CL-2024-000260 - [2025] EWHC 2539 (Comm)

The Claimants’ contention is that the LOE was what it describes as “a contract for fraud”. It was, the Claimants contend, a contract for provision of services to “obtain information from targets by deception”, and was performed in that way. The “targets” were foreign state officials or authorities possessing confidential information about a foreign Ministry and Authority.

The Defendant does not accept that the LOE “was a contract for an illegal purpose or that its performance involved any illegality”. It recognises that this “issue cannot be determined on a summary basis” and does not seek a determination of this aspect on the present application.

The contention that the LOE was “a contract for fraud” was not raised in the arbitration. The Claimants’ evidence is that they never considered the point during the arbitration because they were not themselves signatories to the LOE. Rather, the LOE was entered into by legal counsel “who had not raised any concern in relation to legality”. Further, the Defendant had given an undertaking in the LOE that its activities were lawful.

The Claimants add, in the witness statement of their current solicitor: