[2025] EWHC 2501 (Ch)

Mr Ginda was present at the hearing on 18 October 2024 at which the Freezing Order was made, leaving just before I gave my judgement, but he was represented throughout the hearing by senior counsel and a solicitor. Mr Ginda would therefore know, if not on 18 October 2024, then shortly thereafter that: (i) within 48 hours of service of the Freezing Order on the Respondents, they would have to provide details of the balance on TGDM’s PNB bank account; and (ii) within 5 business days of service of the Freezing Order, an affidavit would need to be sworn by Mr Ginda and served on Sanman’s solicitors confirming that balance;

formal service of the Freezing Order on the Respondents was not treated as having taken place until around 5 November 2024, because of a debate, in correspondence about whether service of the Freezing Order, on Jury O’Shea, amounted to good service. Eventually it was agreed that service of the Freezing Order on Jury O’Shea was good service and Jury O’Shea confirmed, on 7 November 2024, that the balance on TGDM’s PNB account was £9,315,733. Mr Ginda’s affidavit, sworn on 12 November 2024 confirms the same figure;

Sanman only discovered that the information contained in paragraph 10 Mr Ginda’s affidavit of 12 November 2024 (and Jury O’shea’s letter of 7 July 2024) was false when TGDM’s new solicitors, Hill Dickinson provided Sanman’s solicitors with copies of TGDM’s PNB bank statements (in January 2025); and

Mr Ginda has provided no explanation as to why the wrong figure was given in Jury O’Shea’s letter of 7 November 2024 and Mr Ginda’s affidavit of 12 November 2024. By the time Mr Ginda swore his affidavit, it was 23 days since the Freezing Order had been made. Mr Ginda had all that time to obtain the correct figure from PNB. It is fanciful to suggest, with no evidence, that Mr Ginda, the sole director and ultimate beneficial owner of TGDM’s shares, was unable to obtain a bank statement or even confirmation of the balance on TGDM’s account from PNB, within 23 days, particularly when a bank statement from PNB was produced in January 2025.

I am satisfied that Mr Ginda would know, within a day or two at most of the hearing on 18 October 2024, that the Respondents would be required to provide details of the balance of on TGDM’s BNP account and that he would be required to verify that figure by affidavit. Mr Ginda would know this because I am satisfied that the Respondents’ legal representatives would have told Mr Ginda, within a day or two of 18 October 2024, that this would be required;

Mr Ginda was, at the relevant time, sole director and ultimate beneficial owner of TGDM’s shares. Absent some evidence as to why this was not so (and there is none), Mr Ginda would be entitled to ask PNB for a bank statement or to confirm the current balance on TGDM’s bank account. That this information could be obtained by Mr Ginda is also demonstrated by Hill Dickinson producing a bank statement from PNB, in January 2025;

the importance of getting the figure right can hardly have been lost on Mr Ginda, given that: (i) it was a court order that required that information to be provided; (ii) the information was required to be verified by affidavit; and (ii) the Freezing Order required TGDM not to dispose of its assets up to the financial limit of £10.8 million and the Respondents were required, by the Freezing Order, to provide details of those assets which would represent the assets frozen in the hands of TGDM by the Freezing Order;

as for Mr Robins’ suggestion that, rather than obtaining the balance figure from PNB, Mr Ginda carried out some erroneous calculation of what the balance on the PNB account was, there is no evidence that this is what happened and I note that the correct figure of £11,118,537 is some 1.8 million more than the figure that Mr Ginda confirmed on oath, in his affidavit; and

given (a) - (d), if Mr Ginda wanted to suggest that for some extraordinary reason he had quite innocently provided a figure for the balance on TGDM’s PNB bank account which was £1.8 million less that the true balance, he should have filed a witness statement explaining how this mistake arose. He has not done so.

Is there a Strong prima facie case that TGDM breached paragraph 9 of the Freezing Order?

there is no evidence before me of how Mr Ginda came to provide the wrong figure for the balance on TGDM’s PNB account. I cannot simply assume that he carried out an erroneous calculation in error;

for the reasons I have already given I do not accept that Mr Ginda was under any time pressure, he had ample time to obtain the correct figure (see paragraph 68(a) above)

even if Mr Ginda did carry out an erroneous calculation, in error, there is no explanation of how, consistent with the obligation on the Respondents to provide details of TGDM’s assets “to the best of their ability” he came to do so and either did not ask PNB to provide the figure (and if not why not) or did ask them, but still produced the wrong figure; and

I have found that Sanman has shown that it has a strong prima facie case that Mr Ginda deliberately provided the wrong figure to Jury O’shea and in his affidavit and it necessarily follows that Sanman has a strong prima facie case that the Respondents failed to comply with their obligation under paragraph 9 of the Freezing Order to provide details of “all their assets worldwide exceeding £10,000” confirming that detail by affidavit, whether that obligation included an obligation to make reasonable enquiry or only to provide the information to the best of their ability.