Verlox International Ltd & Anor v Igor Antoshin & Ors

On 8 July 2022, Committal Applications were issued by the Claimants against:

On 22 August 2022, a further Committal Application was issued in the name of Mr Sychev against Mr Antoshin (the 22 August Application).

The committal applications against Mr Crosse and Mr Riem have been served.

At this hearing:

I can take a summary of the background to the case from the judgment of Mr Justice Picken, in Verlox International Ltd and Sychev v Antoshin and others [2022] EWHC 2667 (Comm).

In late December 2016, the First Claimant (Verlox) and Mr Sychev issued proceedings against Mr Antoshin, PhosAgro and the Fifth Defendant (Mr Guryev) bringing, inter alia, claims said to arise out of an alleged oral agreement (the Share Agreement), made on or around 16 May 2011 and governed by Russian law. Verlox is a Belize shell company with no apparent assets of its own. It is presently controlled entirely by Mr Sychev.

From 2002 until February 2013, Mr Sychev was employed by entities affiliated with PhosAgro, and in particular RBC PhosAgro LLC which is a subsidiary of PhosAgro. Verlox’s claim related to remuneration for work alleged to have been carried out by Mr Sychev which it was said fell outside the scope of his employment contract, and for which it is said he was entitled to remuneration over and above the amounts payable under the employment contracts in the sum of $13m and a 1% shareholding in PhosAgro. The work in question related to tax litigation involving the PhosAgro companies, and in particular work in defending substantial tax claims brought by the Russian authorities against a company called Apatit.

Those claims for remuneration were assigned by Mr Sychev to Verlox, which was also asserting claims against the Second and Third Defendants. Verlox’s claim was for a declaration that loans purportedly entered into between Verlox and those companies were invalid, because the amounts purportedly “loaned” were in fact part-payments of the amounts due to Mr Sychev under the Share Agreement. A perceived benefit of assigning the claims under the Share Agreement to Verlox appears to have been that it would provide a basis for this court having jurisdiction over those claims, relying on the “necessary or proper party” service out gateway and the alleged factual overlap between Verlox’s own claims against the Second and Third Defendants, and the assigned claims asserted against the other Defendants.

At inception, therefore, while Verlox and Mr Sychev were both claimants, the primary claim was made by Verlox, with only a claim in the alternative (presumably if the assignment was held to be invalid) by Mr Sychev. On 23 June 2017, the Claimants (then represented by Fieldfisher LLP) applied for permission to serve the proceedings out of the jurisdiction, and for an extension of time to effect service. Mr Justice Teare directed that the application for permission to serve out should be made at an oral hearing rather than (as is usually the case) on paper. The skeleton argument filed for that hearing identified no claim by Mr Sychev, and advanced no basis on which it was said that there was a basis for serving any claim by Mr Sychev under the Share Agreement out of this jurisdiction. The head of jurisdiction relied upon – the “necessary or proper party gateway” – would not have been available in respect of claims asserted by Mr Sychev.

While Mr Justice Teare expressed certain reservations regarding the connection between the claims and England, describing the connection with this jurisdiction as "tenuous", he nonetheless granted permission to serve out and an extension of time for service until 30 June 2018. For reasons which it is not necessary to go into, it took some time to effect service. Once this had been done, on 16 April 2021, Mr Antoshin lodged a jurisdiction application, challenging the jurisdiction of the English Court. PhosAgro and Mr Guryev also lodged jurisdiction challenges.

The evidence filed in support of those jurisdictional challenges included the material which gives rise to today’s application.

On 14 April 2021, Mr Alec Cairney of Asserson Law Offices served a witness statement in support of Mr Antoshin’s jurisdiction challenge. That statement alleged that there had been a breach of the duty of full and frank disclosure at the “without notice” hearing before Mr Justice Teare because there had been a failure to disclose a copy of Mr Sychev’s employment agreement and job description (the Disputed Document). The same document was relied upon in support of the contention that there was no “serious issue to be tried”. Paragraph 6 stated that the exhibits (which included the Disputed Document) were “true copies”. Mr Cairney said that Mr Antoshin had authorised him to file the witness statement. Mr Cairney signed the statement of truth. Mr Sychev contends that the Disputed Document is a forgery, and this forms the basis of his committal application against Mr Antoshin.

On 14 April 2021, Mr Antoshin served the expert report of Professor Yarkov, a Russian lawyer (the Yarkov First Report):

On 8 March 2022, Professor Yarkov served a second report (the Second Yarkov Report) stating:

“Thus, my conclusion about the claims of the Claimants being governed by Russian law not only follows from the detailed legal analysis I have presented but also follows from the documents submitted by the Claimants”

(the preceding paragraphs referring to the fact that the Particulars of Claim had pleaded “the agreements referred to above were governed by Russian law” and pleaded various provisions of Russian law, as had the skeleton argument filed before Teare J).

These paragraphs form the basis of the committal application against Professor Yarkov.

On 8 March 2022, Mr Crosse served a reply witness statement responding, inter alia, to the allegation of forgery (Crosse 2):

These paragraphs form the basis of the committal application against Mr Crosse.

The jurisdiction applications were listed for 4 days, beginning on 27 March 2023.

In June and July 2021, Mr Antoshin, PhosAgro and Mr Guryev applied for security for costs in respect of their jurisdiction challenges. Those security for costs applications were originally listed to be heard on 25 July 2022, but the hearing was moved to 11 October 2022.

On 1 October 2021, Mr Riem of PCB Byrne LLP for PhosAgro filed a responsive witness statement in the security for costs challenge (the Riem Statement), paragraph 46(h) of which stated:

“It is alleged by Mr Sychev that PhosAgro somehow changed its position as to whether litigation had formed part of Mr Sychev’s responsibilities while he was employed by the PhosAgro group …. It is not possible to discern any coherent point here (nor its relevance as to security for costs). For the avoidance of doubt, there has not been any change of position on the part of PhosAgro”.

This paragraph forms the basis of the committal application against Mr Riem.

A directions hearing in the jurisdiction applications took place before Mr Justice Jacobs on 8 October 2021. At that hearing, Mr Sychev sought permission to represent Verlox (which was no longer instructing solicitors). At that hearing, Mr Justice Jacobs gave Mr Sychev permission to represent Verlox's interests at that hearing only, but was not prepared to grant him permission to represent Verlox at future hearings. Instead, he gave the Claimants permission to apply pursuant to CPR 39.6 for such permission, that application to be made at least 6 weeks prior to any hearing for which permission was to be sought. An application for permission was refused on 27 May 2022 at a hearing which took place before Mr Adrian Beltrami KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge. Subsequent to that decision, Mr Sychev accused Mr Beltrami KC of bias.

Verlox sought permission to appeal against Mr Beltrami KC's decision on 17 June 2022. That application was dismissed by Bean LJ on 20 July 2022, who described Mr Beltrami KC's decision as "plainly correct for all the reasons he gave".  In a letter dated 7 September 2022, Mr Sychev accused Bean LJ effectively of colluding with the Defendants in order to dismiss his case. Mr Sychev applied on 3 October 2022 to re-open the refusal of permission to appeal on the basis that Mr Beltrami KC had at one point in time been instructed by the solicitors for Mr Antoshin, Simmons & Simmons LLP. Bean LJ dismissed this application.

On 17 July 2022, in anticipation of the security for costs application, Mr Sychev notified the Defendants that Verlox had assigned the claims under the Share Agreement back to him. The Claimants applied to amend the Particulars of Claim to reflect this assignment. The security for costs application, together with the amendment application, came before Picken J on 11 October 2022.

Having heard argument at that hearing, Picken J held as follows:

The following features of the background should be noted:

CPR 81.3(5) provides:

“(5)

Permission to make a contempt application is required where the application is made in relation to—

(a)

interference with the due administration of justice, except in relation to existing High Court or county court proceedings;

(b)

an allegation of knowingly making a false statement in any affidavit, affirmation or other document verified by a statement of truth or in a disclosure statement.”

The allegation of contempt made in the 22 August Application is that Mr Antoshin (who did not himself file an affidavit or affirmation or sign a statement of truth) knowingly caused a forged document to be exhibited to a witness statement which was placed before the court. The first issue which arises is whether an allegation of contempt in that form requires the permission of the court under CPR 81.5(b) before it can be pursued, or whether it falls within the “existing High Court proceedings” proviso to CPR 81.3(5)(a) (as Mr Sychev contends).

In Cole v Carpenter [2020] EWHC 3155 (Ch), Mr Justice Trower had to consider a very similar issue in a case in which a party was alleged to have falsified or deliberately caused to be falsified a document which was then exhibited to her reply (ground 1), which was in turn supported by a false statement of truth (ground 2). Trower J thought it “well arguable” that the allegations relating to the forging of the document fell within CPR 81.3(5)(b). He also noted that even if permission had not been required for ground 1, “the allegations of fact relied on in relation to both ground 1 and ground 2 are in all respects identical” such that there was “at least a serious possibility that the court would consider it appropriate to stay contempt proceedings based on ground 1 if permission is refused on ground 2”. He referred in this connection to TBD (Owen Holland) Ltd v Simons and others [2020] EWCA Civ 1182, [239], in which Arnold LJ had noted of a case in which a similar issue would have arisen that “any attempt by TBD to pursue committal proceedings on grounds that do not require permission would inevitably require the court to consider whether to stay the proceedings”.

In this case, if Mr Antoshin had himself provided the witness statement, supported by the statement of truth, which represented that the Disputed Document was genuine, I think it inevitable that an application for committal based on an allegation that the document was forged would fall to be characterised as “knowingly making a false statement in any affidavit, affirmation or other document verified by a statement of truth”, and hence the court’s permission would be required to proceed with the committal. In this case, the statement of truth was made by Mr Cairney. However, as Mr Sychev himself points out, under PD 22 paragraphs 3.7 and 3.8:

“3.7

Where a party is legally represented, the legal representative may sign the statement of truth on his behalf. The statement signed by the legal representative will refer to the client’s belief, not his own. In signing he must state the capacity in which he signs and the name of his firm where appropriate.

3.8

Where a legal representative has signed a statement of truth, his signature will be taken by the court as his statement:

(1)

that the client on whose behalf he has signed had authorised him to do so,

(2)

that before signing he had explained to the client (through an interpreter where necessary) that in signing the statement of truth he would be confirming the client’s belief that the facts stated in the document were true, and

(3)

that before signing he had informed the client of the possible consequences to the client if it should subsequently appear that the client did not have an honest belief in the truth of those facts (see rule 32.14).”

If the court would have refused permission for a committal application under CPR 81.5(b) if Mr Antoshin had himself signed the statement of truth, I can see no reason why an application in respect of the same alleged forgery should be permitted to proceed if, instead of alleging that Mr Antoshin had exhibited the forgery to and represented the genuineness of the document in his own statement, the allegation is that he had authorised and caused his solicitor to do so. It is not necessary to determine whether an application for committal in these circumstances falls within CPR81.5(b), or whether a similar process of control falls to be exercised by the court under its inherent jurisdiction. The risk of the process of committal being used to re-litigate disputes (or to litigate those which the court has found should not be litigated in this jurisdiction) is equally present in both cases.

In Re Yaxley-Lennon [2018] EWCA Crim 1856, [26] the court noted that “the enforcement of orders made in private proceedings is generally a matter for the parties.” The allegations of contempt in this case do not involve the breach of court orders, but allegations of false statements in statements verified by statement of truth and/or interference with the due administration of justice in existing court proceedings. I accept that, in principle, Verlox, as the effective party to the action and the respondent to the jurisdiction challenges and the security for costs applications, has standing to bring committal applications arising from those proceedings.

However, Verlox is a company and it does not have legal representation. In these circumstances, it has no absolute entitlement to act through a director or employee in the pursuit of litigation, but requires the permission of the court under CPR 39.6 to do so. Verlox has applied for such permission, but, as stated above, that application was rejected by Adrian Beltrami KC. In a judgment reported at [2022] EWHC 1346 (Comm), Mr Beltrami KC held as follows:

The findings made by Mr Beltrami KC in relation to the allegations made in the litigation apply with even greater force to criminal allegations of contempt made against one of the defendants and against lawyers and an expert acting in the proceedings. The conduct of Mr Sychev since Mr Beltrami KC’s order – with allegations of bribery and/or actual bias made against Mr Beltrami KC, Bean LJ, Robin Knowles and Picken JJ, allegations that two of the firms of solicitors who previously acted for Mr Sychev were bribed by the Defendants, a new allegation of dishonesty against Mr Antoshin’s leading counsel and the initiation of a number of an online petition in which these allegations have been repeated – have amply confirmed the wisdom of Mr Beltrami KC’s order.

It follows that Verlox is unable to pursue the committal applications for so long as it remains unrepresented by authorised legal advisers who are able, in compliance with their professional duties, to pursue the applications.

So far as Mr Sychev is concerned, as I have noted above, he never became an effective party to the proceedings. He was not a respondent to either the jurisdiction challenge or the security for costs application. For that reason, I am not satisfied that Mr Sychev was someone “directly affected” by the alleged contempts (to use the language of Moore-Bick LJ in KJM Superbikes Limited v Hinton [2008] EWCA Civ 1280, [9]) so as to have standing to pursue the applications. In any event, I am satisfied that Mr Sychev would be a wholly unsuitable “guardian of the public interest” for the purposes of conducting any committal proceedings (as Gloster LJ put it in Tinkler v Elliott [2014] EWCA Civ 564, [111]):

For these reasons alone, I would, therefore:

So far as an application for permission under CPR 81.3(5)(b) is concerned, the relevant legal principles were summarised by Hooper LJ in Barnes v Seabrook [2010] EWHC 1849 (Admin), [41]:

In TBD (Owen Holland) Limited v Simons and others [2020] EWCA Civ 1182, Arnold LJ added two further points:

In KJM Superbikes Limited v Hinton [2008] EWA Civ 1280, [11], the Court of Appeal emphasised that:

“When the court gives a private person permission to pursue proceedings for contempt against a witness who is alleged to have told lies in a witness statement it allows that person to act in a public rather than a private role, not to recover damages for his own benefit, but to pursue the public interest. That is why the court will be concerned to satisfy itself that the case is one in which the public interest requires that the committal proceedings be brought and that the applicant is a proper person to bring them”.

At [16], the Court continued:

“Whenever the court is asked by a private litigant for permission to bring proceedings for contempt based on false statements allegedly made in a witness statement it should remind itself that the proceedings are public in nature and that ultimately the only question is whether it is in the public interest for such proceedings to be brought. However, when answering that question there are many factors that the court will need to consider. Among the foremost are the strength of the evidence tending to show not only that the statement in question was false but that it was known at the time to be false, the circumstances in which it was made, its significance having regard to the nature of the proceedings in which it was made, such evidence as there may be of the maker's state of mind, including his understanding of the likely effect of the statement and the use to which it was actually put in the proceedings. Factors such as these are likely to indicate whether the alleged contempt, if proved, is of sufficient gravity for there to be a public interest in taking proceedings in relation to it. In addition, the court will also wish to have regard to whether the proceedings would be likely to justify the resources that would have to be devoted to them.”

It has been emphasised that “the court should exercise great caution before giving permission to bring proceedings [and] should not do so unless there is a strong case both that the statement in question was untrue and that the maker knew that it was untrue at the time he made it” (Zurich Insurance Plc v Romaine [2019] 1 WLR 5224, [28]).

It is also clear that permission will not be given when the proposed committal proceedings are not in accordance with the overriding objective (Stobart v Elliott [2014] EWCA Civ 564, [44]).

While there is no express power in CPR 81 to strike out a committal application which it is not necessary to obtain the court’s permission to make, the court has such a power under its inherent jurisdiction: Taylor v Robinson [2021] EWHC 664 (Ch), [37]-[46].

In Crosse 2, Mr Crosse provided a relatively detailed summary of what Mr Sychev had said in his witness statement about the Disputed Document, providing extensive cross-references to that evidence. Any reader of that statement could have been in no doubt that Mr Sychev had given extensive evidence setting out why he contended that the Disputed Document was a forgery.

The point which Mr Crosse made in paragraphs 43 and 49A of Crosse 2 was that there was no, or no sufficient, evidence other than Mr Sychev’s “say so”, or arguments (as opposed, say, to expert evidence) to support a very serious allegation. Mr Crosse’s statements could not have been understood in any other sense. Indeed it is clear from earlier parts of the witness statement that Mr Crosse was asking the court to find that Mr Sychev was an unreliable source of evidence, and that no real weight could be accorded to anything he said (paragraphs 19 to 26, inviting the court “to approach Mr Sychev’s evidence with caution”).

Understood in this sense (a sense in which similar statements are routinely made and understood in court proceedings), it is correct that the Claimants had adduced no evidence other than that of Mr Sychev on the forgery issue. In any event, it was entirely permissible for Mr Crosse to make a comment recording his client’s position that there was no or no sufficient reliable evidence to support the allegation of forgery. Mr Crosse would have known that the court would make up its own mind on that issue and would not be influenced by his client’s or his assertion. He would also have known that a court would only ever be considering paragraphs 43 and 49A of his witness statement in a context in which it was also reading and evaluating Mr Sychev’s evidence that the Disputed Document was a forgery at the same time.

It is important to note at the outset the wholly improbable nature of this assertion – that, when commenting on Mr Sychev’s evidence which would be placed before the court at the same time as his own statement responding to it, Mr Crosse was intending to mislead the court as to what that evidence established. Once again, Mr Crosse’s witness statement expressly referred to Mr Sychev’s evidence addressing the issues covered by Professor Sergeev’s report. However, as a factual witness Mr Sychev was not in a position to challenge the substance of Professor Sergeev’s report on matters of Russian law.

In addition, this paragraph of Crosse 2 expressly cross-referred, in a footnote, to a document prepared by Mr Sychev called “Objections to Professor Sergeev’s report” in which Mr Sychev’s challenges to Professor Sergeev’s evidence were set out in detail (Mr Sychev having wrongly asserted that this was not the case in his submissions at the hearing).

In any event, the question of whether what Mr Sychev had said did, or did not, address the substance of Professor Sergeev’s evidence was essentially a matter of opinion or comment. It was open to Mr Crosse to offer his own comment, from his client’s perspective, as to the effect of the opposing party’s evidence, albeit knowing that the court would make up its own mind, and would not be influenced by his characterisation.

This allegation appears to stem from a misunderstanding on Mr Sychev’s part as to the nuances of the Russian limitation issue. In his report, Professor Sergeev had suggested that the Russian limitation period had expired on 18 January 2015. In response, Mr Sychev suggested that the limitation period had, in effect, been interrupted because he had been engaged in negotiations about the claim with Mr Antoshin at that time.

However, it was apparent from the expert report of Mr Antoshin’s Russian civil procedure expert, Professor Yarkov, that, during the period in which Mr Sychev was contending that the Russian limitation period was not running due to ongoing negotiations, Mr Sychev had in fact commenced Russian court proceedings against the Defendants in relation to his legal expenses (in late December 2015 or January 2016) and his claim had been dismissed. Clearly it was open to Mr Antoshin to argue that these events answered any argument that negotiations provided a reason for Mr Sychev not commencing proceedings.

When Mr Crosse said at paragraph 80 of Crosse 2 that the effect of the evidence of Professors Sergeev and Yarkov was that Mr Sychev’s arguments did not affect the limitation period, he was not falsely (still less dishonestly) seeking to suggest that Professor Yarkov had given evidence as to the Russian law of limitation, when he had not. That would have been a wholly ridiculous thing to do in circumstances in which Professor Yarkov’s evidence would be before the court at the same time as his own. He was making the different point that the combination of Professor Sergeev’s evidence on the Russian law of limitation, and Professor Yarkov’s evidence as to the Russian procedural history, was that Mr Sychev’s evidence did not answer the Russian limitation issue. That statement was a characterisation of the evidence which Mr Crosse could honestly and reasonably put forward in a witness statement served in support of Mr Antoshin. Ultimately, however, it would be for the court to determine the overall effect of the evidence on the issue of limitation under Russian law, and the way in which a particular party had characterised their position as to the effect of the evidence would be a matter of no consequence in the court’s determination.

The application against Mr Riem requires a little more explanation:

It will be apparent that Mr Riem did not engage with the substance of the statements to which Mr Sychev had referred, offering the essentially conclusory assertion that PhosAgro’s position had not changed. Whether or not that assertion was an accurate characterisation of the position would depend on the context of the particular communications (not least whether they were concerned with the narrower question of whether it was part of Mr Sychev’s responsibility actually to conduct litigation in the courts, as opposed to a wider question of whether he had responsibility for the decision to initiate proceedings, strategy choices etc), and whether the statements were made on behalf of PhosAgro. I am far from saying that there would have been nothing to be said on the Claimants’ behalf on these points, if it had ever been necessary for the court to consider them. It is easy to see why Mr Sychev thinks that these documents assist him, and why he would have sought to make much of them at the hearing of the jurisdiction challenge.

Whatever the ultimate answer to that question might have been, it was entirely appropriate for Mr Riem to set out what his client’s position was. The final sentence of this paragraph, which forms the basis of the committal application, was essentially a throw-away remark which could only have been understood as, and only have been intended to be, a summary assertion as to what PhosAgro’s position would be at the hearing. In any event, comments of this kind have absolutely no impact on judges in determining applications, and Mr Riem could never have thought otherwise. This sentence should never have been the subject of a committal application.

Once again, some context is necessary in order to evaluate this allegation.

Professor Yarkov identified a number of grounds on which it was said that the Russian court would have jurisdiction over the Claimants’ claims:

When addressing the second of those issues, Professor Yarkov noted that the court would look at the form of the claim, and that the majority of the participants in the case were Russian individuals or legal entities. That was true – Mr Sychev, Mr Antoshin and Mr Guryev were Russian, Mr Antoshin and Mr Guryev resided in Russia, and PhosAgro is a Russian registered company.

When addressing the third of those issues, Professor Yarkov stated that “since obligations under the agreement, as follows from the Claimants’ statements, should have been performed on the Russian territory, the jurisdiction of the Russian court in respect of this claim follows from paragraph 6, Part 3, Art 402 of the CC RF”. The basis of the assertion that the Claimants’ statements established that performance was to be performed in Russia was given in footnote 11 of the report, which referred to paragraph 41 of the Claimants’ skeleton argument for the “without notice” hearing before Teare J. That paragraph appeared under a heading “Part Performance of Share Agreement” and stated:

It will be apparent that the Claimants had described both the execution of the gift agreements and the payments thereunder as part performance of the Share Agreement (it being the Claimants’ case that the Loan Agreement was a sham, and not a genuine agreement). The former of those events, but not the latter, took place in Russia. It was therefore legitimate and accurate for Professor Yarkov to state that, on the Claimants’ account, there had been acts of part performance in Russia, albeit the Claimants may well have wanted to re-visit the suggestion that the gift agreement itself was an act of part-performance once they appreciated the potential significance of that statement. In any event, as an expert, it was for Professor Yarkov to explain the applicable principles of law. It would be open to the parties to make submissions as to what the underlying documents showed, and it is wholly incredible to suggest that, through his expert evidence, Professor Yarkov was seeking to mislead the court as to what the Claimants’ documents said or that there was any possibility that he might do so.

Finally, on 8 March 2022, Professor Yarkov served a second report stating at paragraph 47:

“Thus, my conclusion about the claims of the Claimants being governed by Russian law not only follows from the detailed legal analysis I have presented but also follows from the documents submitted by the Claimants”

The essence of the complaint here is that while the Claimants did indeed contend that the Share Agreement was governed by Russian law, the Loan Agreements to which Verlox was an apparent party provided for the application of UK law, and that Professor Yarkov misled the court in suggesting otherwise.

However, once again, matters are more complicated than that:

Against this background, the following matters are clear beyond argument:

The effect of the evidence about the Disputed Document is that it was sent to Mr Sychev by email from a PhosAgro email address on 2 March 2021 in the context of ongoing proceedings in Moscow. Mr Sychev says that this is the first time he saw it. The email which sent the document said that it was being sent in response to a request from Mr Sychev. It is his evidence that he had first made a request for documents relating to his employment two years before, and there had then been a series of exchanges with RBC PhosAgro LLC in which the documents were not provided to him. In early 2020, he commenced proceedings in the Gagarinsky District Court in Moscow seeking production of the documents.

In response, on 16 March 2021, Mr Sychev replied to the PhosAgro email address saying that the document was a forgery, and he sent letters to the Moscow court in which the same allegation was made. His claim in the Moscow court was dismissed on 18 March 2021.

On 19 March 2021, Ms Valenkova (whose signature appears on the Disputed Document authorising it) sent a copy of the Disputed Document to Mr Antoshin’s Russian lawyer, Mr Chuprygin, at the latter’s request. Mr Chuprygin sent it to Mr Cairney. On 16 April 2021 Mr Cairney served a witness statement in the jurisdiction challenge on behalf of Mr Antoshin. That statement exhibited a copy of the Disputed Document and made the following assertions by reference to it:

The Disputed Document was also a significant feature of Professor Sergeev’s evidence, who provided a Russian law analysis of the consequences of the Disputed Document (paragraphs 5, 13, 135, 136, 141, 143 and 147).

In response to that evidence, Mr Sychev repeated his assertion that the Disputed Document is a forgery. The reasons given for that assertion were as follows:

Mr Sychev served a Notice to Prove the Disputed Document on Mr Antoshin on 8 December 2021, to which there has been no response. The responsive evidence in relation to this issue was relatively brief:

It is easy to understand why, tactically, the Defendants might have decided on a policy of minimal engagement with Mr Sychev’s evidence on the Disputed Document. This was not a point susceptible to the summary determination required if it was to assist in showing that there was no serious issue to be tried or provide a basis for a sustainable non-disclosure argument. It might also be the case however, as Mr Sychev asserts, that there was limited engagement because Mr Antoshin did not have a good answer to the allegation of forgery. Whatever the reason might be, the result is that there is no substantive evidence before the court answering the allegation of forgery. In addition to that lack of response, there are points to be made about the timing of the emergence of the Disputed Document, the particular convenience of its terms given the claims advanced in the English proceedings, and as to how far it is consistent with statements made in 2015 and 2020, such that I do not feel able at this stage and in these circumstances to say that, on the evidence currently available, the allegation that the Disputed Document is a forgery does not stand a sufficient prospect of success such that it should be struck out for lack of merit alone. In particular, it would be very difficult at a hearing of this kind and duration, and without the benefit of oral evidence, to conclude that Mr Sychev’s own evidence that he had never seen the Disputed Document before March 2021 and that it bore no relationship with the actual circumstances of his employment, would be rejected by any court hearing a committal application.

In these circumstances, it is not necessary for me to address the further material submitted by Mr Sychev after the hearing and without permission intended to show that the date of creation of the Disputed Document was 30 September 2015, long after his employment had ceased. The Defendants have had no fair opportunity to engage with that material, and Mr Sychev has offered no explanation as to why it has not been produced before. The late, and unsolicited, submission is a further manifestation of Mr Sychev’s complete inability to litigate in accordance with the rules imposed to ensure a fair process and the proper use of the court’s scarce resources (cf. [36] above).

Perhaps recognising the difficulties of persuading the court to reach a firm view on the merits of the forgery allegation at a short interim hearing of this nature, Mr Eschwege focussed his submissions on two issues:

However, there are a number of difficulties with the court forming any conclusion on the arguability of that second contention at this stage.

First, there is the very limited evidence on this issue. Mr Crosse records an “instruction” he received as to the circumstances of the Disputed Document’s receipt. If that is to be treated as hearsay evidence from Mr Antoshin, the fact remains that there is no evidence as to what Mr Antoshin was told about the Disputed Document or its provenance or what he knew about it.

Second, and more fundamentally, if the Disputed Document is shown to be a forgery, the issue of what Mr Antoshin may or may have not known about that subject is entirely tied up with the very hotly contested dispute between Mr Sychev and Mr Antoshin about their mutual dealings, as to which very serious allegations are made extending across a wider range of interactions and a lengthy time-period. For example:

All of these matters are clearly the subject of very fierce dispute. Resolving those questions would essentially involve litigating in a committal context the very dispute which it has been found that the court has no jurisdiction to determine on the merits. I suspect that one of the benefits which Mr Sychev perceives in the committal application is the ability to do just that.

In these circumstances, I do not feel able to stay the 22 August Application on grounds of lack of merit alone.

As noted at [38]-[41] above, before giving permission to Mr Sychev to bring a committal application in respect of the 8 July Applications, the court must be satisfied that it would be in the public interest for the committal applications to be brought. For the reasons given at [29] to [31] above, I have concluded that I should stay the 22 August Application if I am satisfied that there is no sufficient public interest in permitting that committal application to be brought (albeit in that context, I will proceed on the basis that the Claimants do not bear the burden of persuading the court that there is a positive public interest in permitting the 22 August Application to be pursued, but rather that I must be persuaded that there is not).

I have reached the following conclusions on the factors identified at [38]-[43] above:

The pursuit of the committal applications in these circumstances would not be in the public interest, nor in accordance with the overriding objective.

In these circumstances:

I also refuse Mr Sychev’s request that I refer this case to any law enforcement agencies in this jurisdiction. It is open to Mr Sychev to do so, if he sees fit, in which case it will be for those agencies to determine what, if any, steps are required, in the light of their own statutory obligations and policies.