QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
COMMERCIAL COURT
7 Rolls Buildings Fetter Lane London EC4A 1NL |
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B e f o r e :
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GFH CAPITAL LIMITED |
Claimant |
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DAVID LAURENCE HAIGH |
Defendant |
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165 Fleet Street, 8th Floor, London, EC4A 2DY
Tel No: 020 7421 4046 Fax No: 020 7422 6134
Web: www.merrillcorp.com/mls Email: mlstape@merrillcorp.com
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR ROBERT LAWSON QC and EMILY MCCREA-THEAKER (instructed by Stephenson Harwood LLP) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
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Crown Copyright ©
MR JUSTICE MALES:
"I have not been referred to any specific provision, rule, case or practical example which demonstrates that the enforcement of the 1990 order against British defendants in respect of British assets would be more difficult or expensive or time consuming than enforcement of the freezing order, save that it is said that third parties and, in particular, the bank, with substantially all its assets in this jurisdiction, would be more amenable to complying with a domestic order. I am not particularly impressed with that aspect of the claimant's case. The onus is on the claimant to show that the freezing order in this country confers some extra justifiable and valuable benefit to the claimants." (Quote unchecked)
"The meaning of the expression "particular documents specified in the order" in subsection (4)(b) was concerned by several of the noble and learned lords who took part in the Westinghouse case [1978] A.C.547 decision. They were all emphatic that the expression should be given a strict construction. Having regard to the purpose of subsection (4) which, as I have already mentioned, is to preclude pre-trial expeditions Lord Wilberforce said, at p.609:
'These provisions, and especially the words "'particular documents specified in the order' (replacing 'documents to be mentioned in the order' in the [Foreign Tribunals Evidence Act] 1856) together with the expressed duty of the English court to decide that the documents are or are likely to be in the possession, custody or power of the person called upon to produce, show, in my opinion, that a strict attitude is to be taken by English courts in giving effect to foreign requests for the production of documents by non-party witnesses. They are, in the words of Lord Goddard C.J., not to countenance 'fishing' expeditions: Radio Corporation of America v. Rauland Corporation [1956] 1 Q. B. 618, 649."