![Claim No: IL-2025-000064 - [2025] EWHC 2545 (Ch)](https://backend.juristeca.com/files/emisores/logo_O3rEzCI.png){kind=logo}
Claim No: IL-2025-000064 - [2025] EWHC 2545 (Ch)
Fecha: 06-Oct-2025
Introduction
This is my considered judgment on the first full case management hearing in this case. On 24 and 25 July 2025 I heard a number of applications and delivered two extemporary judgments: [2025] EWHC 1934 (Ch) on the defendant’s partly successful application for an extension of time for service of his defence and a successful application by the claimants for an expedited trial, and [2025] EWHC 1952 (Ch) on the defendant’s unsuccessful application for an anonymity order. This has resulted in orders dated 25 July (and sealed on 29 and 30 July) for expedition and directions, for confidentiality, and for a confidentiality club. The directions order provided for an expedited trial, to be listed in a five day window from 16 February 2026, with an estimated length of 8-10 days. It also provided for a case management conference on 18 September 2025 with a time estimate of one day to determine: (a) any issues between the parties in respect of disclosure; (b) any application made by the defendant to rely on expert evidence; and (c) whether the proceedings should be subject to cost budgeting (and if so, to list a costs and case management hearing).
That case management conference duly took place before me on Thursday 18 September, between 10.30 am and 5.15 pm. Mr David Craig KC and Mr Charles Ciumei KC appeared for the claimants (with junior counsel) and addressed the court. Ms Kendya Goodman (of counsel) appeared for the defendant. The disparity between the litigation resources available to the opposing parties was starkly manifested by my view from the bench: there were no less than eight people on the claimants’ side of the courtroom, with only two on the defendant’s side. It was part of Ms Goodman’s oral submissions that the financial asymmetry between the parties was matched by a similar informational asymmetry, which should be factored into the scope of the extended disclosure to be ordered by the court. Even though the court sat until 5.15 pm, not all live issues were able to be addressed in oral submissions. Nor was there any time remaining for me to deliver an extemporary judgment, or even to announce any decision on the outstanding issues. Given the order for an expedited trial, it is imperative that I should deliver this judgment as soon as possible. Given my busy judicial calendar, and the additional listing pressures resulting from the post-hearing announcement of the elevation of another of the Manchester Specialist Circuit Judges to the High Court Bench, this judgment is necessarily less fully reasoned than I would have wished. This should be borne in mind by the parties (and any appeal court). It should be read in conjunction with the parties’ detailed written skeleton arguments, and the full transcript of the hearing, all of which have been available to me, and to which I have referred, when preparing this considered judgment.
- Heading
- Introduction
- Background
- Case management issues
- Disclosure: legal principles
- The first three of these propositions may be distilled from McParland , the fourth from Lombard North Central , and the fifth from PRS v Qatar Airways Group
- Multiple, and overlapping, issues for disclosure should be avoided wherever possible
- Disclosure: Submissions, analysis and conclusions
- I have not yet decided whether this should form one of the issues for disclosure. But if it were to do so, then it would seem to me to eliminate all need for disclosure issue 4 since it makes it unnec
- To the claimants’ knowledge, the defendant could not have replicated Humber elsewhere. Accordingly, the claimants’ case with respect to any Springboard relief (insofar as it is based on the possibilit
- The defendant cannot see that this possibility has been considered by the claimants. The defendant is therefore concerned about the nature of any searches the claimants will have undertaken concerning
- Further, I consider that the claimants place too much emphasis upon the defendant’s own repeated assertions, in contemporaneous documents, that he could (and would) ‘replicate’ Humber (as reproduced a
- Expert evidence: legal principles
- The burden of establishing that expert evidence is both (i) admissible and (ii) reasonably required (in the sense that it is not just ‘potentially useful’ ) is on the party which seeks permission to a
- Barings is authority for propositions (1) and (2); Clifford for proposition (3); The RBS Rights Issue Litigation for proposition (4); British Airways for propositions (5) to (9); and Astex for proposi
- At p. 11, the tribunal described the respondents’ experts’ evidence as “ independent, impressively detailed and completely credible ,” and further that
- Ms Goodman submits that this arbitral decision demonstrates the utility of an expert in this type of assessment as lawyers are obviously ill-equipped to know, and the court will be ill-equipped to adj
- In Henderson & Jones Ltd v Salica Investments Ltd [2025] EWHC 475 (Comm) , Calver J (at paragraph 236) is said to have ordered expert evidence to assist in determining “ (i) whether the allegedly conf
- The decision tells the court nothing about whether or not expert evidence should be ordered in a case governed by the Civil Procedure Rules. That case involved an arbitration. Mr Craig KC rightly says
- Practical utility of confidential information The defendant proposes to rely on the expert evidence of Mr Colin Knight, a qualified trader with over 20 years’ experience in trading strategies. Ms Goodman points out that algorithmic trading was ac
- The claimants have themselves relied on the expert report of Mr Winrow to analyse the coding data extracted from the defendant’s electronic devices, as evidenced by A & O Shearman’s letter of 5 Septem
- It is the claimants who bear the burden of proof in this case, which concerns the nature, and value, of technical descriptions of algorithmic trading strategies and actual code. They are required to p
- Stage in trading strategy development – identifying which stage in the trading strategy development process each piece of ‘confidential information’ (as defined in the particulars of claim) pertained
- The assertion that there are a certain number of stages in the development of a trading strategy at G-Research is the defendant’s own construct , in the sense that it is not said to be a framework ref
- Public domain assessment – assessing whether the ‘confidential information’ was, as a matter of fact, generic and/or widespread industry knowledge within the field of quantitative investment, such tha
- The claimants emphasise that the defendant well knows that the information in issue in this case is not generic and/or widespread industry knowledge. That is precisely why he admits to saying (in an u
- Valuation of confidential information – determining the value of the ‘confidential information’ to a competitor, including with reference to various dates The claimants’ case is that the defendant well knows that Humber is highly valuable: see the co
- Retention of value – Assessing whether, and to what extent, the ‘confidential information’ is likely to retain its value over time, including over a one-year period of garden leave Quite apart from the disproportionate nature of the exercise (not lea
- Practical utility of confidential information – Assessing whether, and to what extent, other businesses (including Citadel Securities) could utilise the ‘confidential information’ in their business ac
- If material at all, this is a question of fact; but, in any event it is extremely difficult to understand how an expert would be able to opine on this matter: it suggests that there would be some reco
- Stage in trading strategy development The claimants submit that the assertion that there are a " number of stages in the development of a trading strategy " is a mere construct. The defendant contends that there is a logical difference be
- Public domain assessment
- The defendant submits that, at most, he referred to Humber at the highest degree of generality, and that the summary to which the court was referred was of minimal value. The parties are, accordingly
- Valuation of confidential information At paragraph 3 of their particulars of claim, the claimants plead that the claim " concerns the defendant's misuse and copying of the claimants' extremely valuable and sensitive confidential informati
- Retention of value Even if the defendant had the requisite knowledge and ability to ‘replicate’ Humber, establishing when Humber is likely to lose its value (through the process of alpha decay) will be the primary consi
- Practical utility of confidential information Conclusions