![QB-2020-000092 - [2025] EWHC 002154 (KB)](https://backend.juristeca.com/files/emisores/logo_AJKZXmE.png){kind=logo}
QB-2020-000092 - [2025] EWHC 002154 (KB)
Fecha: 20-Ago-2025
Heading
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Before :
MASTER DAVISON
Between :
(1) ROBERT LEE (4) JOHN BERESFORD (6) PAUL KITSON (7) THOMAS MOONEY (8) STEPHEN SEDGLEY | Claimants |
- and - | |
(3) JAMES HAY ADMINISTRATION COMPANY LTD (4) JAMES HAY PENSION TRUSTEES LTD (5) AJ BELL MANAGEMENT LTD (6) AJ BELL (PP) TRUSTEES LTD (9) PHOENIX LIFE LTD (AS SUCCESSOR TO STANDARD LIFE ASSURANCE LTD) (10) STANDARD LIFE TRUSTEE COMPANY LTD | Defendants |
Mr Gerard McMeel KC (instructed by Northridge Law LLP) for the Claimants
Mr Theodore Van Sante (instructed by Pinsent Masons LLP) for the Third to Sixth Defendants
Mr Henry Day (instructed by Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP) for the Ninth & Tenth Defendants
Hearing dates: 23 & 24 June 2025
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on 20 August 2025 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.
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This judgment deals with two applications: (1) the ninth and tenth defendants’ (“the Standard Life defendants”) application dated 6 June 2024 to strike out the eighth claimant’s claim or for reverse summary judgment on that claim; and (2) the first, fourth, sixth and seventh claimants’ application dated 5 February 2025 against the third to sixth defendants (“the James Hay & AJ Bell defendants”) for relief from sanctions. The latter application is consequent upon these claimants having failed to comply with unless orders and their claims having, as a consequence, been struck out. The James Hay & AJ Bell defendants resist the application for relief and seek to preserve the strike-out of the claims.
In a judgment given ex tempore on 29 January 2025 of which a transcript has been obtained, I set out the background to and the basis of the applications. The judgment dealt with the claimants’ request for an adjournment, which I granted. I will quote the relevant section, to which I have made some corrections and have added some further relevant material:
“The claimants are all ex-professional footballers and the claims concern their investments, on the manifestly bad advice of an Independent Financial Adviser, Mr Kevin Neal of Kevin Neal Associates Ltd, into schemes which were inappropriate and which ultimately failed. I'm told by Mr McMeel KC, who has appeared for them today, that the claim can be valued at several million pounds. The defendants are in each case the relevant Self-Invested Personal Pension (“SIPP”) operators or trustees.
The investments were made on various dates between 2006 and 2009. For the purposes of the applications, Mr McMeel was content to accept that the cause of action in each case accrued on the date of the investment so that, subject to sections 32 and 14A of the Limitation Act 1980, the primary limitation period expired 6 years later.
Some or all of the claimants have obtained redress from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. But the maximum scheme compensation available was £50,000 and in order to recoup the full extent of their losses, they issued these proceedings on 9 January 2020. The solicitors then acting for them were Cardium Law Ltd, a London firm.
In about April 2020, the file was transferred from Cardium Law to High Street Solicitors Ltd, as they are called, in Liverpool. The fee-earner who eventually came to act for them was a Mr David McCulloch. In June 2023 High Street Solicitors collapsed and in May 2023 the file was transferred to Angelus Law. I was told by Mr McMeel that the claimants were unaware of that (Footnote: 1). There was an intervention by the Law Society on Angelus Solicitors in April 2024. Prior to that, in about late January 2024, the file was further transferred informally to Ryans Solicitors. But Angelus never came off the record and Ryans never came on. Mr McCulloch remained the fee-earner who had conduct of the file throughout.
The claimants approached Barings solicitors. That may have been in July or August of last year. Barings solicitors came on the record only yesterday, 28 January 2025. Meanwhile, after an initial stay to allow compliance with the pre-action protocol, pleadings in the claim closed around-about the end of 2022. Since then there's been very little progress. Orders were made against the first, fourth, sixth and seventh claimants in April and June 2023 for further information and for costs.
The second order, the one in June, was an unless order whereby if the first, fourth, sixth and seventh claimants did not pay some £12,000 of costs, their claims would be struck out. That money was not paid by the date stipulated in the order and therefore the claims do stand as having been struck out. But Ryans Solicitors, even though they weren't on the record and never had been, made an application dated 5 February 2024 for an extension of time to pay the costs; (that application was made after the deadline had expired).
On 26 February 2024 the defendants in favour of whom those orders had been made, that's to say the third to sixth defendants, applied for their costs of the action against claimants 1, 4, 6 and 7, and on 6 June of last year defendants 9 and 10 applied to strike out the claim against them by the eighth claimant, based substantially on two grounds. The first that he lacks locus standi because he assigned the benefit of any claim to the FSCS, and the second based on limitation. It's relevant to note that defendants 3 to 6 also take the same locus standi / assignment point against the first, fourth, sixth and seventh claimants, though they advance it as a matter to be taken into account in those claimants' application for an extension of time / relief against sanctions, rather than as a basis for a strikeout.”
The 29 January 2025 judgment set out my reasons for adjourning the applications (though the relief against sanctions application had not then been formally issued). They were restored before me with fuller evidence on 23 and 24 June 2025.