CL-2022-000467 - [2025] EWHC 1920 (Comm)

This is my ruling in relation to an application made by FWA, the Claimant, for freezing order relief. This is an application made in the context of a judgment dealing with quantum, which I handed down on 17 April 2025. By virtue of that judgment, I found VietJet, the Defendant, liable to pay FWA the sum of US$164,792,345 in respect of certain termination sums (for shorthand, described as the ‘Issue 1 Judgment Debt’) and US$16,737,205 in respect of Issue 4 concerning certain rental payments due in respect of what are described as the NEO aircraft for a period following termination of the leasing (the ‘Issue 4 Judgment Debt’).

Pursuant to that judgment on 17 April 2025, I required that those two judgment debts be paid by 15 May 2025. However, at a subsequent hearing on 1 May 2025, when in fact dealing with, amongst other matters, an application by VietJet for a stay of execution in respect of the larger element of the judgment debt, namely the Issue 1 Judgment Debt, I declined that application, but altered the timescale for meeting the two judgment debts. In effect, I ordered that the monies be paid in three tranches, the first tranche of US$60,509,850 being due and payable on 15 May 2025 but subsequent amounts being due and payable on later dates.

In the event, the only payment made has been in a rather modest amount - US$2 million - on 19 May 2025, shortly before the hearing of the appeal before the Court of Appeal against the judgment on liability, which I handed down last year. That appeal, I note, was subsequently dismissed.

In the immediate lead-up to the appeal, FWA applied for an order seeking to stay the appeal pending payment of the outstanding Judgment Debts because of its failure to pay the monies which fell due on 15 May 2025. That order was not made by the Court of Appeal. On the contrary, it was refused with a costs order made against FWA.

This is the context in which this application comes to be made. There is, of course, a much wider context, as intimated already, involving two trials so far, one dealing with liability last year and one dealing with quantum this year. There is, indeed, expected to be a further quantum trial at some point next year. In short, this is complex and highly contentious and fought-out litigation, and it is the submission made on VietJet’s behalf, both by Lord Wolfson KC and Mr Thompson KC, that the present application is but another aspect of the hard-fought nature of the litigation. Whether that is right or not is rather, in my assessment, by the by; what I need to decide is whether the application is meritorious by reference to the relevant law applicable to the granting of freezing order relief.