Sodzawiczny v Smith - Re Arbitration Claim - 2024 EWHC 231 Comm - 07 February 2024
Country
Year
2024
Summary
INTRODUCTION
This is an application by the Claimant ("Mr Sodzawiczny") for an "anti-arbitration" injunction ("AAI") to prevent Dr Smith and Dr Cochrane from pursuing an LCIA Arbitration which they purported to commence on 6 December 2023.
The court must also consider Dr Smith's application under s.9 of the Arbitration Act 1996 ("the 1996 Act") to stay enforcement of the judgments entered in respect of certain arbitration awards under s.66 of the 1996 Act and, as the matter developed in argument, to stay the AAI application.
For those familiar with Dr Smith's name, it will be apparent that these applications represent the latest in a series of costly and time consuming disputes which have occupied the Commercial Court since 2012. One of more recent summaries of their convoluted history can be found in my judgment in SMA Investment Holdings Ltd v Harbour Fund II LLP [2023] EWHC 428 (Comm), in which I chronicled the many findings of dishonesty against Dr Smith, Mr Ruhan, Mr Cooper and McNally, and the various applications brought by those unwilling to accept the determinations made by impartial tribunals of the various claims.
In concluding that judgment, at [103-104], I noted:
"As will be apparent from the foregoing, there is a real risk in this case that individuals who are bound by, but unhappy with, the outcome of the Directed Trial have been and are continuing to instigate proceedings and applications in these proceedings and elsewhere to challenge the outcome of the Directed Trial or by way of a collateral attack on its conclusions. The scale of these activities and the legal costs and court time they are consuming, mean that considerable vigilance will be required on the court's part to ensure that its judgments are respected and its processes are not abused.
If activities of this kind continue, there will need to be careful consideration of a number of matters, including:
i) whether there are any individuals who may have breached court orders and undertakings and, if so, whether the court's committal jurisdiction should be engaged;
ii) whether officers of the court should be given control of any companies which have changed hands in questionable circumstances, and which are being used in this process;
iii) whether further injunctions could or should be granted against individuals where there is a sufficiently arguable case that they are engaged in activities intended to challenge a judgment which is binding upon them;
iv) the consequences of undischarged costs orders in the litigation to date; and
v) who has been funding these various applications and whether any orders against the funding parties or those controlling them would be appropriate."
As will be apparent from what follows, those warnings are falling on deaf ears.