CL-2024-000452 - [2025] EWHC 2217 (Comm)

APPLICATION

In the present case, I noted in my substantive judgment dated 8 May 2025 that the Claimants’ case on the merits is, on the face of it, a strong one ([130]). Further, there is a compelling case that for Dr Williams to enforce the Default Judgment before this court has determined the Claimants’ claim to have it set aside for fraud would be vexatious and oppressive. The proposed interim AEI will not be determinative of the question of forum: it will merely suspend the enforcement proceedings pending determination of whether the Default Judgment should be set aside. However, if necessary, I would conclude that on current evidence it is highly probable that the Claimants will succeed at a trial in establishing that an AEI should be granted.

Weighing up the balance of justice, there would be a risk of irreparable prejudice to the Claimants if Dr Williams were able to enforce the Default Judgment before the trial of the present action: the sums paid may be irrecoverable. Conversely, the prejudice to Dr Williams of granting an AEI is more limited: if he succeeds in defending the present action, then he will have suffered some delay in being able to enforce the Default Judgment, but interest will have accrued and he may be entitled to seek compensation under the cross-undertaking in damages given by the Claimants in Schedule 1 to the AEI.

Counsel for Dr Williams did not argue that relief should be refused on the specific ground of delay in applying for an AEI, though he did submit that the proceedings as a whole had taken a long time due to the Claimants’ inactivity (the chronology being as summarised in my substantive judgment), and he emphasised Dr Williams’ age and ill-health. He sought to reiterate Dr Williams’ contentions that there is no evidence of fraud, and no serious issue to be tried in that regard. I do not accept the latter submission. I do bear in mind the length of time that the proceedings have already taken, and Dr Williams’ personal position, but consider those points to be outweighed by the fact that the Claimants advance an apparently strong case of fraud.

As to comity, as the Claimants point out, this is not a case where they seek to prevent enforcement of a judgment that a foreign court has already issued. To the contrary, the court here is being invited to grant an injunction designed to protect the integrity of the English court’s own processes, and to prevent a risk of its own judgment from being used as an instrument of fraud. The New York Court, itself acting consistently with comity, has in effect expressed itself willing to await the outcome of this court’s decision on the AEI application: see the Stipulation and Order quoted earlier. Further, because what is sought here is an order restraining enforcement of an English judgment, there is no question of this court seeking indirectly to prevent enforcement in New York of a judgment of the New York courts (cf Google at [82(vii)]).