CL-2022-000367 - [2025] EWHC 2877 (Comm)

Mr Bonnier argued that the various provisions relied on by the Defendants showed that CVS did not rely on what he characterised as “informal sales pitches”. CVS conducted its own analysis and drew its own conclusions.

However, there is no convincing explanation for Mr Bonnier’s telling deliberate lies, as I have found he did, except to induce CVS to invest. Returning to Rex Goose v Wilson Sandford & Co. (A Firm) [2000] EWCA Civ 73, per Morritt LJ at [47]:

“There is obvious sense in such a presumption for if the representor did not intend the representee to act on the faith of his statement why did he lie?”

The only explanation for Mr Bonnier lying so repeatedly and determinedly was in order to secure CVS’s investment. None of the provisions relied on by the Defendants affects this simple reality. As I have already found, if Mr Bonnier had not made the Representations, CVS would not have invested.