen Koehne and Ms Rebecca Vernon of Stephenson Harwood in order to receive advice on the tax implications of the proposed restructuring. On 5 February Mr Koehne sent them an email, copied to Mr Muduroglu, attaching a preliminary note on taxation prepared by a colleague. The note focuses on the tax implications of the corporate structure, but it proceeds on the basis that Mr Muduroglu’s personal tax position is in issue; there does not appear to be any consideration of the taxation implications for Sami. That basis is also evident in the Tax Note dated 11 February 2010, which was prepared by the same colleague and concludes with a recommendation that Mr Muduroglu take advice about his tax position. These notes on tax tend to indicate that, even if the driving force behind much of what was going on was Sami, Stephenson Harwood regarded Mr Muduroglu not only as its client but as the beneficial owner of the shares. As the advice was given pursuant to the meeting on 3 February, it is a reasonable prima facie inference that this is also the basis on which Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith were treating the shareholding in their dealings with Stephenson Harwood.

Meanwhile, negotiations with Ulster Bank were continuing, though they were proving difficult. The bank initially wanted Mr Muduroglu to reinvest the proceeds of sale of the shares in the development, and although it proved willing to temper its requirements in that regard there was still a funding shortfall. Mr Lucie-Smith now took the lead in discussions with the bank, and on 26 January 2010 he met with senior officers of the bank in Belfast. On 16 February 2010 Ulster Bank produced indicative proposals for the renewal of facilities to KMMG. The document specified several preconditions to the bank’s willingness to fund, which included the following: the bank required to be satisfied that investors had raised sufficient funds to meet the development costs associated with the cemetery (then estimated to be £4,670,000); Mr Muduroglu’s shareholding in KMMG was to be reduced from 90% to 75% by the end of May 2010 and to less than 50% by 31 August 2010; full details of all proposed investors were to be provided to the bank; and all correspondence between the bank and KMMG was to be conducted via Mr Lucie-Smith. It was never a condition that Mr Lucie-Smith have any shareholding in the venture. It was at least implicit in the requirement that the bank be given details of all proposed investors that it would expect to know of anyone who was receiving shares without payment.

Ulster Bank’s stance meant that it was necessary to obtain greater equity investment than had been envisaged originally. On 26 February 2010 Mr Tony Ebel, the chairman of Gresham House plc and a business associate of Mr Lucie-Smith,agreed that Holyoak Investments Inc, a Panamanian company that he used as a family trust, would take a 20% share in MHL.

On 18 March Sami sent an email to Becky Vernon, which was copied to Stephen Koehne, Mr Lucie-Smith and Mr Muduroglu. It stated that the final shareholdings on completion would be Gresham House (5%), Andrew Riley (5%), Holyoak Investments Inc (20%), and Mr Muduroglu (70%), and that Holyoak was paying £3.8 million for its 20% interest.

The email makes no mention of Mr Lucie-Smith’s shareholding. If Mr Lucie-Smith is right, his shareholding had been agreed several months previously; yet the final shareholdings mentioned in the email do not allow for any holding on his part and are inconsistent with it. It might possibly have been prudent not to mention such a holding to the potential equity investors; though if the holding were above board and the investors were not being misled it is not clear to me why it should not have been mentioned. But there is no obvious reason why the proposed shareholding should not have been mentioned to the solicitors and Mr Muduroglu, if Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence as to the basis on which he was to receive it is correct.

It was proposed that Gresham House plc would take an option for an additional 5% shareholding. On 22 March 2010 Ms Vernon sent an email addressed to Mr Lucie-Smith, Sami and Mr Muduroglu, and copied to Mr Koehne, enquiring as to the price for the 5% shareholding under the option agreement: “Is £850,000 still the benchmark?” Mr Lucie-Smith replied to all: “It is still £850k.” Mr Koehne also replied to all:

“I believe that the price for the 5% payable under the option remains at £850,000.

I spoke this morning with both Sami and Derek and it looks likely that Tony Ebel’s share will increase from 20% to 30% and that he’ll be paying an extra £1,900,000 for the additional 10%.

Derek will know about another prospective investor tomorrow. He also needs to come back.

Derek is also preparing a note as to how much money is to come in and from who (sic) and how much is to be spent (and by whom) for the development costs.”

Mr Muduroglu’s evidence was that the price of £850,000 for a 5% shareholding was higher than the price at which Gresham House had obtained its existing 5%, namely £680,000, because MHL was now fully funded and consideration of up to £950,000 could now be achieved for a 5% holding, as indicated by the price to be paid by Holyoak Investment.

Emails in the period 22 to 26 March, and involving Stephenson Harwood, Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith, but not Mr Muduroglu, confirmed that Holyoak Investments would pay £5.7 million for a 30% interest in MHL and that the funds would be remitted to Stephenson Harwood’s client no. 2 account to be held to the order of the sender until release. However, Holyoak would itself be providing only £3.8 million, with the balance of £1.9 million being paid by three named individuals. Mr Koehne requested details and proof of identity of those three persons for the purposes of “Know Your Client” compliance, but this appears to have been specifically because Holyoak was to be acquiring an interest in excess of 20%.

On 28 March Mr Lucie-Smith produced a detailed Project Report. It said that external investors had secured 40% of MHL, the latest 10% at £1,900,000, and that a further 15% was being placed out; this would leave 45% with the “Muduroglu family”. Those figures are inconsistent with an existing agreement that Mr Lucie-Smith should have a 10% shareholding.

On 29 March Ms Vernon sent an email to Holyoak’s solicitor following an earlier telephone conversation; the email was copied to Sami, Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith. One of the points mentioned in the email was:

“Derek is to get back to me tomorrow as to what is to happen with the additional 10%. This is in addition to the Gresham option. It is likely that the shareholders’ agreement will just be amended to include a clause confirming that Eren will transfer 10% within a certain period of time from the date of the shareholders’ agreement but I will confirm tomorrow.”

On 29 March Mr Lucie-Smith had an exchange of emails with Mr Ebel. Mr Ebel set out three points that remained to be settled; the third was: “Sorting out your holding to your satisfaction—I need to talk with David Brookland …” Mr Brookland was the other director of Holyoak; it appears that Mr Ebel wanted to be satisfied that he was content for Mr Lucie-Smith to have a shareholding in MHL. The size of that holding was shown by Mr Lucie-Smith’s response: “I would be grateful if you would call me tomorrow as soon as you have heard about my 10% shareholding.” Mr Lucie-Smith also wrote: “PS: I believe that Sami would let a further 5% go.” The natural inference to be drawn from these communications is that Mr Ebel had only recently become aware that Mr Lucie-Smith was proposing to take a shareholding. Other evidence tends to confirm that this is the correct inference.

Presumably Mr Brookland was content for Holyoak to proceed on the basis that Mr Lucie-Smith would have a 10% shareholding, because on 31 March Mr Lucie-Smith sent an email to Ms Vernon, copied to Sami and Mr Koehne:

“Here are (sic) the list of shareholders. I have asked Tony [Ebel] for the addresses. Also can you add Reddish LLP whose address I will supply later on. They will own 10%.”

In an email on the same date, Mr Lucie-Smith gave some explanation to Mr Ebel of Reddish’s involvement: “I have used an existing LLP to hold 10% and the shareholders are Andrew Riley 71% and Myself 29%. I do not have a legal arrangements (sic) with Andrew that I am the beneficiary.”

Ms Vernon informed Ogier, which was dealing with the Jersey end of the transaction, that she had updated her draft of the relevant board minutes to reflect the further share transfers to Reddish and the individuals associated with Holyoak, as well as new stock transfer forms. Clearly Stephenson Harwood had not known that Reddish would take a transfer of shares before 31 March; there is no indication, indeed, that they had known that Mr Lucie-Smith would be taking any shares by whatever means. The documents contain no enquiry by Stephenson Harwood as to the price that Reddish would be paying for its shareholding; nor do they contain any record to show that no price would be paid.

Mr Muduroglu’s evidence was that it was only in late March 2010, relatively shortly before completion, that he learned that Mr Lucie-Smith was proposing to take a shareholding in MHL. Until that point, he had believed that Mr Lucie-Smith’s shareholder involvement was only through what he understood to be his substantial shareholding in Gresham House. He said that he asked Sami what price Mr Lucie-Smith was proposing to pay for his shares, and Sami replied that it was to be the same price as Gresham House. “I enquired whether that was at the price of Gresham’s first share purchase in December 2011 (£680,000) or their option price (£850,000) which was due to take place within 6 months. I told SM that I was happy for DLS to match the price of Gresham’s £680,000 but that he should pay more than Mr A Riley’s [£450,000] as we were now fully funded and shares were changing hands at £950,000 per 5%. We agreed that £650,000 was a fair price for a 5% stake.” I accept the evidence so far as it relates to the first mention of a shareholding for Mr Lucie-Smith; it is entirely consistent with the contemporaneous documentation. I shall say more below about the evidence concerning price.

As the time for completion drew closer, Stephenson Harwood gave thought to the sequence of the various stages of the overall transaction, a matter that has some relevance to a central issue in the case. On Monday 29 March 2010 Ms Vernon sent an email to Sami, Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith; I have inserted what must be the intended dates:

“If we are to complete the first stage on Wednesday [7 April] (transfer of KMMG business to MPIL and issue of shares in MPIL) followed by stage 2 (transfer of Eren’s shares in MPIL to MH for an issue of shares in MH) and stage 3 (signing of shareholders’ agreement and investment into MH) on Thursday [8 April] we need to start sending documents out to the relevant parties for signature as soon as possible. Maryanna [Stephenson Harwood’s tax specialist] has confirmed that stages 2 and 3 can happen on the same day, with stage 2 obviously having to happen first so that Eren has shares in MH to give away to the new investors.

In terms of documents that need to be signed by Gresham, Eren, Derek, the LLP it may be easiest to get all parties concerned into our offices to sign everything that needs signing at once. This will obviously depend on logistics and the timing of when all of the documents are agreed.”

All aspects of the transaction were set for completion on 7 and 8 April 2010. Only days before, the matter was nearly derailed when Ulster Bank suddenly stipulated that the facility letter for the continued finance should contain provision for an exit fee of £750,000 instead of the £200,000 previously discussed. Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence, which I broadly accept, was that he was for refusing this demand as being tantamount to blackmail, but that Sami proposed to him that they should agree to it on the basis that Mr Muduroglu would sign a letter to agree personally to pay the difference, namely £550,000; however, Sami then reverted to him and said that they would agree to a letter to the extent of £400,000 but that the other shareholders in MHL would have to make up the difference. Mr Lucie-Smith thought this only fair; the shareholders should bear the responsibility pro rata. On 6 April Mr Lucie-Smith wrote an email to Ms Vernon: “Here is the proposed letter with regard to the exit fee. I will give Sami a letter in support of Reddish LLP’s 10% as I think a letter from one person is better.” Ms Vernon replied with comments on the draft and a question, “Is Eren happy to sign this letter?” Apparently he was, because among the completion documents dated 8 April 2010 is a letter, signed by Mr Muduroglu and addressed to the directors of MPIL, in respect of the £750,000 exit fee: “this letter is to confirm that I agree to be personally responsible for discharging £400,000 … of the total £750,000 liability. The remaining balance is to be paid by MPIL.” In the course of his oral evidence, Mr Muduroglu first said that he had discussed the letter directly with Ms Vernon, but it seems to me more likely that his discussions were with Sami and that Sami spoke to Ms Vernon; indeed, after his initial answer Mr Muduroglu’s evidence was that he had discussed the letter with Sami.

An issue arose at trial as to the meaning of Mr Lucie-Smith’s statement in the email of 6 April: “I will give Sami a letter in support of Reddish LLP’s 10% as I think a letter from one person is better.” Mr Muduroglu said that this must be an acknowledgment that the obligation to pay the purchase price for the 10% shareholding was to be set out in a side letter. In my judgment, that is plainly wrong. When read in context, the statement must mean that Mr Muduroglu would be the sole undertaker to MPIL in respect of the £400,000 and that Reddish, as a 10% shareholder, would undertake to Mr Muduroglu to contribute 10% of that amount. Against this construction, Mr Muduroglu relied on the fact that, when MPIL paid the exit fee to Ulster Bank, in November 2013 its solicitors, acting on the instructions of its directors, who included Mr Lucie-Smith, sought payment of £400,000 from Mr Muduroglu. Mr Lucie-Smith frankly accepted that he had advised the board of directors to sue Mr Muduroglu for the £400,000, although in the event no such claim was brought. The stance taken by Mr Lucie-Smith in late 2013 may be in some tension with his willingness in 2010 for Reddish to contribute 10% of the liability, but it does not make Mr Muduroglu’s interpretation of the email any more plausible. By November 2013 Mr Lucie-Smith was facing both these proceedings and other hostile claims by Mr Muduroglu, and it seems at least likely that Mr Muduroglu owed £400,000 to MPIL, whatever rights of contribution he may have had against Reddish and others. Reddish may have had a liability to contribute towards any payment in respect of that obligation; that does not fall for decision. But as Mr Lucie-Smith observed in his evidence, the “letter in support of Reddish LLP’s 10%” was never sought by Sami or the claimant and was not provided. Anyway, the meaning of the email of 6 April is clear.

The relevant transactions were completed on 7 and 8 April 2010. It is Mr Muduroglu’s case that on 8 April he, Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith were present together at the offices of Stephenson Harwood and there was express oral agreement and confirmation as to the price that Reddish would pay for its 10% shareholding. In his second witness statement Mr Muduroglu set out the case that he advanced at trial:

“On 8^th April 2010 I, together with SM and DLS, met Mr Stephen Koehne (my lawyer) and Becky Vernon at Stephenson Harwood for a signing meeting … I informed Stephen Koehne … that the Reddish payment of £1,300,000 was to be deferred. …

I asked DLS (in the presence of SK and SM) to confirm how much Reddish was paying. SM replied it was ‘£650,000’ (meaning for a 5% stake, which is how SM and I always discussed price).

I looked to DLS for his confirmation of this and he nodded. I said for the sake of clarity, ‘So it is £1,300,000?’

DLS then said that we should not put this number down on the stock transfer form yet as he had to discuss this with the other incoming shareholders and also the board of Gresham because he was buying the shares at a discount. I agreed to leave the stock transfer form blank to be completed in Jersey when I received the money.”

Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence concerning 8 April 2010 was simply that he met either Mr Koehne or Ms Vernon (he could not remember which) at the offices of Stephenson Harwood but did not meet Mr Muduroglu there or, indeed, at all before 2 November 2010. He was uncertain whether he had seen Sami but thought that he had not; he said that he had some recollection that Sami had left before he arrived. He said that he could not remember whether Sami joined a meeting by telephone on that date.

Neither Reddish nor Mr Lucie-Smith paid anything for the shares upon completion; at least, they paid nothing to Mr Muduroglu or through Stephenson Harwood. In his second witness statement, with reference to the time when Sami (SM) first told him that Mr Lucie-Smith (DLS) would be acquiring a shareholding, Mr Muduroglu stated:

“I asked SM if DLS could complete his acquisition at the same time as the others. We were aiming for 1^st April 2010 and SM said that it would take a couple of months for DLS to raise the funds.”

Then, with apparent reference to subsequent confirmation that Mr Lucie-Smith would acquire his shareholding through Reddish and would complete the transaction at the same time as the other purchasers, Mr Muduroglu stated:

“On hearing that DLS would complete with the others I asked SM if DLS would have the funds in place in time as we were due to complete within a week. SM told me that the payment needed to be deferred until DLS could re-mortgage his house in Kensington as he was not cash rich at this time. I had no reason to distrust DLS as he was going to be the project manager so wasn’t going anywhere and he couldn’t sell the shares on without me knowing due to the terms of the shareholders agreement.”

Among the many documents executed to complete the transactions, the following may be mentioned:

Mr Muduroglu signed stock transfer forms in respect of all the transfers of shares pursuant to the MHL Shareholders’ Agreement. With the exception of the stock transfer form for Holyoak Investment, the box for the statement of “Consideration Money” had been left blank on all the forms when he signed them. (MHL is incorporated in Jersey: stamp duty at a rate of the consideration is payable upon the transfer of shares in a UK company by stock transfer form, but with only limited exceptions no stamp duty or equivalent tax is payable on the transfer of a Jersey company’s shares, and therefore consideration did not need to be shown for stamping purposes.)

At some point Reddish’s stock transfer form was completed by the insertion of £200,000 as the monetary consideration. The insertion of that figure forms the basis of the claim in conspiracy, and I shall consider how that came about later in this judgment.

Reddish was issued with a share certificate dated 9 April 2010 in respect of its shares and was entered on the register of members.

The payments made by or on behalf of the other purchasers, together comprising 35% of the shareholding, appear from the entries in the Stephenson Harwood client account:

There is no record of Stephenson Harwood ever being told or enquiring how much Reddish was to pay for its 10% shareholding or seeking payment from Reddish.

On 10 April Sami sent an email to Mr Lucie-Smith:

“With the greatest respect to the lawyers, I do not feel that we would ever have got this over the line without your energy and input, for which I am truly grateful.

I really do feel that you have shared this roller coaster ride with me and I am determined to show you my true capabilities, as you have done for me, in the development of the business model that is so firmly ensconced in my mind.

Thank you for helping to keep my dream alive.”

Events after completion are relevant only insofar as they shed light on what went before. Further references to events and documents will therefore be selective, at the risk of disjointedness of the narrative. I shall not attempt to explain all references in the documents where these can be left obscure without affecting understanding of the issues in this case.

In late April 2010 a further issue arose with regard to Ulster Bank, after the bank discovered that SMU was “a vehicle that is owned by Sami Muduroglu” (per Mr Lucie-Smith in an email dated 27 April 2010). The bank had actually been led to believe, mistakenly, that Mr Lucie-Smith was the source of the lending: see paragraph 31 above. It appears that there was a proposal that Mr Muduroglu sell further shares to Holyoak Investment but that the purchase price be paid directly to SMU, as a creditor of MPIL, and released to Sami. The bank was understandably unhappy about the proposal. At all events, no sale of shares took place at that stage.

In July 2010 MPIL engaged McGee Group Limited (“McGee”) to carry out works of building and development at the cemetery site. The building contract and its performance are not relevant to the issues in this case, but they did give rise to a major source of contention regarding Sami’s conduct, and the communications between the parties in that regard bear some examination.

The evidence of both Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith was that Sami was almost always desperately looking for money. He had received at least some part of the £160,000 paid by Mr Riley in July 2010; it may be that he had received all of it, because (as I shall explain later) I do not consider Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence in that regard to be truthful. In August 2010 he asked Mr Lucie-Smith to lend him £300,000 for a four-month period with a return of one-third upon repayment, upon the security of a pledge of loan notes in MPIL. Mr Lucie-Smith sent an email to Tony Ebel on 27 August, asking whether Holyoak or any other investor might be interested. The email indicated that Sami was under particular pressure: “[He] needs to pay off some loans and guarantees he has given on behalf of Erin (sic). There is one in particular that is threatening to foreclose on Erin for £700,000.” It is not possible on the state of the evidence to know how far Sami was openly standing behind Mr Muduroglu in respect of the latter’s borrowings, but it is clear that Sami was undertaking liability to cover his brother’s debts and that these were not seen as purely the responsibility of the claimant.

In September 2010 further discussions took place concerning the sale of more of Mr Muduroglu’s shares in MHL to Gresham House and others. Discussions with both Stephenson Harwood and Ulster Bank were carried on by Sami. Stephen Koehne’s email to Sami on 16 September, copied to Mr Muduroglu, was headed in the Subject field: “Memorial Holdings Limited—disposal of a further 3% of shares in memorial (sic) Holdings Limited held in Eren’s name”. In October 2010 1000 of the shares were sold to Gresham House for £1,712,000 and 500 were sold to other existing shareholders for a sum of £856,000. These sales reduced Mr Muduroglu’s holding in MHL to 30%.

By early 2011 Mr Wishart had begun to understand that he had not been treated either honestly or fairly by Sami with respect to the sale of the interest in Kemnal Manor. When Mr Muduroglu sold the shares in April 2010, Sami agreed with Mr Wishart what he would do with the latter’s share of the proceeds. Sami told the story in a statutory declaration he made in July 2012, shortly before disappearing:

“2.

Kevin requested that on his behalf, in order to purchase the property known as …, I was to set up a trust in Jersey in the name of Kaymuu Trust, which Property was to be registered in the name of Kaymuu Trust and Kevin was to [be] the beneficiary of that trust.

3.

In approximately December 2009 I told Kevin that I had set up the trust referred to above in whose name the Property would be purchased.

4.

When the Property was purchased, I instructed my solicitor to purchase the Property in the name of Kaymuu Limited which is a UK company and not the Jersey trust referred to above. I did not inform Kevin of this.

5.

The monies to purchase the Property were provided by Kevin from his proceeds of a share sale in Kenmal Cemetery which shares were held on trust on behalf of Kevin by my brother Eren Muduroglu.”

Mr Wishart was less than pleased when in early 2011 he found out what had happened, and in February he addressed the matter on two fronts that may be mentioned here. First, he sought assurance from Sami as to how his interest in the remaining shares was protected. In consequence, on 10 February 2011 Sami sent an email to Stephen Koehne, asking for the updated shareholders register of MHL. Mr Koehne sent a copy of the register as an email attachment that day, and Sami forwarded the email and the attachment to Kevin Wishart, by an email that read:

“Shares in Eren’s name plus half of the shares in Reddish LLP, held on trust by Derek.”

Second, Mr Wishart procured the execution by Mr Muduroglu of a Declaration of Trust dated 18 February 2011, by which Mr Muduroglu declared that he held 1200 shares in MHL, registered in his name, on trust for Mr Wishart. He was at this time the registered holder of 3000 shares in MHL; the Declaration of Trust did not identify specific shares.

By a Loan Agreement dated 3 April 2011 and made between SMU and Gresham House, Gresham House agreed to lend SMU up to £486,000. The Agreement was signed on behalf of SMU by Mr Lucie-Smith as a director. Mr Muduroglu suggests that the Loan Agreement was fraudulent, and he points in particular to the fact that the AP01 filed at Companies House in respect of Mr Lucie-Smith’s appointment as a director shows his date of appointment as being 11 April 2011, some eight days after he purportedly executed the Agreement. I mention this matter only because Mr Muduroglu set some store by it, but I have not found the evidence on the point to be sufficient to enable me to consider it as relevant to the matters before me.

On 27 April 2011 Mr Muduroglu sent an email to Sami, on which the defendants place reliance:

“Based on our conversation I don’t really see any way for us going forward, it’s just another delay and another set of problems. You didn’t save the school fees from Dulwich monies and you haven’t sorted out Finbar, putting me in grave risk of bankruptcy. You are working to your own agenda and unfortunately it doesn’t work for me.

Here’s the facts: I’ve sold in excess of £8m of shares in the last year no questions asked[,] no delays[,] I’ve signed whatever you’ve put in front of me and not questioned whatever you’ve signed in my name. I’m left with £10M of personal guarantees, a £520k cjc and not a lot else. None of the conditions we agreed last April have been met and I can’t keep taking the risk when I have no influence in what is going on.

I am moving into a smaller rented house to save money whilst Kevin [Wishart] is living in a £1m house, with about £2m worth of shares in his name?? You have your own reasons for what you do with the money and you’re perfectly entitled to that, except when it is putting me and my family at greater risk.

Here are my options, if you’ve got a better idea let me know but they will need to be documented and they will need to be immediate.

Scenario 1: You get me £43k this week, £13k school fees, £5k living money and a £25k trading account. Put in writing what percentage of shares I own in Kemnal and Dulwich and I’ll oversee Stadplex purchase of Ravenblack shares and sit as shareholder in both until September when we will review positions and I will need school fees again.

Scenario 2: You get me £18k this week for school fees and living and we contact Ulster and Derek [Lucie-Smith] and start the process of moving all of the shares and pgs [personal guarantees] into your name and get Derek to place 1% of shares for me as my sale price of Kemnal.

Scenario 3: You don’t get me anything and I arrange a meeting with Koehne and Derek in order to liquidate my positions asap.

I am only looking for ways of getting this done not reasons for it not to get done so you may want to speak to Derek today as to his opinion. I am happy to go along any line you want me to as to my reasons for the exit but I have to start the ball rolling today.”

The defendants relied strongly on this email and it is convenient to make some observations concerning it.

On 9 May 2011 Northfleet Limited served on Mr Muduroglu a demand for £5,975,000 under a personal guarantee of the debts of DHPD Limited. The demand shows the financial pressure that Mr Muduroglu was under; this is relevant to a consideration of his conduct regarding the allegedly outstanding payment due from Reddish.

In June 2011 Mr Lucie-Smith sent an email to Dermot McGale of Ulster Bank: “I would like to discuss Sami’s PG position as I don’t want his shares in Memorial Holdings to be sold if we can help it.” The terms of the email might be an indication of Mr Lucie-Smith’s understanding of the true position, but they are perhaps of more relevance in showing how Ulster Bank was believed to understand the position. A few days later an internal email by Mr Turton to a colleague in RBS’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) showed a similar understanding:

“Both DLS [Mr Lucie-Smith] and Gresham have shares in a new cemetery located in Greater London. One of the other shareholders is an individual called Sami Muduroglu (SM). SM is also an investor in a company called Stadplex Ltd which I understand has recently been transferred to you/GRG. SM has pledged his shares in the cemetery IFO [in favour of] Stadplex.”

Two important things happened in October 2011. On 18 October 2011 Sami was made bankrupt. And it became apparent that there were irregularities in the invoices that Sami had presented on behalf of MPIL to McGee.

Before the end of 2011 the truth about those irregularities was clear: Sami had committed a substantial fraud on McGee and MPIL. In December 2011 Mr Lucie-Smith met with Mr Muduroglu; he told him that Sami had stolen a large amount of money from McGee and asked him to make his remaining shareholding in MHL (apparently 2800; I do not know how the reduction from 3000 occurred) available for the purpose of enabling it to be applied to make good the deficit. To that end, Mr Lucie-Smith presented Mr Muduroglu with two draft documents, namely a power of attorney and a declaration of trust, that would give him an effective power of disposition of the shares. On 17 December Mr Muduroglu sent an email to Mr Lucie-Smith, in which he referred to their conversation and the draft documents and continued: “I fully understand the gravity of the situation and am willing to try and help to rectify it in any way possible. While I am willing to secure the position by handing over my shares we need to make sure that the transaction is legally sound in terms of current bank facilities and existing legal undertakings so that it is not challenged at a later date.”

On 5 January 2012 Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith executed three documents:

That transaction was curious in several respects. For present purposes I may note that, as the defendants point out, it sits uncomfortably with the existence of a belief on Mr Muduroglu’s part that Reddish owed £1,300,000 for its 10% shareholding in MHL.

Also in some tension with a belief that Reddish owed him £1,300,000 is an email that Mr Muduroglu sent to Mr Lucie-Smith, and copied to Sami, on 11 January 2012. The email concerned the potential restoration to the register of another company in which the Muduroglus been involved, Stadplex Limited, which had been struck off and dissolved. It read in part:

“My suggestion to Ulster would be to give me 4 months grace to reinstate company, gain 100% control and obtain necessary planning consent (Sami said 14 weeks?). During this time I will endeavour to place my shares in Kemnal in order to release funds sufficient to clear my creditors and lodge a sizeable sum (minimum £1m) with Ulster against my personal guarantees. At this point I would need 3 further months to dispose of the site at best price, ideally equal to the bank debt therefore releasing my PG back to me.

Let me know your thoughts please.”

At that stage, Mr Librae, acting as a broker for Scion Structured Finance LLP, was attempting to arrange a deal for the sale of shares belonging to Mr Muduroglu and to others to ESO Capital UK Limited. Mr Librae’s discussions were with Mr Lucie-Smith, with whom he was discussing the level of his fees. He was proposing a fee of 4% of the equity investment that he introduced. When Mr Lucie-Smith said, “I can’t comment on what Erin (sic) will pay” (email of 14 January 2012), Mr Librae replied, “Please speak to Sami, and let him know that there will be a deduction of fees from his gross payment as I know that although they are in Erin’s name it is Sami who calls the shots.” That understanding is consistent with Mr Librae’s evidence and with an email sent two days later by Mr Benkirane of ESO, referring to “Sami’s shares”; whether it has any wider significance, particularly in the light of Mr Lucie-Smith’s apparent understanding that the agreement was for Mr Muduroglu to make, is another matter.

A fee agreement dated 8 February 2012 was later signed, providing for payment of fees equal to 3% of the total aggregate value of the share purchase investment. The signature on the agreement purports to be that of Mr Muduroglu; he however denies that he signed it and suggests that his signature was forged by Sami. I am unable to resolve that question on the evidence before me and do not have to do so.

In an email sent to Mr Lucie-Smith and Mr Koehne on 26 January 2012, Mr Muduroglu listed his main assets and liabilities. The only asset that he listed was “Shares in Kemnal Manor”. He did not list any outstanding consideration due for the sale of his shares to Reddish. In evidence he said that the list was provided for the purpose of trying to persuade Ulster Bank to do a deal, on the basis that he had little net worth; therefore it was not advantageous to volunteer the existence of debts that would encourage the bank to seek a larger settlement.

On 8 February 2012 Mr Muduroglu sent an email to Mr Koehne and Mr Lucie-Smith, informing them that Ulster Bank was appointing a receiver in respect of two of his businesses. “This doesn’t come as a complete shock but it does now make it urgent that I sort out my PGs.” Again, the email did not raise the question of outstanding payments due for the Reddish shares.

On 16 February 2012 Ulster Bank served letters of demand on Mr Muduroglu in respect of debts in the total sum of £1.78 million in respect of his guarantees of the debts of Stadplex Ltd and 54 Trundley LLP, two entities that were not involved in the Kemnal Manor project. Over the next weeks there were ongoing negotiations with the bank, involving Sami, Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith, with a view to persuading the bank to accept partial repayment of the debts. Throughout the communications among those three, there is no indication that Mr Lucie-Smith was believed to be liable for outstanding moneys in respect of the MHL shares.

On 22 March 2012 Mr Muduroglu sent to Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith an email proposing a way of using his remaining shares in MHL to address “the need to raise between £300k and £370k immediately”; no suggestion was made in that email that Mr Lucie-Smith pay that amount towards the purchase price of the shares, or even that he sell enough of his own shares to realise that amount. However, in his second witness statement Mr Muduroglu stated that he had indeed tried to obtain payment from Mr Lucie-Smith but had not pressed the point:

“In March 2012 I went to see DLS in London. We met in a wine bar round the corner from his Victoria offices. I asked him for £300,000 of the money he owed me. DLS broke down and said that because of the construction debacle with SM he had been removed by the MHL board as project manager on the site and that Mr Anthony Ebel was trying to oust him from Gresham.

At the time I was sympathetic to his cause as I had realised from the shareholder meeting in February 2012 that Mr Anthony Ebel was a sharp operator[.] I suggested that he sell up, settle everything and move on. He said that he had to stay in control of Gresham to maximise his share value.”

On 23 April 2012 Mr Muduroglu sent to Mr Lucie-Smith an email concerning the proposals for the sale of his shares and the re-financing of the cemetery project. The general complaint in the email was that the other shareholders had delayed in implementing proposals that Mr Muduroglu had thought agreed. The email said:

“Unfortunately the reason for the sale was based on the necessity for me to extradite [extricate?] myself and MPIL from a situation of which I had absolutely no bearing. Out of a sense of fairness and correctness [I] have gone along with whatever is required of me by way of commitments and agreements to the project going forward. Unfortunately the time frame has now moved to a point whereby the negative impact on me personally is becoming unmanageable and the current ESO deal is starting to look unattractive.

If I cannot raise funds of circa £75,000 by the end of this month (end of the week) then I will reassess my position …

If there is a way forward on this I am happy to negotiate and I will try to limit the outgoings below the £75,000 but I cannot continue with nothing.”

On 26 April Mr Lucie-Smith forwarded to Mr Muduroglu a document for him to sign in respect of the proposed re-financing of the cemetery project by ESO Capital UK Limited. Mr Muduroglu replied to the effect that he would need to consider carefully before signing: “I don’t mean to put a spanner in the works but everything I have signed in the last 4 years has been under desperate conditions and often against my better judgement so I need to make sure this works in some way for me.”

That email was followed by another on 1 May 2012, again addressed to Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith. It is of interest as a retrospect of what had gone on, as the first major indication of an incipient breakdown of the relationships of the main characters, and for the possible light cast by some of its passages:

“Based on my current situation and the lack of support or consideration for the position my family and I have been left in, I need to make some points absolutely clear as to why I have no interest in either of your predicaments at the moment.

1)

I have sold whatever shares in MHL that has been asked of me and not questioned who or where the money has gone to.

2)

I transferred all my shares in Dulwich to facilitate the release of the SMU loan funds.

3)

I have been left with personal debt and a pile of shit with the Gibraltar Fund when there should have been £600,000 in there.

4)

The Cemetery dealings and Dulwich have apparently resulted in 100’s of thousands of pounds being paid in commissions to Derek.

All of the above was done on the basis that I a roof kept over my head, my children in school and enough to cover the personal guarantees I signed to support your ventures.

All three of these are now at immediate risk ...

I came to you both last year and said sell my shares before the situation deteriorates any further, your collective response was that Sami was an integral part of the scheme and the other shareholders would question him leaving …

On 5^th January I was called out of the blue and forced to sign my shares over the Derek on threat of the Fraud Squad being called in on Sami if I didn’t.

I subsequently sat through 6 hours of humiliation trying to defend the indefensible with the resulting outcome a deal with an indicated exit in 4 weeks for £3m to extradite us all from this situation.

We are now 10 weeks from there with another possible 4 weeks to any sort of completion even at a vastly reduced £2.35m.

…

My next move is to call a shareholder meeting to reject the ESO deal and start an investigation to all prior transactions around this deal and who else was responsible for the construction nightmare, the SMU loan not being linked to the completion of the project and the subsequent devaluation of my shares. I am not being held to ransom by everything being blamed on Sami as this in my opinion is not the case.

The ball is now in both of your courts, and words, documents or promises will not suffice at this juncture.”

On 4 May Mr Muduroglu was asking Mr Lucie-Smith and Tony Ebel for £10,000 or £13,000 to keep “everyone at bay” until the end of the month. Mr Lucie-Smith complained that the claimant could not insult and threaten people and then expect them to help him. Nevertheless, on 15 May Mr Muduroglu signed a receipt for a £10,000 loan received from MPIL and to be repaid upon the sale of his remaining 2200 shares in MHL to ESO Cayman Partners LP. ESO submitted proposed terms for the purchase on that day. Mr Muduroglu signed them on the following day, 16 May, but he continued to make clear to the other shareholders in MHL that he would not proceed with the deal unless he were satisfied that it was of benefit to him. On 19 June he expressed concern about Sami’s indication that, if he tried to block the deal, Mr Lucie-Smith would use the power of attorney to complete the sale.

In the event, Mr Muduroglu’s remaining 2200 shares in MHL were sold to ESO Cayman Partners LP in July 2012 for a price of £2,250,000. That same month Sami disappeared, leaving his wife and children; everyone involved in this case denies all knowledge of his whereabouts. Mr Muduroglu’s evidence was that he had been told that Mr Lucie-Smith gave Sami £8000 to help him to get away. Mr Lucie-Smith said that he had lent money to Sami shortly before his disappearance but had not knowingly assisted him to disappear.

It was in July 2012, too, that Kevin Wishart came forward, asserted his interest in what had been going on at the cemetery project, and asked Mr Lucie-Smith for information that would enable him to work out why he had not received moneys from it. The two men met at a hotel, though no more is known of what transpired than can be gleaned from the emails that followed. Unfortunately the beginning of the email communications is not in evidence; there are other omissions. In the course of an exchange of emails on 23 July 2012 Mr Lucie-Smith wrote:

“This is the first time that I have ever heard that you were involved in any shareholding in Memorial Holdings Ltd. Did you know that the shares were never owned by Sami but by his brother Eren[?]”

The possession proceedings brought by Credit & Mercantile Plc in respect of Mr Wishart’s house, owned by Kaymuu Ltd, were proceeding in Tunbridge Wells County Court. On 25 August 2012 Mr Muduroglu made a witness statement in those proceedings in support of Mr Wishart’s claim to be the beneficial owner of the property. That statement came to light at a late stage of these proceedings and is heavily relied on by the defendants, in particular for the following passage:

“3.

I have known Kevin Wishart (‘Kevin’) since 2003 as a business partner of my brother Sami Muduroglu (‘Sami’). Their business was that of property development and in 2004 I joined the business as a financial director …

4.

The development project we worked on most recently was that relating to a cemetery site known as Kemnal Manor Cemetery which we identified as having enormous potential as a business. As was usual with the projects that we worked on I held in my name all the shares owned by myself, Sami and Kevin as it made the financing easier because of my relationship with Ulster Bank, who provided the finance to back this project. However it was always clear in my mind and agreed with Sami and Kevin that I was holding the shares on trust and the agreed beneficial ownership of the shares was 30% of the shareholding to Sami, 30% to Kevin and 10% to me. The balance was to be used to pay off investors in various property developments that we partook in.

5.

In late 2009 we were desperate to bring in outside equity investment to the cemetery site. I was advised that Kevin had facilitated a meeting with Derrick (sic) Lucie-Smith of Gresham Plc who in turn brought in several private investors. Sami then took over as the main point of contact with the investors.

6.

Completion took place on or about 8 April 2010. Part of the completion monies were received on 23 December 2009 and these were distributed to various parties with Kevin receiving £15,000 on that date. … The net proceeds of the sale were approximately £6 million and at a meeting between myself, Sami and Kevin we agreed the disbursement of these funds and in particular that after paying approximately £1 million to repay urgent debts and interest payments on other sites Kevin and Sami would each take £1.1 million in cash.”

By October 2012 Mr Wishart was growing noticeably impatient and irritated at what he saw as Mr Lucie-Smith’s failure to provide information in respect of the matters of concern to him. He had two main substantive complaints: first, that Reddish alone of all the purchasers of the shares had paid nothing for them (the complaint was not that it had a deal to receive the shares without payment); second, that Mr Lucie-Smith had persuaded—Mr Wishart said he had forced—Mr Muduroglu to set aside money from the remaining MHL shares (in which Mr Wishart claimed to be beneficially interested) to compensate McGee for Sami’s fraud, although it was a fraud that had been committed under Mr Lucie-Smith’s nose: “You had no right to make me pay for what your project manager stole on YOUR watch.” Regarding the former grievance, in an email of 23 October he recorded with scepticism what Mr Lucie-Smith had told him:

“Then there is the highly dubious 200k cash payment you claim you paid for your 10% of a project that your colleagues paid 6 times more for”.

Mr Lucie-Smith did not respond to that point; it is clear that it accurately reflects what he had told Mr Wishart in response to the complaint that he alone had paid nothing for his shares. On 25 October Mr Wishart returned to the attack:

“You will be finished once the SFO and FSA have feasted on all this and the negative publicity that will affect Kemnal[,] what with your cash in hand purchase of shares significantly under value. Then of course you will have to prove that the cash was legitimate to satisfy the money laundering act. How much did you tell Gresham you paid[?]”

Emails continued to pass between Mr Wishart and Mr Lucie-Smith. On 21 November Mr Lucie-Smith wrote a response that he said had been “approved by the board”:

“I need to make very clear to you that no one was aware of any third party interest in Eren’s shares apart form the Royal Bank of Scotland, who were categoric that they would not allow any other party to have an interest in the shares until they had been repaid in full. The sale of the shares was part of a complicated refinancing of the company, which had it not taken place would have potentially threatened the value for shareholders. Eren was insistent that his shares should be sold and it was only possible to do this on the terms agreed. There was considerable reluctance by the parties involved to purchase any shares. As I have said to you before the matters you mention are solely between you and Eren, the Company had no notice of any other interest in the shares …”

The case being presented there is clearly not that Mr Lucie-Smith thought that Mr Muduroglu was merely a rubber stamp and nominee for Sami; the obvious meaning is that everyone believed Mr Muduroglu to be the beneficial owner of the shares. That is clearly how Mr Wishart understood Mr Lucie-Smith’s case, and on 26 November he linked that point in to the question of the cash payment for the shares:

“The main issue for you to consider is this: You pay, you say, 200k in cash to the brother of the shareholder. This is a man you are stating has no interest in the shares? Do you think that would stack up with a judge!”

He came back to the point the following day:

“You cannot maintain that you did not at least know that Eren was holding shares for Sami in trust. Your stance on that is preposterous. The money that went into SMU came from the sale of our shares[,] so if Sami ended up pocketing that money then how can you still maintain that he did not have shares in the first place. Be realistic here …

And on 30 November:

“[W]hy did you deal with Sami on your share purchase when you say he had no interest in them and then why did you supposedly give him 200k in cash[?] Why not to the person who owned the shares? ALL UTTER COBBLERS!”

And on 1 December:

“Like I said in a previous email[,] you will need to explain why you gave cash, as you purport, to a man with no share interest in the project”.

Although it involves some disruption to the chronology, it is convenient to consider at this point a further email from Mr Wishart to Mr Lucie-Smith on 22 March 2013:

“I am so pleased that I have two emails from you and one of those purporting to be from the board denying any knowledge of third party interests in Eren’s shares making Eren sole owner and beneficiary of any money coming from those shares. You are about to regret that stance.”

A number of observations may be made about the communications between Mr Lucie-Smith and Mr Wishart:

At all events, Mr Muduroglu too was unhappy at the lack of support from the other shareholders in respect of “the situation we have been left with by Sami” and the fact that he was “the only one who [was] left having to deal with creditors, receivers and gangsters.” In November 2012 he told Mr Lucie-Smith that, unless he were prepared to discuss his grievances, he would go to the authorities. He then sent two relevant emails. The first, dated 19 December 2012, was sent to the shareholders in MHL; among the enquiries it made was:

“I am trying to reconcile the mess left behind by Sami. There are some distinct anomalies around the purchase of shares by Reddish. I need full details of payments made to Sami or any other party. Dates, amounts and accounts paid into.”

The second email, dated 30 January 2013, was to Mr Lucie-Smith:

“[A]s per previous requests I still cannot find any trace of any monies paid by Reddish for the 10% holding you received in MPIL. Could you please explain this.”

It was probably the latter email that led Mr Lucie-Smith to send an email to Becky Vernon on 21 February 2013:

“Could you get someone to see if they could find a share transfer form between Erin Muduroglu and Reddish LLP when we completed all the shareholder transfers in April 2010.”

After receiving Mr Lucie-Smith’s email, Ms Vernon apparently discovered that the stock transfer forms on file, though signed by Mr Muduroglu, did not state the monetary consideration. She informed Mr Lucie-Smith of this, and on 27 February he sent to her a list of the payments made by the individual shareholders; that information was also available on Stephenson Harwood’s ledgers. However, neither the list nor the ledgers included any payment from Reddish. Mr Lucie-Smith’s email said: “Reddish paid £200,000. I think that should be it.” Ms Vernon replied: “Thanks Derek. I will complete the forms and send you the originals of all documents.” In a later email to Mr Muduroglu, Ms Vernon confirmed how she had completed the stock transfer forms:

“In one instance, the transfer to Reddish LLP, we did not have such information [i.e. as to the price]; the figure was sought from and provided to us by Reddish. I confirm the figure provided by Reddish and noted on the STF is £200,000. If there is, as you suggest, any difficulty in confirming that amount from your own records, no doubt you will take it up with Reddish.”

On 20 March 2013 Mr Muduroglu asked Whitmill Trust Company Limited for the completed stock transfer forms from April 2009 for his records and his tax submissions. Whitmill initially replied that the documents would have to be retrieved from storage, but on 21 March an employee responded further: “I am advised by Gresham House that they have already requested copies of STFs from Stephenson Harwood and they are to be received shortly (this manner to be most efficient). Once received I will email these to you.” Mr Muduroglu asked Whitmill to keep looking, as Gresham House’s request was nothing to do with him. On 4 April Whitmill sent an email to Mr Muduroglu: “Please note that we are instructed by our clients not to disclose the company information to third parties.” Despite this, on 9 April Whitmill sent to Mr Muduroglu as email attachments copies of the signed stock transfer forms. In answer to an enquiry by Mr Muduroglu as to the source of those stock transfer forms, Whitmill confirmed that they had been sent to them by Stephenson Harwood on 8 April 2013.

Some mystery surrounds the fact that there apparently exist two versions of the stock transfer form: one on which the figure of £200,000 could be mistaken for £260,000; the other on which it is written clearly. The unclear version appears, somewhat confusingly, to be the one sent by email attachment by Whitmill to Mr Muduroglu. The clear one was subsequently sent to Mr Muduroglu by Mr Lucie-Smith; this one was produced at court and is the original signed by Mr Muduroglu. I agree with Mr Aldridge that it is more likely than not that there was only one signed original. I am satisfied that Mr Muduroglu did not sign a stock transfer form for Reddish on which the consideration had already been completed; no one has suggested that he did. It must be regarded as uncertain how or when the clear version came to be in Reddish’s possession, or when or by whom it was completed. The probability, in my view, is that Ms Vernon did as she had promised and sent the original stock transfer form to Mr Lucie-Smith, which is how he came to hold it. The degree of speculation involved in trying to explain what happened regarding the unclear version of the stock transfer form means that this point does not represent a convenient means of ascertaining the truth regarding the issues in the case.

Meanwhile, by a letter of 27 March 2013, Mr Muduroglu first intimated his claim against Reddish:

“I … cannot trace any receipt by myself or Stephenson Harwood of any payment for these shares, which were sold by me for £1,700,000. Unless you can demonstrate to my satisfaction that the amount has been paid, and it was certainly not paid through Stephenson Harwood, who received the proceeds from the other purchasers of shares in Memorial Holdings Limited from me, the sale of which was completed on 9 April 2010. The payment would therefore appear to be still outstanding and this is a matter which I will need to pursue against you.”

However, on 5 June 2013 Mr Muduroglu signed a statutory demand against Reddish for a debt of £1,300,000. The particulars of debt read as follows:

“9^th April 2010 I sold 10% of my shares in Memorial Holding Limited to Reddish LLP for a deferred consideration of £1,300,000 (one million three hundred thousand pounds only). Despite numerous attempts to resolve the issue with Derek Lucie-Smith (partner in Reddish LLP) no payment has been made.

The shares were sold to various investors at the same time for circa £850,000 for 5%. Reddish LLP received their shares at a reduced rate of £650,000 for 5% as Derek Lucie-Smith was an introducer to Gresham House Plc, Holyoak Investment Inc, and private shareholders.”

Mr Lucie-Smith responded to the demand by a letter dated 10 June 2013; his evidence at the trial was that the letter was solely his own work. He stated the grounds for disputing the demand:

“1.

In April 2010 the Company agreed to pay the sum of £200,000 for 1000 shares (10% of your shareholding) in Memorial Holdings Limited. The Company paid the sum of £200,000 for these shares as instructed by your brother Sami Muduroglu and the shares were transferred to the Company. Please find enclosed a stock transfer form signed by you confirming this.

2.

The sum of £200,000 was full consideration for the shares. There was no element of deferred consideration or any further consideration for the shares. You have not provided any evidence for your claim that further amounts are due.

3.

In the statutory demand you refer to ‘numerous attempts to resolve the issue with Derek Lucie-Smith (partner in Reddish LLP)’. At no point after the Company purchased the shares in April 2010 have you contacted Mr Lucie-Smith or any other officer of the Company to allege that any further sums are due and explain the basis on which you allege this.”

By an undated letter sent on 13 June 2013, Mr Muduroglu replied to the three points as follows:

“1.

In April 2010 there was no agreement in place that Reddish would pay £200,000 for the 10% interest. It is my contention that they were on the same agreement as Gresham House Plc paying £650,000 for 5%, hence the £1,300,000 demand.

Sami Muduroglu was not authorised by me to instruct any payments to go anywhere other than to my client account at Stephenson Harwood. If you have paid money to him, I suggest you ask him to return it.

The stock transfer form you sent to me was filled in by Becky Vernon of Stephenson Harwood I believe on the instruction of Derek Lucie-Smith. This was done without my knowledge or agreement and nearly 3 years after the event, which makes it invalid and also subject to further investigation.

2.

It was agreed that Reddish would pay a reduced sum of £650,000 per 5% as Derek Lucie-Smith was instrumental in raising capital from Holyoak and others. This was a saving of circa £400,000 on true value.

3.

I have emails requesting information about the Reddish payment dating back over 1 year, all of which have gone unanswered. I was told on numerous occasions by Sami Muduroglu that Derek Lucie-Smith was firstly selling a property in America and then selling his shares in Gresham House Plc to raise the funds to pay for the shares.

None of the above has transpired and the failure of the directors to explain their situation has led me to take legal action.

Reddish have failed to pay 1 penny for the shares I transferred to them and after Sami Muduroglu had conveniently absconded, they say that they paid, with no evidence, a sum not agreed or documented, to an individual that they knew did not own the shares in the first place.”

Mr Muduroglu instructed Mills & Reeve, the solicitors who acted for him in these proceedings until shortly before the trial. They wrote to Reddish on 14 June 2013; I do not have a copy of that letter. Reddish replied on 25 June; for present purposes Reddish is Mr Lucie-Smith, whose vehicle it is. The letter read in part:

“In your client’s undated letter he stated that there was no agreement in place that Reddish LLP would pay £200,000 for the 10% interest in Memorial Holdings Limited. We would like to draw your attention to a shareholder agreement dated 9 April 2010 signed by, inter alios, your client and Reddish LLP (enclosed). Clause 2.12 of this agreement states that ‘EM [Eren Muduroglu] will transfer 1000 shares registered in his name to RLLP [Reddish LLP] in consideration of the payment by RLLP of the sum set out in an instrument of transfer duly executed by EM.’

Please find enclosed a stock transfer form also dated 9 April 2010 and signed by your client. This transfers 1000 shares in Memorial Holdings Limited to Reddish LLP for the sum of £200,000.

The enclosed shareholder agreement and stock transfer form document what was agreed between Reddish LLP and your client.

In his undated letter to us, your client states that the stock transfer form was filled in by Stephenson Harwood on the instruction of Reddish LLP. This is incorrect. Stephenson Harwood was not acting for Reddish LLP on this transaction. If they filled in the stock transfer form then they did this on your client’s instructions.”

Mills & Reeve replied, observing that Reddish’s claim as to how the stock transfer form was completed was at odds with what Ms Vernon had told them, disputing the contention that there was agreement of a price of £200,000, and asking how the alleged consideration was paid to their client.

On 18 July 2013 Reddish responded further to Mills & Reeve. This time the letter was signed by Mr Samuel Beilin, another property developer, who had become a member of Reddish and who represented them at the trial of this claim. However, the letter can only have been written on the instructions of Mr Lucie-Smith. The letter sets out substantially, though not precisely, the case now advanced by the defendants: Sami made all the decisions on the project and held himself out as the beneficial owner and was so regarded by everyone else involved; the first conversation between Mr Lucie-Smith and Mr Muduroglu did not take place until October 2010; there was an agreement between Mr Lucie-Smith and Sami that the former would take a 10% stake in MHL “at nil cost” “as reward for introducing new investors who would acquire shares”, and the other shareholders also agreed to this course. Regarding the £200,000 the letter said:

“There was absolutely no question that we would pay any consideration whatsoever for our 10% shareholding.

However, for accounting/financial planning/taxation purposes the 10% shareholding was transferred into this Limited Liability Partnership.

Again, for accounting/financial planning/taxation purposes the consideration for this transfer was £200,000. This was a nominal figure that we believed to be appropriate and it could have been £2.00, £200.00, £20,000.00 or £2m. We were not in any event paying for our shareholding and it was simply a matter for us to decide how to complete the transfer and to whom.”

There is what appears to be an earlier document in which the £200,000 consideration was denied, namely a letter, marked “not sent” and dated 24 June 2013, from Mr Lucie-Smith to Mr Muduroglu. The second page of the letter said: “Sami Muduroglu agreed to give me the shareholding in Reddish LLP. There is no question of any consideration being given apart from a nominal amount and I am not sure where the £200,000 consideration came from.” Although Mr Muduroglu suggested that the draft might be a later fabrication, I think that unlikely. Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence was that the unsent draft was his own work and that the letter actually sent on 25 June was the product of tidying up by a solicitor. Whether or not there was legal input into the letter that was sent, the conflict between the draft and what Mr Lucie-Smith had previously said remains stark. It is clearly impossible for Mr Lucie-Smith to say credibly that he “[was] not sure where the £200,000 consideration came from.”

When Reddish’s letter of 18 July 2013 was received, Mills & Reeve asked Mr Muduroglu to “comment on each paragraph, following the layout of the letter.” The copy of the letter in the trial bundle has Mr Muduroglu’s manuscript annotations in the margin. Next to the paragraph in which it is asserted that “we”, that is, Mr Lucie-Smith, never met or even had a conversation with Mr Muduroglu before October 2010, the manuscript note reads: “Sept 2009 & April 2010 SH offices”. I cannot be certain that the annotation was made in the summer of 2013, but it is probable that it was; no one referred me to the manuscript annotations in the course of the trial, and I do not think it likely that it is a later creation. It is relevant because it appears to be the first mention by Mr Muduroglu of a meeting between him and Mr Lucie-Smith in April 2010, which is where he now says that the price for the shares was expressly agreed.

Meanwhile a substantial adjudication had taken place between McGee and MPIL. On 7 May 2013 the adjudicator, Mr Tim Elliott QC, gave his decision in favour of McGee for approximately £800,000 in respect of losses suffered by McGee on account of fraudulent misrepresentations made by Sami acting with the apparent, though not the actual, authority of MPIL.

After this survey of the course of events, I turn to consider Mr Muduroglu’s claim against Reddish for payment of the alleged price of the shares transferred to Reddish.

In the particulars of claim, which are dated 23 August 2013 and which he signed, Mr Muduroglu set out the following case:

The pleaded case is consistent with Mr Muduroglu’s contention since June 2013 that the price was £1,300,000. The particulars of claim appear to contain the first recorded assertion that an agreement had been made directly between Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith, but the pleaded date, “on or about 18 March 2010”, did not reflect Mr Muduroglu’s own evidence, which was that prior to 8 April 2010 he had met Mr Lucie-Smith only once, in September 2009, and had never spoken to him by telephone and that such discussion as they had concerning shares was on 8 April.

The reply dated 30 October 2013 does not in terms affirm that there was a direct agreement between Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith; it certainly does not mention a meeting on 8 April 2010. It refers to an email sent by Sami on 18 March, in which he asks Mr Muduroglu to come along to a meeting with himself and Mr Lucie-Smith and the solicitors on the following day “to square off all outstanding matters so that we can try to work to a completion next week”. That email does not appear in the bundle, but I have no reason to doubt that it was sent, and other emails are consistent with such an email having indeed been sent. However, there is no record of such meeting as took place on that date, and it is not known who was present. Further, the narrative set out above shows that even by 19 March 2010 Mr Lucie-Smith and Reddish were not identified as potential shareholders, so it is unlikely that any meeting on that date would have dealt with the terms of their acquisition of shares. What the reply states is that “it was around this date [i.e. 18 March 2010] that the claimant and Sami Muduroglu first discussed the potential purchase of a 10% shareholding in MHL by the second defendant”. The reply also states that “[Mr Muduroglu] agreed a deferred payment with the second defendant in relation to the second defendant’s acquisition of shares in MHL although there was no exact time stipulation.”

The defendants’ case in the defence signed by Mr Lucie-Smith on 23 September 2013 is as follows:

The defendants’ pleaded case accurately states the figure in the Drivers Jonas valuation, though it is unconvincing as an explanation of how the sale price of a 5% shareholding—which actually had a benchmark of £1,700,000 rather than £1,900,000—was arrived at. The pleaded case is also consistent with the case advanced by the defendants at trial. It is, however, glaringly at odds with the initial explanations given by Mr Lucie-Smith to Mr Muduroglu in respect of the £200,000. And, as Mr Lucie-Smith will know perfectly well as an accountant, it does not work as an explanation of the entry of £200,000 on the stock transfer forms, which can only refer to monetary consideration passing from Reddish to Mr Muduroglu; it cannot accurately reflect a chain of transactions in which Mr Lucie-Smith paid to Mr Muduroglu a nil consideration and then himself received, even if only notionally, a £200,000 consideration from Reddish. The treatment of the shares in Reddish’s accounts is consistent with either of two explanations: first, that Reddish paid £200,000 for the shares with money borrowed from Mr Lucie-Smith for that purpose (that is, that he paid for the shares and the payment was entered on his loan account); second, that Reddish bought the shares from Mr Lucie-Smith for £200,000 but that the price was notionally paid and then loaned back to Reddish (resulting only in an entry in Mr Lucie-Smith’s loan account). Only the former of these possibilities adequately explains the entry of £200,000 onto the stock transfer form.

As to the figure of £200,000 itself, in his witness statement Mr Lucie-Smith stated:

“The transfer to Reddish was done for tax and estate planning purposes as the base value of the shares were (sic) exchanged for Loan Notes in Reddish LLP. … The £200,000 consideration was based on a conservative estimate of the value of the shares and potentially the estimated sale proceeds that Ravenblack Developments were being paid for the sale of their 50% interest to Eren Muduroglu. In reality, the transfer to Reddish LLP could have been at £1, £1m or £5m, but that was my business and not that of either Sami or Eren Muduroglu …”

The defendants’ pleaded case also relates the agreement for the 10% shareholding to the funding deal via RBS, which did not proceed. I have already mentioned this point and what the parties say about it; see paragraph 28 above.

In my judgment, although certain findings of fact are easily arrived at, very great difficulty attends any attempt to piece together a coherent account of events that makes perfect sense of all of the evidence. Having had the advantage of observing both Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith give evidence over prolonged periods, and having thoroughly reviewed both their evidence and the extensive documentation adduced at trial, I shall say something about these two principal witnesses before setting out and explaining the conclusions that I have reached.

Mr Muduroglu was, despite Mr Aldridge’s submissions to the contrary, an impressive witness. The transcript that I have of a morning of his evidence shows that his manner of answering questions translates poorly to paper; the appearance of incoherence in the transcript does not fairly represent the manner in which he communicated orally, largely because he tended to analyse aloud the expressed or implied case that was being put to him in order to understand it and see whether it made sense. Contrary to Mr Aldridge’s submission, I did not find him to be evasive. Indeed, as a witness I found him generally convincing. The question with which that presents me is whether he created this impression because he was largely telling the truth or because, as Mr Aldridge urged me to find, he is a fraudster who was weaving a web of deceit. His case regarding the meeting on 8 April 2010 certainly gives rise to serious questions, which I consider below. I also think it true that he initially presented his case in these proceedings in a manner that was calculated to give the impression that he was the sole beneficial owner of the MHL shares and that Sami was no more than his assistant; this was at best misleading. On the other hand, I consider that too much has been made of what Mr Muduroglu’s counsel at the time said on 23 January 2015 concerning paragraph 4 of his statement in the Credit & Mercantile proceedings (paragraph 9 above), which appeared to attempt to wriggle out of the implications of that evidence. By the time of that hearing, Mr Muduroglu had, albeit belatedly, acknowledged that he and Sami and Mr Wishart were partners on an informal basis in the Kemnal Manor project; and the truth, as both Mr Kerr QC and I think, is that the relationship among those three men was a somewhat untidy and informal one. (I refer also to the evidence concerning Mr Koehne’s understanding of the position; see paragraph 130 below. This illustrates the potential for different perspectives on questions of ownership of shares and entitlement to a profit-share.) The biggest problem with Mr Muduroglu’s evidence is the difficulty in understanding how his present case accords with his failure to assert either the direct agreement with Mr Lucie-Smith for payment of £1,300,000 or his entitlement to payment of that amount at times when he might have been expected to do so.

Mr Lucie-Smith gave evidence with greater poise and polish; this is perhaps to be expected of someone who, as Mr Aldridge reminded me, is an experienced professional with some standing in the financial world. Mr Aldridge submitted that he was “manifestly honest” and that, subject only to the possible question of the stock transfer forms, his evidence was “consistent with everything he [had] said and done previously”. That submission is plausible only if one ignores the documents (and many of them were indeed ignored at trial, for differing reasons); these leave no doubt but that Mr Lucie-Smith is seriously dishonest. I do not feel able to accept any of his evidence unless compelled to do so by inherent probabilities or by other evidence. The most striking problems with his credibility have already emerged in the narrative and will be mentioned further below, but some of the less central matters may conveniently be touched on here.

One further point should be made concerning Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence, in view of one of Mr Aldridge’s submissions. I accept that the severe ill-health from which Mr Lucie-Smith has suffered for some years may well have affected his memory adversely, in that he may have some difficulty recalling matters of detail. However, I reject the suggestion that his ill health provides a credible explanation for the substantial falsehoods that can be identified in his evidence.

Many of the relevant facts appear sufficiently from the narrative above, but it is convenient to bring together some of the main points here.

I find that the relationship between Mr Muduroglu, Sami and Mr Wishart was as is set out in paragraphs 8 and 9 above. Mr Muduroglu said in evidence before me that he understood the arrangement to mean that the shares belonged solely to him, legally and beneficially, but that there was an agreement for the sharing of profits. It is unnecessary for present purposes to be too concerned with the precise legal analysis. The substance of the matter was that there was a joint venture between the three men, in which Mr Muduroglu had the legal control but the smallest financial stake.

I find that Sami, as a natural salesman who liked to appear as the “main man”, took on the role of primary contact with third parties such as financial brokers and potential lenders. It may well be that some of those third parties believed that he was the owner of the project and that Mr Muduroglu was no more than his nominee who would rubber-stamp his decisions. Thus Mr Turton appeared to have no interest in details about Mr Muduroglu; Mr Librae said that Sami had told him that the shares were being held for him; and Mr Marshall appears also to have held that belief. It may be noted, however, that although Mr Riley said that all his contact was with Sami, who held himself out as being the beneficial owner of the shares, the communications between Mr Riley and his solicitors in the autumn of 2009 are more consistent with recognition of some form of partnership between the brothers. Mr Muduroglu rightly points out that these persons had no standing in the transaction that was actually carried through in April 2010; none of them had to undertake any due diligence enquiries, and it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the actual contracts would have been made in writing and not by the preliminary discussions. Further, despite some of the evidence of the witnesses I have mentioned, I think it likely that their beliefs owed more to the general impression created by Sami than to any specific claim he made. Thus his document “Kemnal Manor Memorial Gardens[:] Current Investment by Sami Muduroglu” does not claim ownership on his behalf. It ought also to be remembered that, as Mr Lucie-Smith was quick to point out to Mr Wishart, it was important that prospective funders could be assured that Mr Muduroglu was the true owner of the shares. The apparent beliefs to the contrary of some third parties have some relevance but have to be set in the wider context. Moreover, Sami’s role is explicable by the fact that he acted ostensibly as financial consultant to the project by his business Propvest.

Such evidence as there is shows that Stephenson Harwood, with whom Mr Lucie-Smith had considerable contact, did not believe Mr Muduroglu to be a mere nominee for the real decision-maker, Sami.

I reject Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence that he always believed Mr Muduroglu to be nothing more than a nominee holding the shares for Sami. I also reject his evidence that: “I … had absolutely no reason to believe that [Sami] was not the ultimate beneficial owner of the shares in KMMG.” The very document that he cites as supporting that understanding plainly contradicts that evidence (see paragraphs 22 and 23 above), as does the document quoted in paragraph 26 above, which indicates knowledge that other members of Sami’s family were beneficiaries. Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence is also directly contrary to what he told Mr Wishart: his case then stated was that so far as he had been concerned Mr Muduroglu was the sole beneficial owner of the shares. It might be contended, unattractively, that Mr Lucie-Smith was lying then and is telling the truth now. What is certain, in my judgment, is that he will say whatever best suits his own advantage, without regard to its truth or falsity. I find, however, that his stance vis-à-vis Mr Wishart is closer to the truth than his stance in these proceedings. It may be that, when first he was introduced to the Kemnal Manor project, he assumed that Sami was the true owner and that his understanding of the position developed thereafter. Like Stephenson Harwood, he probably regarded Mr Muduroglu as the true owner of the shares and, indeed, as the ultimate decision-maker, while understanding that Sami was “the ideas man” and that there was some sort of agreement whereby Sami would participate in the profits.

The question of Mr Lucie-Smith’s discussions with Sami concerning the former’s shareholding in MHL and his reward for his work takes us into murky waters. There is an almost complete lack of documentation that would show what the subject-matter of the discussions was between September 2009 and April 2010. Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence cannot be relied on. Sami has not given evidence; there is no reason to suppose that he would have been any more reliable as a witness. In the circumstances, I consider that three findings can be made with confidence regarding Mr Lucie-Smith’s discussions with Sami. First, there must have been discussions as to what Mr Lucie-Smith was to get in return for his involvement. Second, there was no agreement for a free 10% shareholding; certainly there was no such agreement that Mr Lucie-Smith believed to be open and above-board and made with Mr Muduroglu’s authority or even likely to be acceptable to Mr Muduroglu (I shall refer to this as an “above-board agreement” for convenience). Third, as Mr Muduroglu opined in the course of his evidence, there were probably two deals being done: one that was presented to him, and the other that was a private and corrupt side deal between Mr Lucie-Smith and Sami. In other words: Mr Muduroglu was told that Reddish would be paying a certain price for the shares, but Mr Lucie-Smith and Sami probably intended that this price should not actually be paid but that private arrangements should be implemented to their mutual advantage. This third conclusion is less certain than the other two, only because it is possible that the deal put to and approved by Mr Muduroglu was the only deal and that Mr Lucie-Smith has simply taken the opportunity presented by Sami’s disappearance to deny that deal.

Two main pieces of positive evidence are relied on to support Mr Lucie-Smith’s case: first, his own evidence of the agreement; second, the email exchange with Sami on 7 September 2009.

As for Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence, it is directly contrary to what he was saying in 2012 and 2013 in response to enquiries from Mr Wishart and Mr Muduroglu. Further, as I have said, Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence is incapable of bearing much weight without support from other sources. Such objective evidence as there is does not lend much if any support to his case.

As for the email exchange with Sami on 7 September 2009, I have referred (paragraph 28 above) to Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence in cross-examination that he had told Sami that he would end his involvement unless the same terms, namely a 10% stake in the venture, continued, and that Sami had agreed that he would continue to be involved on those terms. A number of observations may be made about that evidence.

There are two further documents that could be thought to provide some support to Mr Lucie-Smith’s present case as to the true origin of the figure of £200,000: first, Reddish’s financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2011, which were signed off on 14 February 2012; second, a document headed “Reddish LLP Loan Notes”, signed by Mr Lucie-Smith both on his own behalf and on behalf of Reddish, and said to have been prepared more or less contemporaneously with the share transaction in 2010. This second document bears the date “July 2009” against each signature and its text reads as follows:

“These Participating Loan Notes are granted by Reddish LLP (OC 310750) of 5 Princes Gate, London, SW7 1QJ on the 9^th July, 2009 to Derek Lucie-Smith of 17 South Eaton Place, London SW1 9ER in consideration for 1,000 ordinary shares in Memorial Holdings Limited whose registered offices are in St Helier, Jersey. The consideration and terms of these Loan Notes are as follows:-

I do not think that the financial statements and the Loan Note materially assist the defendants; indeed, they raise questions of their own.

There are several reasons for concluding that there was no above-board agreement of the kind that Mr Lucie-Smith alleges.

The most likely conclusion, in my judgment, is that Mr Lucie-Smith and Sami agreed that they would present ad extra,and in particular towards Mr Muduroglu, a proposal that Reddish take the shares at a discounted price to take account of Mr Lucie-Smith’s work, but that as between themselves they privately arrange matters differently. This would involve either some or all of the consideration not passing, or part of it passing as a form of “kick-back” to Sami personally, or part of the Reddish shares being secretly agreed to be held for Sami’s benefit, or a combination of all of these. (I think it probable, though far from certain, that this is the origin of Mr Lucie-Smith’s claim to Mr Wishart that he had paid £200,000 in cash to Sami. He probably did pass money to Sami, of which Mr Muduroglu was not intended to know anything. That Sami was frequently scrabbling around desperately for money was common ground between the parties, so there is nothing improbable in such a scenario.) In this way, the matter could be presented in a manner acceptable to Mr Muduroglu but with ulterior and undisclosed motive. The proposal actually put to Mr Muduroglu was by no means disadvantageous to Mr Lucie-Smith and Reddish, because it involved a substantial discount from the true value of the shares and meant that he was receiving the equivalent of several hundred thousands of pounds for his work between September 2009 and April 2010. But there was a real prospect of achieving the ulterior purpose, because the proposal was made on the basis that Mr Lucie-Smith would not be able to come up with the purchase price for some time. Mr Muduroglu was meanwhile to withdraw from an active role in the Kemnal Manor project, which after the restructuring in April 2010 would be managed primarily by Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith, who were being remunerated for their work. Mr Wishart was not himself actively involved in the management. As the principal purpose of the realisation of proceeds from the sale of the shares was not distribution but reinvestment in the project, it was realistic to think that a private arrangement between Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith could be made to work.

It is possible, in the alternative, that there was no such side-deal and that Mr Lucie-Smith has simply taken advantage of later circumstances, including in particular Sami’s disappearance and the discovery that no price had ever been entered onto the stock transfer form, to advance a false case as to the agreed price. In view of what was being said in 2012, before Sami’s disappearance, the close relationship that was manifest between Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith before, during and after the McGee debacle, the apparent co-operation of the two men regarding the moneys received from Mr Riley, and the lack of any indication that Sami tried to procure payment for the Reddish shares (a fact that is not, in my judgment, to be explained by the absence of any agreement for payment), I consider this alternative to be less likely.

Whatever may privately have been discussed between Sami and Mr Lucie-Smith, and regardless of whether any side-deal was discussed, I accept the broad substance of Mr Muduroglu’s evidence regarding the way the matter was put to him in late March 2010 (paragraph 51 above). That something must have been spoken between the brothers about the Reddish shares is obvious. I regard it as overwhelmingly unlikely that a free transfer of shares was discussed. Therefore it is extremely likely that a price was discussed. Mr Muduroglu’s account of his conversation with Sami does not make perfect sense on its face; reference to the price at which Mr Riley was acquiring shares was a non sequitur after mention of the higher Gresham House price, and £650,000 for a 5% stake was not the same as either Gresham House’s purchase price or its option price. However, Mr Muduroglu was not cross-examined on his evidence as to the content, as opposed to the occurrence, of the conversation, and his evidence as to the gist of the conversation is plausible and I accept that it is broadly accurate. The brothers will have had regard to the work that Mr Lucie-Smith had done and to the need to reflect a commission element in the discount. To allow a price of £900,000 for a 10% share, on the basis of Mr Riley’s deal, would be to give a discount of a full £1,000,000 on the latest achievable price and of £800,000 on the Gresham House option price; Mr Muduroglu considered that to be too much. But a price of £1,300,000 was acceptable. I think it likely that this price was rationalised by reference to both prices paid by Gresham House: it represented the application of a substantial discount, for Mr Lucie-Smith’s commission/remuneration, to the rate applicable to Gresham House’s option price (£850,000 for a 5% share); it was also in effect a rounding down of the original Gresham House purchase price of £680,000 for a 5% share.

I am satisfied that Mr Lucie-Smith knew that a price would have to be agreed with Mr Muduroglu and that he knew and approved of Sami’s discussions and agreement with Mr Muduroglu.

I should consider these findings as sufficient to establish the claimant’s case that there was an agreed price of £1,300,000. However, I shall proceed to consider the question whether there was a direct confirmation of the agreement in a face-to-face conversation between Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith, which is the case advanced by Mr Muduroglu.

In cross-examination Mr Aldridge spent considerable time attempting to establish that Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith are unlikely to have met at the offices of Stephenson Harwood on 8 April 2010. However, in my judgment the probability is that they did meet.

The fact that Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith were present together on 8 April does not itself entail the conclusion that Mr Muduroglu is telling the truth on the important question of what if anything was said concerning the price of the Reddish shares. However, if the two men were present together and if Mr Lucie-Smith was purchasing a shareholding in the name of Reddish, it is unlikely that the matter was passed over in silence. I think it likely that the matter was dealt with more informally than Mr Muduroglu’s statement might suggest, with little more than an exchange to the effect: “You’re buying at £1.3 million, right?” “Yes.” The question whether Sami was present is relevant to the accuracy of Mr Muduroglu’s purported recollection of the detail of the conversation, but it is not in my view of overriding significance in deciding whether or not there was a conversation in which the price of the shares was acknowledged. On balance, I think it slightly more probable than not that Mr Muduroglu is correct and that Sami was present and left shortly afterwards. Mr Lucie-Smith said that he could not recollect whether Sami was present at all on 8 April. Mr Muduroglu said that he was present for part of the time. The documents do not show whether or not he was present at all, though they do show that he was not present at the time when the minutes at Document 27 were signed. As Sami was clearly the person who did most of the face-to-face work with the solicitors and who had the primary financial involvement in the Kemnal Manor project, it is more likely than not that he did attend on the day when the major signing off took place. Accordingly I accept Mr Muduroglu’s evidence as to Sami’s presence when the relevant conversation took place.

In reaching these conclusions as to what happened on 8 April 2010, I have borne in mind the obvious objection that the meeting and agreement on that date between Mr Muduroglu and Mr Lucie-Smith were not mentioned in the pleadings or prior to Mr Muduroglu’s second witness statement. Having considered all of the evidence, including Mr Muduroglu’s oral evidence, I have formed the view that this is not a determinative obstacle to my findings. The pleadings point to the fact, which I regard as very strongly probable, that the discussions in which Mr Muduroglu initially agreed to the price at which Reddish would take its shares were with Sami. All that happened at a face-to-face meeting with Mr Lucie-Smith was mutual acknowledgment of the previously agreed position. In all likelihood, Mr Muduroglu has had more difficulty in identifying the precise time when the meeting took place than he was inclined to admit. It may be that he has previously thought that it was likely to have been around 18 March 2010, when some form of meeting appears to have taken place, though it is uncertain whether Mr Muduroglu attended, and that he has subsequently thought (as I also think) the later date more likely to be correct in view of the evidence as to when the Reddish shares were first mentioned. Further, as I have already mentioned (paragraph 112 above), it is likely that well before the commencement of the proceedings Mr Muduroglu made a note to the effect that he had met with Mr Lucie-Smith in April 2010; this is unlikely to be a late invention.

I have also had very much in mind other grounds of objection, which arise from a consideration of the documents and were forcibly advanced by Mr Aldridge. Those matters have been mentioned in connection with the documents in the foregoing narrative and I do not need to recite them here in detail. In summary, the main questions include the following. Why did Mr Muduroglu not chase Mr Lucie-Smith for payment? Why, when in urgent need of money, did he not ask Mr Lucie-Smith to come up with even some part of the purchase price but, on the contrary, sought his help in obtaining money on an urgent basis? Why did Mr Muduroglu not list the outstanding price as a debt owed to him when he compiled a list of his assets?

These questions arise on any scenario in which it was expected that Reddish would pay a price for the shares; they do not arise only if that price was £1,300,000. However, for reasons indicated I have a high degree of confidence that Mr Lucie-Smith’s evidence regarding the consideration for the shares is false. Therefore the fact that the questions arise does not tell strongly against Mr Muduroglu having believed that moneys were payable for the shares.

The evidence in Mr Muduroglu’s second witness statement concerning his efforts to obtain payment from Mr Lucie-Smith was as follows:

“In August 2010 I asked SM what was happening with the Mr A Riley and DLS share payments. He informed me that DLS couldn’t get a mortgage and that he was selling his house in America to raise funds. Mr A Riley had put the shares into his brother Jonathan’s name and was trying to get the money out of Jersey …

I sold another 15% in MHL in November 2010, which took the financial pressure off me so I was more relaxed in chasing up DLS and Mr A Riley. …

In April 2011 I again asked SM to chase DLS for his payment and he informed me that he was still trying to sell the American house and that he was working on a share transaction with Gresham that would effectively double the value of his shareholding in Gresham. I asked SM to arrange a meeting with both DLS and Mr A Riley as I was losing faith in all of our projects. SM told me that DLS was spending a lot of time in an oxygen bubble as his lung cancer had resurfaced. As such I did not want to push matters too hard at this point.”

The likely explanation for the difficulties to which the documents give rise lies, in my judgment, in a number of factors. At first, as Mr Muduroglu says, the payment for the Reddish shares was to be deferred, so that Mr Lucie-Smith could come up with the money. At the same time, Mr Muduroglu withdrew from active involvement in the Kemnal Manor project; as he put it in evidence, he “walked away” upon the promise from Sami that he would in due course receive a substantial payment when the project came to fruition. It was this situation that led to his frustration at having, as merely a minority shareholder with no managerial involvement in the ongoing project, “no influence” on what was going on (email of 27 April 2011; paragraph 73 above). Despite the financial stresses caused by his own liability under personal guarantees, Mr Muduroglu did not at that stage press Mr Lucie-Smith for payment for the Reddish shares, because he understood from Sami that the property transaction on which the funds depended had been delayed and because Mr Lucie-Smith’s continued involvement in the project as an executive director (for which he was being paid £150,000 p.a. for a two-day week) was critical to its success. As he became increasingly disillusioned with the project and, it seems, with Mr Ebel’s attitude towards him, he turned his attentions in early 2012 to extricating himself from the project and from his financial commitments by selling his remaining shares, but the negotiations in that regard became unexpectedly prolonged, adding to his frustrations. I think it likely that his account of what happened in March 2012 (paragraph 87 above) is broadly correct and that he felt a degree of fellow-feeling with Mr Lucie-Smith as another person to whom Mr Ebel was, as he saw it, behaving unfairly. As further time passed, however, he felt that he was being given no support, and his sympathies for Mr Lucie-Smith were waning; as he said in his email of 1 May 2012, he was no longer interested in his or Sami’s predicaments. In July 2012 Sami disappeared; it was about that time also that Mr Wishart started asking questions of Mr Lucie-Smith. Mr Muduroglu’s oral evidence was that it was only after Sami’s disappearance that the possibility began to occur to him that Mr Lucie-Smith had indeed paid money, but directly to Sami by way of a side deal for their mutual advantage and with the effect of cutting him and Mr Wishart out of the picture. This led to his communications in November and December 2012 and January 2013 (paragraph 99 above). I think it likely that that evidence is broadly correct. So far as concerns Mr Muduroglu’s failure to mention a debt owed by Mr Lucie-Smith in a list of his assets in January 2012, having heard his evidence concerning the way in which he sought successfully to extricate himself at low cost from large liabilities to those to whom he had given personal guarantees (paragraph 84 above), I accept his explanation as being probably correct.

I should add that, if I had taken a different view of Mr Muduroglu’s evidence on these matters, I should not have been at all inclined to conclude that he had known that no money was payable for the Reddish shares. The most likely alternative explanation would be that he simply did not know what money had been paid directly to Sami and assumed that the price had been paid, and perhaps channelled through SMU. However, that is not the conclusion that I have ultimately reached.

Accordingly, the claim against Reddish for payment of the price of the shares succeeds.

The secondary claim brought by Mr Muduroglu, and the only claim brought against Mr Lucie-Smith in these proceedings, is for damages for unlawful means conspiracy. I can deal with this head of claim very shortly.

The tort of unlawful means conspiracy “involves an arrangement between two or more parties, whereby they effectively agree that at least one of them will use ‘unlawful means’ against the claimant, and, although damage to the claimant need not be the predominant intention of any of the parties, the claimant must have suffered loss or damage as a result”: Total Network [2008] UKHL 19, [2008] 1 AC 1174, per Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury at [213].

The pleaded case is set out in paragraphs 25 and 26 of the particulars of claim. It is there said that Mr Lucie-Smith and Reddish conspired to defraud Mr Muduroglu in respect of the consideration due to him in respect of the Reddish shares. The particular facts relied on are that Mr Lucie-Smith informed Ms Vernon that the consideration for the shares was £200,000, rather than the agreed sum of £1,300,000, and that he thereby procured the entry of a false price onto the stock transfer form.

The simplest reason why this claim must fail is that Mr Muduroglu has failed to establish that he suffered any loss by reason of the matters complained of. His complaint is that a false price was entered onto the stock transfer forms. I agree. But he was not deceived, and in the light of my findings it is impossible to see how the saga of the stock transfer forms has resulted in any actionable damage.

I should anyway have inclined to doubt that a conspiracy could be established, regardless of loss and damage. It seems to me that there was no arrangement between two parties; there was only the conduct of Mr Lucie-Smith. It may well be the case that, for the purposes of tortious liability, there can be a conspiracy by agreement, arrangement or combination between an individual and a corporate entity of which he is the sole controlling mind: cf. Taylor v Smyth [1991] IR 142, per McCarthy J at 165; Barclays Pharmaceuticals Ltd v Waypharm LP [2012] EWHC 306 (Comm), per Gloster J at [220-229]. However, it is quite a different thing to say that any unlawful action of an individual who stands to benefit via a corporate entity that he controls, or any unlawful action of a corporate entity performed by the person who controls it, is a conspiracy. This is not a case where the corporate entity was itself at the material time engaged in an activity, such as receiving or paying away moneys. What happened was simply that Mr Lucie-Smith caused a price to be placed on the stock transfer form and gave an explanation of how that figure had come to be on the form. To call that a conspiracy because he was supposedly wearing two hats, his own and Reddish’s, seems to run the risk of evacuating the concept of meaningful content. However, it is unnecessary to decide this point or to express any firm conclusion on it.

Accordingly, I dismiss the claim in conspiracy.

I have previously provided this judgment in draft to the parties. As they have been unable to reach agreement on consequential matters, I shall give judgment for Mr Muduroglu against Reddish and dismiss the claim against Mr Lucie-Smith but shall adjourn to a further hearing consideration of outstanding matters, including costs, interest and any application for permission to appeal.