KB-2023-003510 - [2025] EWHC 1755 (KB)

In the meantime, on 13 September 2024, TCG and the other original Defendants obtained an interim charging order over Mr Dowding’s beneficial interest in the leasehold property at Flat 7, New Archers Court, 99 Rotherhithe Street, London SE16 4AD (“the Property”), in respect of which he is the sole registered proprietor. This was obtained so as to secure the monies owing under the costs orders contained in the July 2024 Order. A final charging order was made at a return date hearing on 3 December 2024. On 17 April 2025, the Defendants commenced proceedings in the High Court seeking an order for sale of the Property. Mr Dowding filed an acknowledgment of service in that claim on 15 May 2025 and (taking into account an agreed extension of time) his substantive response was due to be filed and served on 29 May 2025.

In fact, however, Mr Dowding filed no substantive response. Instead, on 29 May 2025, Mr Dowding applied to stay the proceedings seeking an order for sale of the Property pending determination of fresh High Court proceedings that he had issued the previous day against the original four Defendants to the present proceedings (“the Fraud Proceedings”). That application for a stay exhibited a sealed Claim Form and Particulars of Claim each dated 28 May 2025. The Claim Form states “The Claimant alleges that judgments and orders obtained by the Defendants in High Court Kings Bench Division applications in claim number KB-2023-003510 and dealt with in an order of that court dated 18 July 2024 were obtained by fraud. The Claimant seeks an order that those judgments and orders in case KB-2023-003510 be set aside forfraud”. To like effect, paragraph 65 of the Particulars of Claim pleads: “The Claimant seeks an order that the High Court’s application Judgments and all the Orders of 18 July 2024 in case KB-2023-003510 be set aside as having beenobtained by fraud”.

The substance of the allegations of fraud is a rehearsal of various arguments that Mr Dowding put forward in the ET Proceedings and repeated before me in July 2024. In particular, it is alleged that a number of emails referred to in my rulings in July 2024 as “the Tosca emails” are forged or not authentic, essentially on the basis that the versions put forward by TCG (and various witnesses) do not show Mr Dowding as an addressee, whereas Mr Dowding contends that, in truth and in fact, he was one of the addressees.

Also, in particular, allegations are made about a report dated 8 November 2023 produced by an IT company called Fitzrovia I.T. Limited (“Fitzrovia”) addressed to TCG’s joint brokers, Allenby Capital Limited (“Allenby”) which is said to be “purportedly signed by Daniel Stanbury, director at Fitzrovia” and to have “alleged in substance an investigation had taken place on behalf of Allenby confirming in effect that attached paper copies of the alleged underlying metadata of the four Tosca Emails sent on 2 August 2017 showed that the four emails were sent on 2 August 2017 between Ms Nahal and Mr Shah only”. It is pleaded that Mr Dowding now has reports from two experts, that of Ms Margaret Webb dated 11 March 2025 and that of Mr Paul Craddock dated 27 February 2025, to the effect that “based on the evidence to hand from a comparison of the alleged signature of Mr Stanbury to known signatures of Mr Stanbury thereis evidence that the signature on the Fitzrovia Report is not genuine”.

In these regards, paragraphs 48 and 49 of the new Particulars of Claim plead as follows:

“48.

The Defendants are responsible for putting a forged copy of the first 2 August 2017 Tosca Email … before the Court in the Original Action/SO/SJ Application Hearing; the version presented does not include the Claimant’s email address on its face, when the fact is he was an email recipient of the original email sent at the time on 2 August 2017.

49.

The Defendants are responsible for putting a forged Fitzrovia Report before the Court, Allenby has acted as agent for TCG in the production and deployment of Fitzrovia Report which contains an inauthentic signature and attachments purported to be metadata copies of the four 2 August 2017 Tosca Emails but which do not show the Claimant as an email recipient when the Defendants know the Claimant was an email recipient and the Defendants know the Fitzrovia Report’s attachments are not authentic documents and the conclusions on Fitzrovia Report are fraudulent and there has been a misleading of the Court by way of deliberate fraud by Allenby as agent of Defendants and by the Defendants.”

The thrust of Mr Dowding’s argument based on the existence of the Fraud Proceedings is that the July 2024 Order is liable to be set aside because it was obtained by fraud, and accordingly that (i) no order should be made on the Unless Order Application, or (ii) the Unless Order Application should be stayed pending determination of the new claim.

Mr Dowding served the Fraud Proceedings on the Defendants on 11 June 2025. By that time, it would appear that Mr Dowding was hoping or intending to replace the Particulars of Claim with an Amended Particulars of Claim dated 9 June 2025, in a form which appears as part of exhibit MD5 to his 5^th witness statement dated 23 June 2025, although no application for permission to amend appears to have been made. Further, the extent to which text has been amended is not apparent (by changes of numbering, tracking of changes, and so forth) on the face of those Amended Particulars of Claim.

The text of paragraph 65 of the original Particulars of Claim is replicated in paragraph 71 of the Amended Particulars of Claim (so the relief claimed remains the same), and the text of paragraphs 48 and 49 of the Particulars of Claim are replicated, although in slightly different words, in paragraphs 52 and 53 of the Amended Particulars of Claim. Some new allegations appear to be contained in the Amended Particulars of Claim – hence their increased length – but none of them appear to relate to any matter that has not already been raised and addressed in the ET Proceedings and in my earlier rulings.

The Defendants intend (i) to oppose the application for a stay of the proceedings seeking an order for sale of the Property and (ii) to apply to strike out the Fraud Proceedings in their entirety on the basis that they are vexatious and an abuse of process - and to invite the Court to certify that the Fraud Proceedings are “totally without merit”.

In the meantime, the Defendants’ proceedings seeking an order for sale of the Property are progressing slowly. It appeared to be common ground before me that a directions hearing in those proceedings is unlikely to take place until the Autumn of 2025. This is irrespective of the emergence of the Fraud Proceedings, which may cause further delay.

In addition to seeking to enforce the costs orders contained in the July 2024 Order by obtaining an order for sale of the Property, the Defendants have availed themselves of the liberty to apply for detailed assessment forthwith that is contained in that Order.

On 13 March 2025, the Defendants served on Mr Dowding notice of intention to commence detailed assessment proceedings in respect of their costs of and occasioned by the SO/SJ Application, together with their bill of costs in the total sum of £445,220.79. On 7 April 2025, Mr Dowding served points of dispute. On 24 April 2025, the Defendants served replies to Mr Dowding’s points of dispute. On 30 May 2025, the Defendants filed a request for a detailed assessment hearing. This is awaiting a listing.