BL-2023-000501 - [2025] EWHC 2334 (Ch)

Mr Jaffe’s evidence is then that he had further meetings with Mr Anisimov after 2 June 2012, and that he recalls that, by around mid-June, he had reached agreement with him that Mr Anisimov would provide him with USD5.5 million, with USD2.5 million for the Revoker claims and USD1 million for Salford, these sums being a loan which would be written off if Mr Anisimov invested in NWVF. He says that, ‘the other $2 million was the funds being deposited with me as discussed at the meetings with Kirill’.

Mr Jaffe also gives evidence of further meetings he had with Mr Anisimov and Mr Emme in July, August and September 2012. He says that Mr Anisimov indicated in July 2012, and later maintained, that the USD2 million which had been received by Pumula was to be part of the USD3.5 million he had promised to fund the Revoker claims and Salford (that not being Mr Jaffe’s understanding of what had earlier been agreed). Mr Jaffe indicates that, around the time of the London Olympics in early August 2012, which Mr Anisimov attended as President of the Russian Judo Federation, Mr Anisimov was showing signs of having gone off the idea of the project.

Mr Jaffe also says this:

It is then common ground that Mr Stein thereafter began work for Mr Anisimov. Mr Stein has indicated (and it is unchallenged) that, in the three months or so following the June meetings, he travelled four to eight times to London and four or five times to Moscow in connection with Mr Anisimov’s defence of the claim brought by Mr Berezovsky. Among other things, he attended a mediation in July 2012 held at the London offices of Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer LLP (“Freshfields”), Mr Anisimov’s English solicitors in that litigation. Mr Stein also worked on putting together a corporate structure and team and managing Mr Anisimov’s interests in the NWVF, in case the deal to purchase Mr Berezovsky’s interest in the fund was successful. The relevance of that work to the payment in dispute in the present proceedings is not common ground.

A structure was set up for the payment of the sum discussed at the meeting on 2 June 2012. Pumula was incorporated in the Marshall Islands on 15 June 2012. Mr Jaffe’s evidence is that Pumula was owned by his wife, Olga. He says that he was not involved in the incorporation of the company, which would have been overseen by Ms Kira Gabbert, the treasurer of Salford. The directors of Pumula were provided by BBT Treuhand AG (“BBT”), a corporate services provider based in Liechtenstein.

The sum of USD2 million was transferred to Pumula on 28 June 2012, by a company called Dryden Group Ltd (“Dryden”), pursuant to a purported loan agreement dated 25 June 2012. Ms Gabbert was unable to confirm to BBT that Dryden was beneficially owned by Mr Anisimov, although there is no dispute for the purposes of the present proceedings that the money was paid to Pumula by or on behalf of Mr Anisimov, Mr Jaffe saying in evidence that he knew the money was coming from a company controlled by Mr Anisimov. Mr Jaffe accepted unhesitatingly that the loan from Dryden to Pumula, which was written off shortly after it was made, was a sham. A letter dated 28 June 2012 and signed on behalf of Dryden and to be provided to BBT says ‘We hereby confirm that the amount of the loan (USD 2M) granted by Dryden Group Limited to Pumula Management Limited, per loan agreement dated 25 June 2012, originates from John Patterson. We trust to have informed you sufficiently.’ These events were occurring just as Salford’s contract to sell the VDP assets came to an end, on 1 July 2012. There may have been a short delay before Pumula’s bank agreed to accept the Payment.

Mr Jaffe suggested in his witness statements that Mr Anisimov in November 2015 started to demand repayment of the loan to Dryden, despite it having been written off. A company called Gelderland Holdings Ltd (“Gelderland”) wrote to Pumula on 26 November 2015 as Dryden’s assignee, seeking repayment of the Pumula loan with interest. This led to negotiations and an agreement with him in early 2016. Mr Stein responded to this evidence by saying that Mr Jaffe had told him he was under pressure from Mr Anisimov to repay certain loans, but that he did not suggest they were connected to the services he had provided.

It appears that a small number of expenses incurred by Mr Stein were defrayed out of the USD2 million received by Pumula. On any view, the total of such expenses was no more than around £20,000. In cross examination, Mr Jaffe was clear in stating his understanding that the money was owned by Pumula.

The balance of the funds was, however, used by Mr Jaffe for his own and for Salford’s expenses, as he admits. Mr Jaffe also indicates that he told Mr Stein that he was ‘effectively borrowing from the $2 million’ by making payments out of the money paid to Pumula for his own purposes, saying that ‘when an agreement was signed with Anisimov [he] would deal with it by making it whole’. Some of the payments were to a Liechtenstein company called Virosat Investments Inc, connected with Mr and/or Mrs Jaffe. Mr Jaffe goes on to say the following:

From mid-July 2012, Macfarlanes LLP (“Macfarlanes”) was instructed by Mr Stein, as he explains it, ‘to assist the preparation of the Fund Management Structure if the Deal was successful as they were Salford Capital’s long time counsel’. The instruction was at least initially understood to be made on behalf of Mr Jaffe. Mr Stein said in his oral evidence that he had no previous knowledge of Macfarlanes and suggested that he was unhappy with their instruction. Macfarlanes liaised with Ms Kira Gabbert, described by Mr Jaffe as the Treasurer of Salford (and by Mr Stein as fulfilling a CFO-type role), in receiving these instructions.

It is Mr Jaffe’s case that the instruction of Macfarlanes was in relation to the Berezovsky Claim Project, and not in case the deal for Mr Anisimov to purchase his share in the NWVF came to fruition. Accordingly, it is his case that the structure to be created was part and parcel of the agreement (on his case, in principle) reached on 2 June 2012, and its conclusion was a condition which required to be satisfied before Mr Stein would become entitled to the sums agreed in principle at the meeting on 2 June 2012.

I made a confidentiality order in respect of the documents disclosed by the defendant in relation to this advice, and sat briefly in private during the trial whilst Mr Stein was cross examined on it, as Mr Jaffe asserts continuing privilege over the advice. I have excised from this public judgment references to the details of the advice (as opposed to the fact that it was obtained).

Mr Jaffe indicates that in late August and early September 2012, Mr Anisimov told him that he (Mr Jaffe) could not be involved in Project Z. He says this:

Mr Anisimov dispensed with Mr Stein’s services in mid to late September 2012. There does not appear to be any written record of precisely when this occurred. This was before Mr Berezovsky discontinued his claim against Mr Anisimov, which appears to have been in early October 2012.

Mr Stein’s evidence is that he asked Mr Jaffe to speak to Mr Anisimov on his behalf about the payment discussed in June 2012. In a text message sent on 25 September 2012, consistent with the way in which they then communicated, Mr Stein wrote: ‘Sweetheart, when you speak to VV [i.e. Mr Anisimov] and if nothing moves forward, remind him that in May we agreed for a $1mn advance for six months. Accordingly, my view is that he owes me this million and not some kind of monthly payment. …’ Later that day, Mr Stein wrote, ‘I just received a message from little Vasya [i.e. Mr Emme] that big Vasya told him today that he never did agree anything with you.’

After Mr Jaffe informed him that he could make no progress, Mr Stein arranged to meet with Mr Anisimov alone. They met in late September or early October 2012 in the lobby at Claridge’s Hotel in London. Mr Stein’s evidence states the following:

It is not disputed that Mr Anisimov arranged for the sum of USD50,000 to be paid following this meeting. The money was paid to a company called Zilar Investments Ltd, which Mr Stein describes as his wife’s company. The payment was made by Vasson which, as I have explained above, was connected to Mr Anisimov.