CL-2018-000297, CL-2018-000404, CL-2018-000590, - [2025] EWHC 2364 (Comm)

Rajen Shah was a difficult witness. That was and is my conclusion even bearing well in mind the unwelcome disturbance inflicted upon him of being taken into custody in Dubai just as the Main Trial timetable was moving towards his scheduled appearance to give evidence (see paragraph 379 of the main body of this judgment). He often failed to answer questions straightforwardly or simply; he was unreasonably cagey, even allowing that some caginess might be natural given the case pursued against him; overall, I judged that he was on guard to tailor his answers, at all times, to where he was worried that questions might be going (which he may or may not have been identifying accurately).

Those concerns essentially related to Rajen Shah’s evidence about his thinking, understanding and motivations at the time. As regards matters of that kind, I do not consider him to have been a trustworthy witness.

By contrast, as to the detailed basic facts of what did or did not happen, I found Rajen Shah to be open and fair, a witness who satisfactorily sought to identify what he did or did not recall, and gave credible evidence based on his original participation in events as to what was or was not likely to have been the factual position, where he was not able to answer as a matter of recollection.