BL-2022-002117 - [2025] EWHC 2794 (Ch)

This section addresses the Defendant’s application to revoke the Claimants’ permission to rely upon the expert evidence of Mr Vivian Cohen and the Defendant’s alternative submission that no weight should be given to that forensic accountancy evidence. This application is made because it has become clear that Peter Marples, himself a trained accountant, has had a significant secret involvement in the preparation of Mr Cohen’s report and the experts’ joint report.

On 25 September 2023 Master Clark gave the parties permission to rely upon the evidence of experts in the field of forensic accountancy as to the value of the Claimants’ shareholding in the Company. The Claimants instructed Vivian Cohen, a consultant at Frenkels Forensics. The Defendant instructed Jeffrey Davidson of Honeycomb Forensic Accounting. Each expert provided a written report and written answers to questions put them by the parties. They also produced, as directed by Master Clark pursuant to CPR 35.12, a joint statement on the areas of agreement and disagreement between them.

The Defendant issued an application on 13 May 2025 to revoke the Claimants’ permission to rely upon the expert evidence of Mr Cohen, having first written to DWF about the issue on 9 May 2025. The Claimants objected to the application being heard in advance of the trial. The parties agreed that Mr Cohen should give evidence and be cross examined, including as to matters relevant to this application, that the application should be heard as part of closing submissions and that the admissibility and weight to be given to Mr Cohen’s evidence should be determined as part of this judgment.

The Defendant submits that this is a very clear case of a sufficiently serious breach of the rules attaching to the preparation of expert evidence that the proper response is to revoke the permission; alternatively, to attach no weight at all to Mr Cohen’s evidence (which at this stage will in practice have the same effect).