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

Fecha: 26-Jun-2025

Limitation

Limitation

46.

I accept that the applicable law of this claim is Qatari law. These are clearly claims in delict to which the limitation period in Article 219 (for claims for damage caused by unlawful acts) applies. The suggestion in the First Report that a 15-year period applies is one on which I am unable to place any reliance for the reasons I have given, and derives from a section of the Civil Code not dealing with claims in tort.

47.

Article 219 provides that time runs from the date on which the aggrieved party first becomes aware of the damage and the person responsible for it (with a 15-year longstop). In this case, it is clear that Mr Al Haroun had the requisite knowledge within a short period of the events:

On his own evidence, Mr Al Haroun was informed about the seizure by employees of Ettizan at the time, and he instructed lawyers to send a fax to QNB seeking freezing of the accounts on 22 January 2013.

ii)

On his own evidence, he complained about the alleged seizure to the General Prosecutor of Qatar who revoked the seizure order within 4 weeks (albeit by then Mr Al Haroun says that the damage had been done).

iii)

The claim against QNB is premised on Mr Al Emadi, its CEO at the time, becoming a director of Ettizan as a result of the seizure. This was clearly known to Mr Al Haroun in January 2013 because Mr Al Emadi was named in the amended commercial registration certificate. Mr Al Haroun does not suggest that he only later learned of Mr Al Emadi’s involvement. On the contrary, he states that he was advised not to pursue proceedings in 2013 after Mr Al Emadi was appointed Minister of Finance.

iv)

Mr Al Haroun clearly knew by the time he was in a position to regain control of Ettizan in mid-2013 (by which time he says it was a worthless shell) that QNB had not frozen Ettizan’s accounts.

Further, I would note that Mr Al Haroun arrived in this jurisdiction on 23 April 2015 and sought asylum on 22 October 2015. No explanation has been offered as to why proceedings could not have been commenced in this jurisdiction then, even assuming that they could not have been commenced before.

vi)

It should be noted that the claims arising from the January 2013 seizure order are similarly long-time barred under English law (I am not persuaded that there is any material difference in this case between the point at which time would begin to run under Article 219 of the Qatari Civil Code and the position under s.32 of the Limitation Act 1980). In these circumstances, it is not necessary in this context to address the possibility of disapplying the Qatari limitation period under ss.2(1) or 2(2) of the Foreign Limitation Periods Act 1984.

48.

It is not presently clear to me when Mr Al Haroun became aware that the allegedly forged cheque had been presented for payment in March 2013, dishonoured, and criminal proceedings commenced. While this fact is relied upon as evidence that QNB was party to the January 2013 seizure (on the basis of the alleged coincidence of timing), the presentation of the cheque is not relied upon in support of the conspiracy claim as an unlawful means:

The loss allegedly suffered through the January 2013 seizure is said to have been completed within the period of four weeks of the seizure order, i.e. prior to the presentation of the cheque.

ii)

There is no claim in the draft amended Particulars of Claim for any loss arising from the presentation of the cheque or the criminal proceedings. The loss claimed relates to the assets of Ettizan.

iii)

No legal basis for any cause of action based on the presentation of the cheque is pleaded.