BL-2021-002293 - [2025] EWHC 678 (Ch)

The defendant, Mr Thomas Flohr, applies for summary judgment on the claimant’s claim, or for an order striking it out, principally on the ground that the events complained of took place in the period from 2002 to 2005, and the claimant’s reliance on section 32 of the Limitation Act 1980 is unsustainable and/or has no real prospect of his success. The defendant also argues that other elements of the claim are unsustainable and should be struck out.

In response, the claimant has made a counter-application for permission to amend the claim to introduce a claim in fraudulent misrepresentation.

As part of the defendant’s application, he also sought an order striking out the claim on the footing that the former general partner of the claimant (“FCILP”, or “the Fund”), a dissolved limited partnership which was governed by the Limited Partnerships Act 1907, had no standing to pursue the claim on its behalf. I dismissed that part of the application in a judgment handed down on 6 November 2023: see [2023] EWHC 2723 (Ch) (and [2024] EWCA Civ 1385).

The effect of that judgment was to leave open that part of the defendant’s argument on authority which contended that the claimant had not established that Frontiers Capital General Partner Limited (“FCGPL”) had authority to pursue the claim under the agreement governing the partnership. It is now common ground that FCGPL does have that authority, its solicitors having produced evidence of the requisite consent having been given in accordance with the agreement, and I need say no more about that issue (although the costs of the earlier hearings on that issue remain to be determined).

As I explained in my November 2023 judgment, at the first hearing of the application in July 2023 where authority issues were considered, I made a confidentiality order in respect of a number of documents containing allegations made by the claimant, which Mr Flohr contends are both scandalous and irrelevant. The effect of that order was to restrict the access of non-parties to documents containing controversial allegations, the relevance of which was in issue, but ensuring that the hearing took place fully in public. At the hearing in December 2024, and ultimately without opposition, I made a further order on an application issued by the claimant. This order governed the way in which the parties would refer to the controversial allegations during the course of the hearing, again ensuring that the hearing took place entirely in public. The effect was that on a small number of occasions I was invited to read documents subject to the confidentiality order but their contents were not stated in open court.

As I explain below, I have been able to determine the applications before the court without taking those allegations into account. They have not been directly material to the points which I have determined in favour of the defendant, and accordingly do not need to be set out in this judgment.