[2025] EWHC 2759 (Ch)

Mr Johnson was a careful and straightforward witness, who accepted under cross-examination that he had an interest in the case against Mr Timol succeeding.

However, contrary to some of his written evidence, I find that he did not have any detailed direct recollection of the events of 2014.

Further, there were, as at the liability trial, some respects in which I am unable to accept his evidence, particularly a number of aspects of the written evidence, because I consider that it became clear through Mr Lawrence’s cross-examination that he overstated Mr Timol’s dealings with the technical tax elements of the OneE business in the following respects:

To this degree, I accept Mr Lawrence’s submission that Mr Johnson may well have been subconsciously influenced, at least at the margins, by his interest in Mr Timol’s liability being established given his hope that Mr Corrigan would not enforce the judgment debt established through the quantum trial against him.

Therefore, I consider that I should carefully consider whether there is documentary evidence to support points that he made that may tell against Mr Timol.

As explained below, I therefore accept a significant number of elements of his evidence where there is some documentary collaboration, documentation consistent with it or it seems to me the most likely scenario based on the evidence as a whole.