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

There were three witnesses at the trial: the parties themselves, and Mr George Bedineishvili, who gave evidence on behalf of Mr Jaffe. All are clearly highly intelligent individuals.

Mr Stein gave evidence from a wheelchair, having broken a leg shortly before the trial. This, together with the culmination of the litigation process, seemed to intensify the strength of emotion evident in his oral testimony. His answers were almost invariably given at considerable length. Even though his lengthy answers were not irrelevant, as I commented as Ms Lacob struggled to get through her questioning in the available time, they appeared to me to demonstrate the way in which Mr Stein had processed the emotions surrounding the dispute. I do not think that he was seeking to be obfuscatory, but was unable to provide more concise responses. He often sought to begin his answers before the question to him had been completed – I consider this to be a symptom of the strong emotion he felt at having ended up in litigation with a former close friend.

Mr Stein downplayed the closeness of his friendship with Mr Jaffe, describing him as a work friend only and saying ‘we never went out after work’ when they first worked together, but he stayed with Mr Jaffe for several weeks when he came to the UK in 2015. That, together with the informal and relaxed nature of the large quantity of communications passing between them over many years suggests a genuine friendship. Mr Stein said, ‘I think I was quite fond of him, but I would not say he was my friend’. I consider that to be a retrospective rationalisation on Mr Stein’s part, following their falling out. The exchanges between them also show that their friendship was based at least in part on financial mutual benefit. At the time when the key events in this dispute took place, both parties were in some financial difficulty, and aware that the course of future litigation might change that position (as indeed it most dramatically did).

There were a number of times during his evidence when Mr Stein’s emotions were very visibly demonstrated. These tended to coincide with a discussion of his feelings towards Mr Jaffe, or the nature of his friendship with Mr Jaffe, or of his feeling hard done by. When it was put to him that what he says was agreed at the 2 June 2012 meeting would have been an incredible deal, he said, ‘But I worked a lot for that’, with a raised voice and demonstrable anger. It is obvious that he feels very strongly that he has been wronged by Mr Jaffe.

Mr Jaffe was, by comparison to Mr Stein, inscrutable. His responses were much more economically delivered, and his evidence thus was quite a contrast to that of Mr Stein. A part of his evidence which I considered to be unsatisfactory was when he was questioned about the payments made out of the account. Before the trial the defendant’s solicitors had revised the figure which he contended represented the amount of the Payment used to defray Mr Stein’s expenses. His answers on this subject were not convincing; for instance when asked whether a laptop had been purchased for Mr Stein or Mr Bedineishvili, he said in vague terms he had spoken ‘to an IT guy’. I consider this to be the sort of detail with which Mr Jaffe, perhaps understandably, does not normally concern himself.

I considered him, however, to be generally straightforward in his testimony. This was so, for instance, when he explained why he was advised to accept to the US tax authorities and to HMRC that he controlled Pumula. Even though he maintained that the beneficial owner and person in control was his wife, Mrs Olga Jaffe, he unhesitatingly answered that he made requests of her for payments out of Pumula in 2012, for which she gave instructions (something supported by contemporaneous documents), and that he (and not his wife) subsequently decided to shut down Pumula.

Mr Page submitted that I should take account of criticisms of Mr Jaffe made by Cockerill J in her judgment in the Revoker Proceedings, which are discussed below. I will comment on that point in due course, but would note that Mr Jaffe’s evidence was not particularly discursive, nor did he display emotion in his responses. He appears to have taken on board the comments about his evidence after the first trial in those proceedings (see [2018] EWHC 2918 (Comm) at [21] to [22]).

Mr Bedineishvili was not present at the key meetings in June 2012. He had previously worked with Mr Jaffe and in early 2012 the two men were discussing a resumption of that collaboration, including in relation to Mr Anisimov’s defence of the claim brought by Mr Berezovsky. While he gives evidence of his awareness of the Payment and says consistently with Mr Jaffe that in the summer of 2012 they awaited confirmation from Mr Anisimov of what the Payment would be used for, he does not say he has any awareness of what was agreed at the meetings. He was not cross examined in any detail, but as his relevant evidence is of general recollections of what he was told many years ago on a matter of which he was only indirectly interested (as he would have expected to be remunerated from some source for services he provided), his evidence is not of any significant weight.

As Leggatt J said in Blue v Ashley [2017] EWHC 1928 (Comm) at [66], evidence based on recollection of what was said in undocumented conversations which occurred several years ago is problematic. After referring to his now well-known decision in Gestmin SGPS SA v Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd [2013] EWHC 3560 (Comm), he said at [67]: