Claim No: CL-2024-000435 - [2025] EWHC 1588 (Comm)

In addition, the claims arising out of this incident are claims of Ettizan and not of Mr Al Haroun. It was common ground between the First Report and Dr Feshawi that there is rule against a shareholder recovering a company’s loss in Qatar. This issue is dealt with in the proposed amended Particulars of Claim by a contingent plea that if the losses are reflective, Mr Al Haroun “may claim” as a creditor or “may seek to bring a derivative claim”. It should be noted that no such claim has as yet been asserted in the statement of case (which was settled by leading and junior counsel on Mr Al Haroun’s behalf).

Putting that issue to one side, the evidence of Dr Feshawi is that claims of this kind are possible under Qatari law, but only before a company has been dissolved and liquidated, which Ettizan was in 2015. That issue is not addressed in the First Report, beyond stating that shareholders can claim for “distinct harm unrelated to corporate losses” under Article 67 of the Commercial Companies Law or possibly of the Qatari Civil Code. Neither of these provisions appear to have anything to do with derivative actions. A later schedule said to emanate from Professor Awad suggests that this was intended to be a reference to the liability for intentional harm under Article 195 of the Qatari Civil Code. The draft Particulars of Claim plead loss of the value of Mr Al Haroun’s shareholding and Ettizan’s cash in its bank accounts. Neither of these are personal losses.

Given the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence in the First Report on this topic, my general comments on the state of the Qatari law evidence before me, and the obvious sense in Dr Feshawi’s opinion that a derivative claim cannot be advanced on behalf of a non-existent entity, I am satisfied that this provides a further reason why these claims do not have a realistic prospect of success.